Lifebound (14 page)

He pressed his hands into his eyes. Alicia gently rubbed his back.

He longed to just give in to despair and grief, but he shook himself free of it. “I’ve got to find her. Alicia, you are an IT genius. I know you’ve got ways to find people and find out about people. You can find her for me. Find out where she lives, where she works. I bet somebody in Tom Bridges’ outfit can pass you some intel.”

“I’ll do what I can, you know that,” Alicia said. “But if her people are as powerful as you say they are, I’m not sure any of my connections will do any good.”

A sudden fear ran through him and he studied his two best friends carefully. “You do believe me, right?”

Rob gave him a serious nod. “I served with a guy in Afghanistan. He was some kind of special ops. The rest of his team seemed like your usual paranoid spooks, but this one had something else entirely going on. He gave me the creeps to tell the truth. I heard he shot his superior, then went missing. What you’re talking about only makes this dude make sense.”

“What about you then?” Josh turned to Alicia. “You think I’m a nut?”

“I think you’re nuts about this girl,” she said. “And if she’s dumb enough to pass you up, then she doesn’t deserve you.” After a moment, she grinned at him. “Okay, stop giving me those puppydog eyes. I’ll find this Adriana Velen for you.”

Josh threw his arms around her and pressed a big kiss into her cheek. “Thanks, guys. Somehow, some way, I’m going to convince her that she belongs with me.”

By the next afternoon, Josh had pestered Alicia so often with queries as to her search results that she finally threw him out of the office.

“Go outside! Go skate or go get something to eat, but get the hell out of here so I can concentrate! We’ve got two days until the Kona exhibition, and finding your mystery girlfriend is only one of many urgent items on the agenda!”

Damn. He’d forgotten about the exhibition. Kona was one of his favorite skateparks. He’d grown up begging for trips to Jacksonville first to play, then to watch competitions, then to enter them. He’d won his first big event there. And he was more than excited to help raise money for Kona School.

Pushing aside his impatience to find Adriana, he forced himself to leave the office. He drove aimlessly for a while until he found himself stopping at a very large upscale shopping center, the kind of place he usually avoided.

He had already parked and walked in the front door of the jewelry store before he realized what he was doing and why.

A dry little man peered at him across the first counter. “May I help you, sir?”

“I’m looking for an engagement ring,” Josh said firmly. “Something different.”

“Is there a certain price range you would like to stay within?”

Josh looked around the store. It was nice, but not so nice he couldn’t easily afford anything in it. This was Mobile, not Milan. He wrote down a name and phone number and passed it to the salesman. “Give this guy a call. He’ll give you the price range. Tell him it’s Josh Trenton.”

Josh busied himself at the first few cases of rings and watches while the little man made the call. “Oh,” came the man’s surprised voice. “Certainly. Thank you so much.”

All the clerk’s condescension melted away into a professional ingratiation that Josh found disturbing, as usual. A call to his banker had that effect on people. He put up with the man’s effusive apologies for a moment then asked again to see engagement rings.

Immediately he was escorted to the back of the store to a case tucked around the corner and shielded by a large display of grandfather clocks. Diamond after diamond glinted against the velvet, but to Josh they all looked like typical rings for typical girls. Adriana was not typical.

Then he saw it—a smoky gray stone in a silvery setting, surrounded by glinting diamonds. The stone mirrored the color of Adriana’s eyes and the white stones around it flashed like lightning. “Let me see that one.”

The man frowned a little at his choice, certainly nowhere near the most expensive item in the case, but passed it to him without comment. Josh slipped it onto his pinkie and admired the way it held both storm and fire.

Just then, his phone rang. He peeked down at it to see that Alicia was calling. He passed the ring back to the clerk and turned away to talk.

“What you got?”

“Nothing. Less than nothing, Josh.” Alicia sounded perturbed.

He pressed for an explanation and did not like the answer he received. Not only had Alicia had extremely limited success in finding any mention of Adriana Velen in any of her online sources, the few she’d turned up at first had suddenly ceased to be.

“Her name came up in a couple of newspaper pieces on Tom Bridges’s philanthropic causes. I looked at them this morning. When I tried to access them just now to see if I could get any more out of them, the articles still come up, but Adriana’s name has been removed. That whole part of the article has been rewritten to take out any mention of her.”

Alicia’s voice grew very serious. “Josh, whoever these people are, they don’t mess around. Nobody changes a Times piece like that. If I didn’t believe you before, I do now. Honestly, it scares me. I’m sorry, honey, but if she doesn’t want to be found, I don’t think you can find her. You’ll just have to wait for her to come to you.”

Josh thanked her and hung up.

He clenched the phone in his fingers. Alicia was right. If Adriana didn’t want to be found, he’d never find her.

But how was he supposed to convince her they were meant to be together if he couldn’t find her? He’d spent his whole life going after the things he wanted, working hard, giving it his all, never quitting until all his dreams had come true.

All but this one.

For once, he felt helpless against the flow. For the first time, something he really wanted lay completely out of his reach, at the mercy of someone else to provide.

He took three steps toward the door, his heart threatening to burst in his chest.

He stopped and strode back to the counter where the little man stood with Adriana’s ring still in his hand. “I’ll take it. That and a really tough chain to wear it on.”

Moments later, he fastened the chain around his neck, tucking her ring safely inside his shirt next to his heart.

After all, he could hope.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he bus shimmied as the driver slowed for the turn into Kona Skatepark, the airbrakes letting out a whoosh that sounded to Josh like a sigh of relief. The trip from Mobile to Jacksonville usually passed pretty peacefully as the rest of the exhibition team played video games or watched movies on the big bus.

For some reason this time he couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t shake the feeling that everything had gone wrong, that he’d left behind something essential.

He missed her.

Josh pulled her engagement ring out of his shirt and slipped it on the end of his finger, turning it to see the stormy gray stone catch the reflection of the sunlight through the dusty bus window. He wondered if he would ever slip it onto her finger, or if someday he’d just tuck it into its black velvet box and stuff it deep in the darkness of a bureau drawer to forget it the same way she’d forgotten him.

He could still feel the way her hair wrapped around his fingers. The smell of her scent, vanilla and sweet cream, drifted past him at random moments, like she’d just got on the bus. When he closed his eyes, she sat next to him, fitting against his side perfectly, as if she’d never left.

“You okay?” a voice asked.

Josh opened his eyes to see Tim, one of his team, standing in front of him, bracing himself on the wall against the swaying of the bus as it navigated the parking lot.

“Sure, just tired. It’s been a long week.”

“I’m just glad you’re skating again.” Tim flipped back his long bangs with one hand.

Just like Ben used to do. Josh smiled. Adriana had threatened often to pin that kid’s hair back.

Josh shook the memory free. Tim had it right. Now that he was skating again, he needed to step up. While he was on sick leave, he’d been glad to leave all the planning up to the ones actually doing the skating. But this was his game, his tour, his show, and his responsibility.

“Get everybody together for a quick choreography meeting,” he said.

As Tim nodded and turned away, Josh tucked the ring back into his shirt and stood. Time to get back to business.

The show went better than Josh expected. As the rest of the team handled the biggest tricks, Josh pulled out some crowd-pleasing stunts that wouldn’t push his hip too hard.

He felt so good, so strong. Whatever Adriana had done for him, it had worked. It worked so well he decided to turn his next 180 into a 360.

Up over the edge of the coping, the world spun around him in a blur of wooden flooring and blue sky. It felt like flying. “Thank you, Adriana,” he whispered as he sailed down the wall of the half-pipe.

He cut over the top for a stall and grabbed the coping in one hand and the board in the other, using the moment to check Tim’s position as he approached from the other side. The two worked the pipe at the same time, interweaving their paths carefully. Their timing had to be perfect.

Tim descended from the other side just as Josh’s stall ended and he dropped back into the pipe in a deep crouch.

A glint of sunlight on silk caught his eye from the side, and he glanced over toward the crowd.

Adriana.

She stood in the midst of a group of boys, like a flower in patch of weeds.

And if timing was everything, Adriana was more than everything. He cut too sharply coming down the wall and ran headlong into Tim, knocking them both from their boards to tumble into the flat of the pipe.

“Dude, are you all right?” Josh asked anxiously as he dragged himself into a seated position.

Tim shook his head and laughed. “No worries, I’m good. What happened? You lose your mind for a minute there?”

Tim’s hand up nearly put Josh back on the floor as his wrist protested with a sharp stab of pain. He covered his wince of discomfort with a laugh and pushed himself the rest of the way to his feet to take the pressure off his wrist.

As he retrieved his board, he searched for Adriana once more. To his relief, she still stood there, mouthing the words, “Are you okay?”

He gave her a grin and a thumbs up, then pointed to the top of the pipe. He had to finish the exhibition. She nodded, and he pushed off.

He and Tim dropped in again and his focus snapped tight to the job at hand in his determination not to fall on his ass again like an amateur in front of her.

Every trick got higher and hotter; every pass got faster. He avoided any stunts that might involve pushing his sprained wrist but brought his best game in every other way, feeling like a teenager showing off for a girl he wanted to impress.

She had come back.

He couldn’t stop grinning.

Once they finished their exhibition set, he made his way down the ramp, signing autographs and talking to fans as he walked, always watching for her.

Finally he got close enough to her to speak.

She called out, “You take care of business. I’ll be in the shade.”

He nodded and went back to meeting excited fans and signing whatever they pushed at him.

Every so often, he’d glance over at the picnic table under a huge oak tree where she sat in a short dress with flowers on it, looking like a princess on vacation.

When all the kids and even several adults had been signed and met, he broke away from the group long enough to talk to her.

But as he crossed into the picnic area, he realized he had no idea what to say.

From the moment Adriana had walked into the park and caught sight of him, she had been transfixed. She’d seen Josh skate with the wolfpack the last couple of days of their stay at Wiccan Haus, but the small tricks he’d shown the boys could not compare to this.

Every time he soared over the edge of the big curved wall, her heart had stopped. She’d had no idea that extreme skateboarding could be so extreme with its crazy flips and spins and height.

Then when the other guy had plowed into him, she took two terror-propelled steps toward him until he stood and let her know he was fine.

He’d shaken off that awful crash like it was nothing and skated even more recklessly than before—crazy stuff that made her throat constrict and her stomach drop in sympathy every time he flew into the air.

After the show had ended, she saw how kind he was to his fans, so glad to see each of them, happy to sign whatever hat or shirt or game they passed him, ready with a smile and a question for them.

She even caught a couple of moms sneaking into the mix, trying to catch his attention, but every few moments, his gaze would find hers instead.

Misery began to creep over her. She loved him so much. She wanted to be right there at his side for the rest of their lives.

But if she stayed with him as her host, the need to touch him and to be with him would tear her apart. How long could they stand that awful state of being together but separate, especially since the night they’d really been able to touch? Even now, she could barely keep herself from leaping into his strong arms just to feel his warm skin against hers.

Lifebound. That other option teased at her, seducing her with its promise of unlimited contact with Josh, the ultimate in togetherness, as well as the ability to live in the human world freely without being a danger to others.

However, she’d seen him skate. She’d seen the way he loved what he did. And she knew in her heart that if he thought risking his safety would risk hers as well, he would quit. She could never take him from this sport he loved so much.

She toyed with the idea of not telling him about the whole until death part. Then he could keep skating and enjoy life without worrying about the future. But if something happened to her, he would die too, without ever knowing why or having a choice in the matter. She couldn’t do that to him.

More than anything, she wanted to have a choice of her own. She wanted freedom to love who she wanted and live where she wanted.

But she couldn’t make that choice by taking Josh’s freedom from him.

All too soon, the crowds thinned and Josh approached. She had to talk to him, but she had no idea what to say.

The awkwardness of the moment only lasted a few seconds before Tim and the rest of the exhibition crew came wandering by to stick their noses into Josh’s business.

“Guys, this is Adriana. Tim, Dean, Brad, and Snowball.”

Adriana smiled. Certainly Snowball’s curly mop of whitish-blond hair gave the nickname some credibility.

“They don’t call him Snowball because of his hair,” Josh said, “and don’t ask why if you’re eating something.”

The guys laughed and Josh waved them all away. “Get lost. I need to talk to my girl.”

“So I’m your girl?” Adriana said with a smile.

“I thought you were until you dumped me.” Josh sat across from her at the table, his hands coming to rest over halfway between them.

She leaned over the table, her hands only inches from his. “I’m so sorry about that, Josh. It’s complicated.”

“I heard your folks are giving you a hard time.” Josh’s fingertips came within millimeters of hers. “But we can get through this. We can convince all of them that we can make this work.”

Adriana nodded. “I missed you so badly. All I could think about was that we didn’t even try.”

“We can do this.”

She brushed her fingers against his. “I need to tell you what my mother told me.”

Hours later, Josh sat as close to Adriana as he could get in the rear of the tour bus, heading back to Mobile. The exhibition had been a rousing success, the auction had raised a nice sum for the new school, and scores of fans had gone home with pictures and autographs. Josh couldn’t remember a minute of it.

Somehow he’d smiled and said the right things, but his mind kept turning over the information Adriana’s mother had shared with her. They could be together—forever. Literally until death did they part. Adriana could touch him all she wanted and could touch anybody else too. But once they did this lifebound thing, there was no going back. They would have to stay together—close together—for the rest of their lives. And when one’s life ended, the other’s would too.

It was a lot to take in. So much, in fact, that before they left the park, he’d excused himself to make one last crazy run down the weaving cement path they called the serpent and back up the bowl, letting his body do the thinking for him.

When he met her at the bus again, he kissed her lightly. “Hey, everybody, Adriana’s on the tour now, so be nice.”