Time's Daughter (18 page)

“
I hadn’t known.” Alex tossed his
head back in a chuckle. “It never ceases to amaze me how cruel
people can be.”

“
I wonder what they’ll say
now.”

Alex gave a flippant shrug. “I could care less.”

“
So what happens now?”

His lips spread into a heart-stopping grin. “Now you
come back over to my house to properly meet my family.”

I swallowed hard. “Do I have to?”

“
You don’t have to. But it would
mean a lot to me.”

I gave him what was probably a lopsided frown. “When
you put it like that I can’t very well say no.”

“
Just give them a chance,” he said.
“I promise you’ll like them.”

“
You mean when they aren’t trying to
kill me?”

Alex exhaled loudly. “They weren’t. It was all
intimidation techniques meant to establish superiority. It was
stupid and I told them they didn’t need to resort to that because
you aren’t like the others we’ve come across. But old habits
die-hard. It’s out of their system now. They’ll be cool.”

I inhaled a steadying breath. “Okay. I’ll give them
a chance.”

“
Monday after school?”

“
What?” My eyes spread wide. “So
soon?”

He exhaled shakily in some sort of laugh. “I was
going to say tomorrow but thought that was too soon.”

Almost automatically I shook my head in a slow, awed
motion. “You’re crazy.”

“
Like I said, I’ve been acting like
an idiot since I met you.” He shifted uncomfortably in the seat
despite his cute half smile.

I relented before I lost my nerve. “Okay,
Monday.”

“
Really?” He sat back and stared
mutely for a moment. “I’ll make sure my cameraman is around so Guy
can have the night off.”

Ugh
. I’d nearly forgotten about the
documentary. How mortifying was it that my first boyfriend was
going to be a
televised
event?

I recalled something he’d said. “Did your brother
really hack the feeds?”

He finished chewing a bite of steak. “Yup. We send
them old footage whenever we need to have a family meeting.
Sometimes we just cut it off completely. Mark has sent people up to
fix it twice. My father has him convinced there’s interference from
the weather station up the hill.”

“
They believed that?”

“
Apparently. Mark stopped
complaining and trying to fix it. He said the important part was at
school anyway.” Alex rolled his eyes. “The whole ‘see how the new
kid in town fits in’ bit.”

It forced another burning question from me. “How did
Mark manage to convince you to do this?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “We’d told him no three times
but he kept coming back with bigger and better deals. He was so
persistent that my father decided it would be more suspicious if we
didn’t agree than if we did.”

“
I guess that makes
sense.”

“
I’m glad you think so,” he
grumbled. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

I shrugged. “Sometimes you have to behave
differently than you normally would just to keep from making
waves.”

“
I don’t have any problem with
making waves,” he said.

“
Making waves is different from just
not caring what people think. Waves can cause problems
later.”

He shook his head almost in disgust. “You sound like
my father. ‘Stay below the radar, Alex’ he says.”

“
Probably good advice.” I glanced
away. “Mine didn’t give me any at all.”

“
So you didn’t know who your father
was until recently?”

I couldn’t look at him. The subject was another that
bothered me too much to discuss. “Nope. It was one of those topics
we avoided.”

“
Does she know?”

He was asking about my mother and if she knew about
my “special” ability. “After she freaked when I mentioned the
dream, I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell her about
the rest of it.”

“
So she thinks I’m
normal.”

I bravely met his eyes “She thinks
I’m
normal.”

“
That must be awful.” Alex took an
awed beat. “I couldn’t deal with things if I didn’t have my
family’s support.”

“
The worst part is I hate lying to
her,” I said. “I’ve always told her everything.”

“
Dessert?”

Alex and I looked to our server at the same time in
surprise. We had barely touched our food because we’d been
talking.

“
Not for me, thanks.” I poked at the
no doubt cold meal, blushing. “Can I get a box for this?” There was
no sense letting it go to waste. I could have it for lunch the next
day.

The interruption effectively ended our dinner. After
we got our boxes for the leftovers we realized the band had stopped
playing some time ago. We walked back to Alex’s car ten minutes
later.

He had his hand behind his head awkwardly again. “I
don’t have anything else planned.”

“
It’s okay. I should do some
homework.”

Alex’s lips turned down into a disappointed frown.
“I don’t want to leave you yet.”

My heart surged at the sweet admission. I didn’t
hide my smile. “It won’t be for long.”

“
Promise?”

I laughed at his hopeful tone. “Yes.”

We listened to his music on the drive home. I didn’t
hear a single song I disliked and I questioned him on each band. I
may have found another source for new tunes. It made me smile.

The trip didn’t take nearly long enough. Alex turned
the car off in front of the building and came around to open the
door for me. I blushed when he offered his hand. He waited until
we’d gotten inside the entrance to the stairs to speak again in
that same soft voice.

“
Is it too soon to kiss
you?”

Alex leaned in before I could answer. He gifted me
with a lovely, light kiss on the lips that warmed me twice as much
as my blush had. I smiled as he pulled away. He watched me through
unreadable eyes for a moment. My smile faded a little. A second
later he slid his hand behind my neck, stepped closer and took my
breath away with another, firmer kiss that stole my breath.

“
Good night, mute girl.”

I stared dumbly after him on rubbery knees.

I was still staring a minute later when I realized
several things—I had a boyfriend. He was the new kid in town. And
he was a shapeshifter.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Alex appeared at the entrance, scanned the room
and then started toward me with the determined gait of a predator.
I considered shrinking back between the doors. What would he do
once he’d reached me? Would Alex kiss me again? In front of all of
these people?

“
Hi,” he said a little awkwardly
from the end of the lunch line.

“
Hi.” I stepped out of line so the
others could go ahead of me. Guy scrambled to get out of the way as
well.

Alex’s unremarkable lips lifted into a very
remarkable smile. “You promised it wouldn’t be for long. It’s been
an eternity.”

I laughed at his melodramatic tone. “I guess I owe
you one.”

His eyes sparkled. “Oooh, you’re in my debt now. I
like that.”

The line had already moved behind me and the person
who waited on Alex gave me a dirty look. I walked between doors and
took a blue marbled plastic tray. Whatever we were supposed to be
eating today did not smell all that appetizing.

“
You look nice,” Alex said from
close beside me.

I glanced down at the short navy blue silk skirt and
cream-colored shirt that would no doubt get stained within the
hour. “This is my mom’s idea of casual. She got a little freaky
when I told her what I was doing after school.”

He chuckled. “That’s cute.”

“
I had to fight her off with my
toothbrush to keep her from putting make-up on me.”

Alex’s barking laughter drew the attention of
everyone within earshot. I blushed at the looks and dropped my
gaze.

“
So to the table with your friends
or lunch al fresco?”

“
Probably the table. I don’t think
I’d be very comfortable sitting on the ground in this
skirt.”

“
Tater tots it is,” he said as he
handed the plastic tray to the first lunch lady.

Alex tried to cut in front of me so he could pay—I
assumed for me as well as him. I put my arm out and pushed him back
while handing the person at the register my two dollars.

“
Suit yourself,” he
muttered.

“
This isn’t a date.”

“
Does that mean I can’t kiss you
when we leave?”

My cheeks flamed as I hurried away. I sat beside
Melissa and asked her about her weekend so I’d have time to gather
my wits.

“
We went apple picking,” she said
with a smile while Alex settled onto the seat in front of me.
“Musta gotten four huge bags. There are all different kinds. Mom
made a pie. She’s going to make apple bread for
Tiffany.”

I could already imagine my mom’s response. The
visual made me laugh. “She’ll flip.”

“
But I’m supposed to tell you that
she can’t have it until you guys come over.”

“
Oh, we’ll be over,” I said with an
amused half smile. My mother loved Mrs. Butler’s cooking almost as
much as she liked Mrs. Butler.

Melissa set her milk down in front of her, lifting
her eyebrows at me. “So how was your weekend?”

I glanced at Alex and blushed. “It was good.”

Ashley yanked a tater tot into two pieces with a
vicious gesture. “Sarah Wright said she saw you two together on
Saturday night at the Red Fiddle.”

Everyone at the table glanced at me and then Alex.
My skin flushed from head to toe. But he remained quiet.

“
Alex took me there for dinner,” I
said barely above a whisper.

Melissa sounded surprised. “Dinner? Like a
date
?”

“
Yes.”

Ashley snorted. “I thought he was gay.”

He was
two
seats away from her! “If he’s gay
then I must be his boyfriend.”

Surprise filled my friends’ faces. Alex beamed
brightly and far too cutely. I focused on my food.

I hadn’t meant to tell everyone so soon but Ashley
always managed to irk me into saying rash things. No doubt the
entire school would know before the day was out thanks to her big
mouth.

The revelation put a damper on the chatter at the
table. I wasn’t sure why. But I didn’t want to stick around to find
out. Alex and I fled the silent weirdness for the photography
studio as soon as we were finished eating. As we walked I realized
there weren’t nearly enough footsteps following us.

I leaned back, motioning at Guy. He poked his head
around the camera.

“
Where did Peter go?”

“
Mark got complaints about multiple
cameramen in classes,” Guy said. “So we’re going to take turns when
there is more than one of you in the same class.”

“
That explains the stupid push to
talk phone you have now,” I said in a sour voice.

Guy glanced at his pocket and paled a little.
“Sorry, I forgot to turn the volume down before we got into
class.”

The phone picked that exact moment to chirp loudly.
Guy ducked back behind the camera. “
We just got word mute girl
is going to le chat’s house later. Peter is on cam duty starting at
eighth period
.”

I knew enough French to be surprised and apparently
Alex did as well. We exchanged wide-eyed glances. I decided to
broach the subject about the cameramen calling him “the cat”.

But first there was another question to ask. “You
guys are calling me ‘mute girl’?”

The cheek I could see beside the camera flushed.
“Uh, yeah.”

I tried to sound nonchalant. “I guess I can
understand that but why ‘le chat’?”

Guy’s left eye appeared again. “His last name?
Someone on the team is from Scotland and said it’s the name of an
association of clans—the ‘Clan of the Cats’.”

I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not. It seemed
odd that Alex’s family would have a last name that so clearly
declared what they were. Then again, I hadn’t known what it meant
until now.

As we entered the nearly empty studio, Alex and I
split off to do separate things. I took my negatives to the light
table to look for other shots I could print that might be better
than what I already had. He took the roll of film he’d developed
Friday into the darkroom.

With little actual work and too much silence, I
struck up a conversation with Guy. “How was your Sunday off?”

He moved around me so he could get a shot of the
tabletop and speak at the same time. “It was good.”

“
Did you go to Canada after
all?”

“
Yup,” he said quickly, as thought
he’d been dying for a chance to chat. “We drove over to Montreal
and spent a day drinking overpriced coffee and speaking horrible
French.”

I laughed because that sounded like something they
would make into a movie. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“
Je nes sais pas.”

“
You don’t know?”

“
Yeah, that’s all the French I
remember.” He let out a chuckle then quickly went serious. “You
should go sometime. There’s this town right over the border that’s
like…a ghost town. It would fit right in with your project
here.”

“
A ghost town?” The idea of a ghost
town captured my interest enough that I glanced at him.
Unfortunately I’d forgotten that all I’d see was the camera lens.
My eyes dropped back to the table. “Really? I’ve never heard of
anything like that.”