I OPENED MY EYES and when I did, he was right there, and all I could see was his eyes, those amazing amber eyes that I could fall into and—
I stumbled back. “You’re not real.”
“Mmm, actually, I am. Not a ghost.” He brushed his hand over the tops of the tall grasses, making them sway. “Not a zombie either, or I’d smell even worse by now. Not a ghost, not a zombie, just a freaking insanely lucky guy.”
“I saw you fall.”
“The fall isn’t the problem. It’s the sudden stop at the end. Avoid that and…” He waved his hands down his body. “Apparently, you can survive.”
“That’s not… You can’t…”
“Did I mention the insanely lucky part? Great thing about this island? Really big trees. Gotta love those redwoods, especially when they break your fall. Still it was a helluva hit and I’ve got the war wounds to show for it.”
He held out his bare arms, covered in healing scratches. There were more on his face. I looked at him then, my first good look, as hope started to flutter in my chest.
Except for the scratches and a purpled bruise on his chin, he looked exactly as I remembered. Blue jeans, tank top, faded denim jacket, boots. Black hair curling over his collar. Brown eyes flecked with gold. Crooked smile threatening to burst into a grin.
“Got impaled, too.” He lifted his shirt and turned around to show me what looked like a scabbed-over stab wound in his side. “Dislocated my shoulder. Passed out from the pain. When I woke up, the shoulder was fixed—one of the benefits of being a shape-shifter I guess—and the rest was healing. I was unconscious for a while, apparently.”
“I … I still—”
“Can’t believe it?” Rafe shrugged. “I’m guessing a regular person wouldn’t have survived. But we’re part cat so maybe falls aren’t so bad. I think I lost one of my nine lives though.” He twisted to look at the stab wound. “Maybe two.”
I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, and when I did, I knew he was real—the heat of him, the smell of him, the feel of him, the taste of him so incredibly real that it surpassed anything my memory could conjure up. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me back, and it was like every other amazing kiss he’d given me, multiplied ten-fold. I kissed him until I couldn’t breathe, and then I kissed him a little more, until I had to pull back, gasping.
“I have got to die more often,” he said. And he grinned, that incredible blaze of a grin that made me kiss him again.
When we finally pulled apart, he brushed his palm over my still-damp cheeks.
“Your parents are okay, Maya,” he murmured. “They’ve just left. The whole town left.”
“I know. That’s not…” I stepped back, out of his arms, and looked over at the fallen tree. “I came out here and I saw that, and I remembered us… You…”
He looked startled and … something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but definitely startled, like he hadn’t ever thought I’d be crying over him.
“I dreamed you were alive,” I said. “You were calling me and you needed help, and I wanted to go but…” I swallowed. “It didn’t make sense. I told myself you couldn’t be, so I didn’t, and I’m sorry if—”
“You wouldn’t have found me, Maya. If I called you, it was only in my dreams, when I was out cold. I never expected you to come after me. I should be dead.” He tugged me into his arms. “I’m just really, really glad I’m not.”
He kissed me, and it wasn’t like the other ones, all fire and emotion. This one was achingly sweet and when we separated, the look in his eyes was … almost sad.
“I—I don’t know where Annie is,” I said. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Don’t be.” Another quick kiss, then he put his arm around my waist and started leading me back toward the house. “We’ll figure all that out later. Right now—”
The sliding back door to the house squealed. Daniel stepped onto the deck. Rafe and I were still in the woods, but we could see him, through the trees, and he could see us. He stopped dead. Kenjii raced past him. She barreled down the steps toward us, and gave me a passing lick before jumping on Rafe. He pushed her down, laughing.
“See, I am real,” he said.
“Hmm, still not sure,” I said. “Dogs are supposed to be able to see ghosts, you know.”
“Maybe, but I’m sure that guy can’t.” As we stepped from the woods, he waved at Daniel, who’d come down to the bottom of the steps and was frozen again. “Though he does look as if he’s seeing one.” He raised his voice so Daniel could hear. “Yes, it’s me. Not a ghost or a zombie or a long-lost twin brother.”
“Rafe…?” Daniel started walking slowly across the yard.
“In the flesh. Battered and bruised flesh, but apparently it takes more than a fall from a helicopter to get rid of me.”
“Wow. I can’t believe it, but obviously…” He looked Rafe up and down and shook his head. “Wow.”
“Holy hell.” Now Corey stood on the back deck, staring.
He came over and we had to go through the whole thing again. Yes, it was Rafe. Not a ghost. Not a zombie. Not a long-lost twin brother. As ludicrous as all those ideas sounded, though, they seemed more likely than the truth—that a guy fell from a helicopter and survived.
“You sure about the twin thing?” Corey said when Rafe had finished.
“Yes, I don’t have a long-lost twin brother.”
“I do,” I said. “Or so I’ve heard.”
Rafe grinned at me. “Yes, but I’m not him.”
“Which is good.”
“Very good.” He squeezed my hand.
“We’ll … be inside,” Daniel said.
“Uh-uh,” Corey said. “Romantic reunions are officially on hold, even for guys who’ve returned from the dead. We’re neck-deep in crap here and we need to dig our way out. Or at least come up with a plan.” He looked from me to Daniel. “Ideas?”
“I … have a couple,” Daniel said. “I just need … time to think them through.”
“Sure,” Rafe said. “While you do that, can I tell you mine? I’ve been here almost a day. Plenty of time to think as I waited for you guys to show up.”
“We should head back to Sam,” I said. “She’s at her place.”
Corey nodded. “And I want to know how in hell you not only survived the fall, but made it back here before us.”
Rafe seemed a little surprised at how quickly Daniel and Corey bought his “miracle heal” story, until I explained that they knew about the skin-walker thing. I told him briefly about benandanti and our theories of Salmon Creek, so he wouldn’t think I’d just randomly confessed to having supernatural powers. Then he gave his story.
How did Rafe make it back so fast? Same way we did. He stole a ride. A motorcycle. In his case, though, he skipped all the steps between. No tortuous trek through the woods—he’d landed relatively close to a town. No attempts to get help, because Rafe wasn’t like us. His life experience was closer to Sam’s. His mom had sheltered him as best she could from the ugliness of life on the run, but he hadn’t grown up in a world where you could stroll into town, ask strangers for help, and expect to get it.
Annie used to have a motorcycle, he said, and she’d taught him to ride it. He also knew how to hot-wire one. I wasn’t asking how. Like I said, his life experience wasn’t ours.
“And you knew we were alive?” I said as we approached the outskirts of town.
“I knew you were alive.”
That made me feel… I don’t know. There was a flutter of happiness at the thought, but some guilt, too, because I’d had the same experience. I’d known that he was alive. Yet I hadn’t trusted it.
“Are you going to even ask who else survived?” Corey said. Did I imagine the touch of sarcasm in his voice?
“Well, obviously you guys and Samantha,” Rafe said. “I’m guessing…” He shrugged. “I’m guessing, um, no one else made it. Not exactly the subject anyone wants me discussing, I’m sure.”
“Hayley and Nicole were kidnapped,” I said.
I told him the story as we cut over to the Tillson house.
“So you’ll want to try to get them back,” Rafe said as we crossed the back lawn.
“Um, yeah,” Corey said. “Sorry to throw a wrench in this supposed plan of yours—”
Rafe sighed. “Look, Corey, I know you don’t like me. Daniel doesn’t either, but he’s being nice about it for Maya’s sake.”
“I’m not—” Daniel protested.
“It’s okay. I didn’t go out of my way to make friends in Salmon Creek. I know that. I acted like an ass, and as Maya may have told you, I had a reason, one that probably still makes me an ass. I’m glad to hear Hayley’s okay. Of everyone in Salmon Creek, I treated her the worst, so I’m hoping I get the chance to apologize. I’m glad Samantha is okay, even if we don’t get along. As for Nicole? I know her about as well as I know you and Daniel. Which is about one step up from ‘not at all.’ Of course, I’m glad you’re okay. I know you’ll want to get your friends back. I’m absolutely fine with that. But if you expect me to be as worried about them as you are, that’s not going to happen.”
“No one expects you to care about Nic and Hayley as much as we do,” Daniel said. “But I am glad to see you’re okay.”
“For Maya’s sake. I know.” He waved off Daniel’s denials. “I don’t expect more. And, chances are, I’ll turn out to be an ass after all.”
He said it jokingly, but he broke eye contact, and didn’t look my way either, just nudged me toward the house. I wondered if it did kind of hurt him, getting a cool reception from the guys.
That reception didn’t improve once we got in the house. Rafe was happy to see Sam was okay. Whether you like a person or not, you don’t wish them a horrible death. Sam, though… Well, I’d spent long enough with her now to realize she was lacking certain filters most of us have.
“So, I guess you’ll be moving on, then?” she said. “Got things to do? Places to be?”
Daniel winced. Corey lifted his brows. Rafe only sputtered a laugh.
“Well, at least you didn’t say you’re sorry to see me alive,” he said.
“You know what I mean,” Sam said.
“Um, no,” I said. “We don’t. Rafe just survived a fall from a helicopter and trekked back here to meet us—”
“Meet you,” Sam said. “And what I meant was that he’ll be leaving to look for his sister. Right?”
“I am looking for Annie,” Rafe said. “But I can do that with you guys, especially if she’s been captured by the same people who have Nicole and Hayley. Maya tells me you have a cell phone. It probably wasn’t a good idea to use it, but since no one swooped down while you were waiting here—”
“Which is why I insisted on waiting here.” Sam lifted her chin. “If the Nasts were tracking the phone, they’d have come here and found me alone. But no one showed up. Now, Maya, if you can stop gaping at Rafe for a few minutes, we really should come up with a plan.”
I glared at her. “I spent three days thinking I’d watched him fall to his death.”
“Leave her alone, Sam,” Daniel murmured. “This isn’t the time.”
“I’m just saying it’s not the time for that either. We need to focus and having Maya moon over Rafe is making everyone uncomfortable.”
Rafe grinned. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Because your ego really needs the encouragement.”
Rafe’s grin hardened. “You don’t know anything about me or my ego, Samantha. I’m going to ask you to give the attitude a rest for a while. Maya tells me you and Daniel are benandanti, and I remember my mom mentioning them. You guys have a sixth sense for evil. Clearly, I’m not triggering Daniel’s radar or he wouldn’t let me in the same room as Maya. Am I tripping yours?”
Her mouth opened and I could tell she wanted to say he was, but she closed it again, so hard her teeth clicked. After a moment, she said, “You think you’re better than everyone else. You think the rules don’t apply to you. You breeze into town, working your charm on all the girls, then walk away when you realize they aren’t the skin-walker you’re looking for. You find her”—Sam pointed at me—“and you use her, too, but apparently, she’s forgiven you. Maya’s smart and she’s sensible, so maybe I’m trying to figure out why the hell she’s with you when there are great guys like…” She stumbled, as if searching for a name. “Like Brendan. You’ve got some kind of hold over her, and I don’t like it.”
Rafe leaned over and whispered. “It’s a love spell I picked up from a witch over in Nanaimo. But don’t tell Maya.”
“You think you’re funny.”
“No, I think you have your own issue with me and I think I know what it is. But it has nothing to do with me personally, so I’m going to try not to take it personally. And, while I might be enjoying this—” He lifted his hand, which was still clasping mine. “I know it’s as temporary as a love spell. Give it a few hours and she’ll hate me again.”
“Hate’s a strong word,” I said.
“Strong emotion is better than indifference.” He grinned at me, then looked at the others. “Now, if we can stop bickering for a few minutes, I’ll tell you my plan.” His gaze moved to Sam. “Which I’m sure Maya and Daniel will change, if they don’t outright reject it, and I’m fine with that.”
“What did you have in mind?” Daniel said.