Never Lost (2 page)

“It’s official,” concludes Chase.  “There is nothing here for people our age.”

A man’s voice cracks through the chilly air just then, announcing a fudge-eating contest in one of the tents.  Chase’s eyebrows rise.  “I might as well give it a try, seeing as I don’t have many other choices.  You coming with me?”

I wrinkle my nose.  Gorging myself on as much fudge as I can eat in under a minute is not my thing, and I tell my brother so.  “I’ll wander around on my own,” I say.  “I don’t particularly want to watch such a sickening contest.  But good luck.”

With that, he’s off, and I’m on my own.  I watch the little kids paint pumpkins for a while.  When I’m bored, I meander on, stopping only
when I reach the mouth of a trail at the very back of the park.  It’s quiet here, removed from the noise of Autumn Fest.  The trail leads back into the woods a ways, almost a tunnel created by the overhanging multicolored trees.  I part the branches and step inside, curious.  Even though I know there’s probably nothing back here, I press on, pushing past branches and stepping on twigs.

For whatever reason, I’m enraptured by the quietude, the density of the fall colors, the heady fragrance of the leaves and the chilly air.  At last, I find a stump and sit down, thinking how great a place this would be to watch wildlife.  Chipmunks and squirrels, maybe even a deer, if I’m quiet and still enough.  Excited, I hold myself tight and wait.  The atmosphere seems charged with mystery, even magic, though I cannot say why.

From behind me comes the cracking sound of twigs, and I pull in my breath.  Maybe this is a deer right now!  The footfalls sound heavy enough to be.  Barely moving, I pull my cell phone from the deep pocket of my jacket.  Wouldn’t it be great if I could take a picture?

“Whoa!” says a voice, nearly scaring me to death.  “What are
you
doing here?”
  

Heart pounding, I whip around to see a boy about my age
emerging from the trees that form one side of the wooded trail. 
He has curly light brown hair, a healthy olive glow to his skin that I would
kill
for, and a few random freckles dotted lightly across his nose.  His mouth is drawn up in a cocky grin, and a pair of black-rimmed glasses perch on his nose, giving him personality.  He’s about Chase’s height and weight, with broad shoulders, good musculature.  Even though it’s chilly, he wears only a nondescript T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
  Wow.  He’s…hot.

“What am
I
doing here?” I volley back
, struggling to keep the pink out of my cheeks
.  “I could ask you the same thing.  I thought only animals could squeeze through those trees!  And you scared me!”

He laughs, a cocky, though not unkind, sound
that quickens my pulse
.  “I’m sorry.  I guess it’s only natural.”

“Natural?” I repeat. 

He shrugs.  “
T
hat I scared you.”  At my blank look, he forges on.  “I’m
Danny
.  What’s your name?”
  He tips his head to the side and grins at me, giving me delighted chills up and down my spine.

Assessing him carefully, I say, “I’m Harper Johnston.”

“Nice meeting you, Harper.  You live around here?” 
Danny
settles himself
easily
at the foot of the stump where I sit, and I find myself telling him the whole story of how Mom, Chase, and I ended up coming to live with Uncle Lenny in Oak Leaf.

He’s
a good listener
, a quality I love in a guy
.  Not only that, he seems to understand how the move has made me feel.  At last, I stop, drawing a breath and pulling my knees up onto the stump.  I wrap my legs around them and turn toward
Danny
.  “Sorry for venting like that.  I must’ve talked too much.  I guess I do that when I get stressed out.” 
Embarrassed, I shake
my hair back from my face
and
ask, “What about you?”

“What about me
?”
Danny
tosses an acorn toward a squirrel.  To my surprise, rather than snatch up the nut, the squirrel darts away, fur standing up on its back as though it senses imminent danger.
 
Danny
swivels toward me again, darting a flirty grin in my direction. 

I latch steadily onto his gaze, refusing to look down, until we both find ourselves blushing. 
“You know what I mean.  Tell me about yourself.  How old are you, where do you live, where do you go to school?  That kind of thing.  You really don’t seem like the type of guy I expected to find in Oak Leaf,” I add boldly.
  Far from it. 
Danny
is, well, captivating!

He
laughs.  “Let me guess: overalls and a straw hat?”  He shakes his head.  “We don’t all perpetuate those stereotypes.  As for how old I am…I’m seventeen.”  Is it just my imagination, or is there something wistful about his voice as he tells me this?  “I…live over that way.”  He makes a sweeping motion beyond the woods.  “And I don’t go to school.”

“You don’t?” I ask, surprised.  “Did you drop out of high school?”

“Something like that.” 
He
fidgets with his shoelace.

I frown at him.  Why is he being so evasive?  “Do you work?”

“I get by.” 
Danny
tilts his head back, grinning easily at me now.  “Really, Harper, you don’t want to know about me.  I’m not that interesting.
  I’d rather learn about you.  You’re beautiful, you know.
”

“Thanks.”  My heart skitters, but I refuse to be thrown off course. 
Who would have thought that cocky grin of
Danny
’s
would belie such humility?  “But I
do
want to know about you,” I insist.  I can’t believe how bold I’m being with this attractive guy.  Sure, I’ve
never
been the shy type, but still….

“You haven’t even told me your last name,” I coax
Danny
.

“Harper!”  I recognize my brother’s voice, calling me.

“Oh!”  I jump up off the stump.  “That’s Chase.  He must be done with the fudge-eating contest.  Wonder if he won?  Come meet my brother,
Danny
.”

A strange flicker of apprehension crosses
Danny
’s features.  He picks himself up from the ground.  “No….Ummm, I’ve got to go, Harper.  I’ll see you around.”  Before I can protest,
Danny
’s fingers brush my cheek, somehow hot and cold at once, and he wraps one of my long curls around his thumb.  The look he gives me is enough to melt me.  Just as my heart begins to pound in earnest, he slips back between the trees and seems almost to vanish.

“
Danny
, wait!” I call after him, and then I realize, just like that, that he is gone, along with the mysterious charged feeling that lingered in the air throughout our conversation.

I realize that I’m shaking.  What just happened?  Where did
Danny
go?  Did I imagine the whole thing?  No, of course not.  I shake my head, as if to rattle some sense into my brain.

“Harper!” Chase calls again.

I run the length of the trail, burst back into the park, and keep running.  I find my brother by the playground, looking rather sick and clutching a bag of unfinished fudge.

“Let me guess,” I say.  “You didn’t win?”

Chase shakes his head no.  “Nothing but a stomachache.”

“I told you that a fudge-eating contest was stupid,” I say, but my mind is a million miles away.  I can still feel
Danny
’s fingers on my cheek, the press
ure of his thumb tugging at my hair.  Only two days in Oak Leaf, and already I’ve got it bad for a guy…a strange, mysterious, amazing guy unlike anyone else I’ve ever met before.

The trouble is, I don’t know when I’ll see
Danny
again.  He gave me no clear idea of where he lives, no phone number, no Facebook information.  I spend the rest of Saturday and most of Sunday trying to find out about him.  I even ask Uncle Lenny if he knows anyone my age named
Danny
, and he says no.

Chase and I start at Oak Leaf High on Wednesday.  The building is just as rinky-dink as I expected, but although some of the kids in my classes are hicks and potheads, not everyone’s that bad.  I sort of make friends with a girl named Aimee who’s in
Geometry
with me.  On Thursday, I ask her if she knows anyone named
Danny
, if he ever went to school here or anything.  I tell her his age—seventeen—and describe his appearance.

She
’s never heard of him.
  Weird….

And then on Friday evening, when I’ve just about given up hope, I find him. 
It’s the day before Halloween, and I’m kind of moping around, wishing I was back at home and getting ready for Aaron’s party tomorrow night.  Instead, I’m stuck here, not knowing anyone at my new school well enough yet to make plans with them.  Chase and I begged Mom to let us drive home this weekend and see our friends, but she was dead-set against it, saying that we ought to focus on getting settled in here first.

Now I’m sitting on the back porch of the farm house, listening to my iPod and wishing I was anywhere but here, when I get that feeling again—that strange, shimmery, mysterious feeling I had on the trail at the park last Saturday.

I pull out my ear buds, turn off the iPod, and listen, straining to hear anything unusual above the nigh
t
noises that surround me, the sound of the TV show Uncle Lenny’s watching inside the house.

And then…

“Harper!”
Danny
’s voice, little more than a whisper, floats to me across the expanse of back yard. 

I stand up and run across the leaf-littered grass, not stopping until I reach the trees that border the yard, beyond the rickety barn and shed.  How did I know
exactly where
Danny
would be
?  I just
knew
.  The guy
sure likes the woods.

He steps away from the overhanging foliage and grins at me, cute and cocky and full of an almost ethereal light that lingers only a moment before vanishing. 
“Harper,”
he
repeats,
touching my arm
.

“
Danny
!” I say.  “How did you know where to find me?”
  My head is spinning; my breath is short. 
Danny
is a riddle.

He shrugs.  “I know my way around this town.  But, please, be quiet.  I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

I take a step backward.  “But why not?  My mom and Uncle Lenny aren’t weird about me having guys over, if that’s what you think.  One thing I’ll say for Mom is that she isn’t strict.  Uncle Lenny, either.  He can really party when he wants to.”  I tug
Danny
’s arm.  “Come on, come meet them.  Then maybe we can rent a movie or something.  It’s about time I had some fun here.”

Danny
laughs.  “Not yet, Harper.  I can’t meet your family right now, just trust me on that.  But as far as having fun…we can have plenty of that on our own.”  There’s a mischievous lilt to his voice, and I giggle.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Come on!” 
Danny
tugs my hand, and we disappear into the woods, reemerging after a little while into a moonlit clearing.  At the center of the clearing there’s a hill, a perfectly round mound of earth encircled by plump orange jack-o-lanterns. 
Spread
across the top of the hill is a white
table
cloth,
upon
which an elaborate picnic basket overflows with food.   The sky has grown darker by now, and stars twinkle above us, pure and unadulterated by city lights.

I gasp.  “
Danny
!  What is this?”

He shrugs simply.  “Don’t you like picnics?”  Without waiting for an answer, he strolls across the clearing and comes to a stop at the base of the hill.  Reaching down, he lightly touches one of the jack-o-lanterns there, and as I watch, they all flicker on, warm orange light seeping through their perfectly carved eyes and noses and mouths.  More miraculous that that, a dozen white
pillar candles shimmer into flame at the top of the hill, illuminating the pristine cloth and the picnic basket.

I gasp again, my heart lodging
in my throat.  “
Danny
!” I cry.  “How did you do that?”

He turns back, smugly satisfied, and winks at me.  “Magic,” he answers simply.

I stare at him, uncomprehending.  “Magic?”  I haven’t believed in magic since I stopped believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.  But still, there seems no other explanation.  That weird, shimmery feeling in the air whenever Danny’s just about to make an appearance, the way he lit those jack-o-lanterns and candles in one svelte motion, even his vague avoidance when I ask him questions.