“There.” David chuckled. “Objective met.”
two days later, I was
in the garden pulling weeds, my chore for the day.
David stepped from the barn, caught sight of me, and came over. Kneeling beside me, he began helping.
“You don’t have to do that,” I told him.
He shrugged. “I know.”
Together, we worked in silence and my thoughts drifted to Randy. They’d been doing that a lot since I’d gotten back.
“David?”
“Hm?”
“Would you tell me if another girl kissed you?”
David stopped working and looked up at me. “Why?”
I kept working, focusing so hard on the weeds, my eyes nearly crossed. “Because . . . because someone else kissed me.” There. It was out. Finally.
My heart boinged around in my chest while I waited for his response.
“Who? Who kissed you?”
I kept working. “The glyph professor.”
“Did he ask or did he just kiss you?” he asked, not sounding too happy.
“He just kissed me. But . . .” I didn’t want him to think Randy had mistreated me or anything.
“But what?”
I kept working. “But nothing. It’s just I didn’t want you to think he’d forced me to kiss him or anything.”
“So what are you saying?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Would you stop working, please?” he snapped.
I looked over at him. He did
not
look happy.
“What are you trying to say to me?” he repeated himself.
I took in his irritated face, thought of his wonderful heart, and felt like a complete idiot for bringing it up. “David,” I sighed. “It didn’t mean anything. You trust me, right?”
He jerked a nod.
And I decided to be completely honest with him. He deserved that. “The professor was cute and just a few years older and we . . . clicked, on an intellectual level. But I told him about you and how wonderful you are, and he completely respected that. And then when we said good-bye to each other, he gave me a quick kiss. I think the kiss surprised him as much as it did me, but that’s all there was to it. He went his way, and I went my way, and that’s that. And it’s been bugging the heck out of me because I don’t like keeping things from you. That’s one of the good things about us. At the base of it all, we’re friends.”
I reached out and touched his arm. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“You don’t think we click on an intellectual level?” His voice sounded so hurt, it made me feel horrible.
“Not like Chapling and I do.”
“This professor guy was like Chapling?”
“Well, no, not exactly.” God, I didn’t know what to say to make things better.
David got up. “Let me just have some time to think.”
“David,” I said to his back as he walked away, but he didn’t turn.
I tried to imagine how I would respond if the situation was reversed, and, truthfully, I’d probably be walking away right now, too.
A limo pulled through our security gate, drawing my attention away from David. It circled our driveway and came to a stop in front of the house. The driver got out and walked around to open the door for the passenger.
A tall, extremely skinny, dark-haired woman stepped out, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blouse.
“Oh, my God,” I realized out loud, “that’s Parrot’s mom.”
The door to the house opened, and out came Parrot. He and his mom stood very still, staring at each other with only ten feet or so of space separating them.
My heart ached as I watched them.
They moved at once, running toward each other and colliding together. Even though I stood in the side yard, I could hear them crying.
Gripping each other tightly, they rocked each other and cried out the ten years they’d been apart.
The overwhelming emotion seem to ripple through the air as all my teammates slowly, quietly trickled out from wherever they were to witness the reunion.
I wondered how they all felt, having to watch this, feeling happy for Parrot, but wishing it for themselves, too.
I knew I wished it for myself.
And I wondered what this meant, if anything, for Parrot and his future with the Specialists.
TL approached them a few minutes later and said something. The two of them nodded, climbed in the limo, and pulled away.
Everyone slowly began trickling back to where they’d come from, and TL turned in my direction. With two fingers he waved me over.
I jogged from the side yard across the driveway to the front. “Yes, sir?”
“Conference room. Now.”
With a nod, I followed him into the house and down to Subfloor Four. We walked into the conference room, and I’d hoped David would be there.
“Hihihi!” Chapling greeted me instead.
I grinned. “Hi! I missed you.” He’d been gone since I returned.
He giggled and leaned in. “Guess what,” he whispered.
“What?”
“My mom got married again.”
“Again?”
“Her eighth one.” Chapling shrugged. “It shouldn’t take long for her to move on to the ninth.”
“
Eighth
marriage?” Holy sheesh. I realized then that I knew very little about Chapling’s personal life. Mother, father, brothers, sisters, where he grew up . . . did he have a
girlfriend
?
Nah, somehow I couldn’t see Chapling with a girlfriend.
“Chapling, do you realize I don’t know anything about you?”
He fluttered his pudgy hand. “We’ll purge our souls later.”
TL shook his head. “You two get sidetracked so easily.”
We both laughed at that.
TL looked at Chapling. “Why don’t you tell her why we’re really in here.”
“Oh rightright.” Chapling held up the sketch of the woman I’d stolen in South America. “I know who this is!”
I waited, but he didn’t expound on the information. “Who?” I prompted.
“This is your sister.”
“My
WHAT?
”
“Before your father joined the IPNC, he was married to another woman, and they had a daughter,” TL responded. “Truthfully, I never even knew your father had had another wife. The daughter is fifteen years older than you.”
I shook my head. “My father was married before my mother?” I hadn’t known.
Obviously.
Or I wouldn’t be so dumbfounded right now. “I have a-a-a
sister
?”
TL nodded. “Yes, you do.”
“Wh-where?” I stammered.
TL shook his head. “We’re not sure. But we’re going to find her.”
Don’t forget to check out the next book in
The specialists
series.
When someone close to TL disappears, The Specialists pull out all the stops. GiGi is brought into another mission along with Bruiser and Mystic. This time, it’s a fight to the end, and someone doesn’t make it out alive.