The Lost and Found (2 page)

His dark ginger hair was cropped close to his scalp; he had tattoos on his arms and neck, piercings in his right eyebrow and both ears — there was something wild about him. He stood straight, shoulders square as if he could lift the weight of the world with them. His arms were folded across his chest, emphasizing the power there. He wore utility boots, military style, a pair of dark jeans, and a black t-shirt. Danger was clearly stamped on him and I wasn’t the only one to pick up on it. The other passengers and those waiting to collect them gave the tall, silent man a wide berth.

From the corner of my eye I kept a wary eye on him, wondering what his story was and whom he’d been waiting for, until I noticed that his gaze was focused on our little group… on me… My heart lurched in my throat and my pulse leaped — pounding and going haywire. I felt dizzy and nearly short of breath; I was desperate to escape his scrutiny.

Billy had talked to us about the ranch, telling us he’d named it Lost and Found. He’d given us each a pamphlet with ranch info in it. Emblazoned across the front were the words
Tough Love @ The Lost and Found
. Inside it explained about the ranch, what its goals and purposes were — I’d learned the L&F grew alfalfa and apples when Ethan whispered that info to me. Billy’d rattled off a list of names that were associated with the ranch, but that had been more than I was capable of processing.

I knew he ran it with a couple partners, one of whom was the local sheriff, who was apparently called Red. As I studied the tattooed, dangerous-looking man waiting beside the carousel, I figured this
wasn’t
Red. My next guess would have been Bentley. Billy said Bentley was in his thirties and was his second partner. He worked for the school district, as both a PE teacher and an assistant football coach. Somehow this wasn’t how I’d pictured him in my head, but as Billy walked right up to him and shook his hand, I figured this must be Bentley.

Billy and the tattooed man spoke for a couple minutes, and despite the surge in adrenaline I’d felt earlier, my mind was soon reeling once more due to exhaustion. It was a little like being under water, or behind a thick wall of glass. I was aware that conversations were taking place around me — I knew people were talking — but none of it registered. Sound had been muted, and for that, I was grateful. I saw Ethan shake hands with the tattooed man and say a few words that I didn’t hear. I didn’t catch his name, hadn’t heard it; my mind was thick, slow, unable to process, but my body kept receiving little jolts of electricity.

The man was making me uncomfortable; I could
feel
his gaze on me. It was heavy, like a physical touch, and kept sending those unwanted shockwaves through me — I needed my body to be just as numb as my mind.

I kept my eyes on the bags that were now moving slowly around the carousel, doing my best to ignore
him
. When I finally spotted our bags, I reached for them, but a large, work-hardened hand plucked them up before I could get a hold of them — it was the dark, ginger-haired man. He set the bags down, extended the handles, then lifted the carry-on from my shoulder without speaking, and set it on top of my rolling case.
Fine. Whatever.
He wants to carry them that bad, he can have at it
— I wouldn’t fight him.

The man led the way out of the bright lights and loud noises of the terminal and down several rows of vehicles to a dark blue four-door pickup, answering my earlier mental inquiry. He clicked the remote to unlock it and then began loading our luggage into the bed. Billy opened the passenger door for Ethan and me, and then climbed into the front seat, leaving the dark, ginger-haired man to drive — I guessed Billy was as tired as we were. Ethan climbed inside the cab, sitting directly behind Billy, shutting the door behind himself and leaving me to walk around to the driver’s side to get in. For a moment I just stared at the truck door and my reflection on the glass, feeling defeated. I mentally shrugged and turned to walk around the back of the pickup.

Exhaustion was now taking its toll physically, and I stumbled. Hot, firm hands gripped my waist, nearly wrapping around me, and steadied me. My breath caught as my eyes snapped up to his. Dark, vivid blue eyes stared down into mine. The look in them was searching, gentle. I shivered as heat moved through me.

The man stepped back, giving me room. He kept one hand firmly on my elbow as he opened my door and helped me into the truck then closed the door gently behind me. I caught his blue eyes in the rearview mirror once he had the truck on the road and decided I’d had enough of their piercing, searching quality, so I avoided them by staring blindly out my window.

Five hours later I woke up as my head bounced against the glass I’d fogged in my sleep.

We bumped along a dirt drive, dust pluming up behind us. A large, two-story ranch house stood in front of us. We stopped just to the right of the large wrap-around porch. A screen door opened and an elderly, heavyset woman stepped out, wiping her hands on the white apron she wore — the cook or housekeeper I assumed. I was looking around, having taken in the barn set behind the house and the various pieces of farm equipment lying about, when my door opened and
he
was there, hand out, ready to help me down.

For a moment I stared stupidly at it, his hand, like I wasn’t sure what it was for. He must have thought I was pretty slow because he reached up and lifted me down, once again burning me with the heat in his hands. Before I was able to respond in any way I found myself upright on the gravel and he was walking toward the truck bed to gather the luggage. The woman, who reminded me a little of the human version of Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast, stepped forward, wrapping me in her embrace.

“Oh, my dears. Poor things. C’mon in. I’m Sally, Red’s sister. I do the cooking and the laundry here. Red and I live just down the end of the drive there.” She nodded in the direction we’d just come from. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Sally led us inside, past a large and open great-room with an enormous rock fireplace, up the stairs and to the right. She pointed out a bathroom, Billy’s room, and Ethan’s room, which was right next to Billy’s. Mine was at the very end of the hall, up a short flight of stairs. The floors in my room were plywood, the walls bare sheetrock, the ceiling bare wood. An antique-looking four-poster bed stood against the wall, framed on either side by tall windows looking out toward the back of the house. Obviously my room was still under construction and had been hastily prepared. Boxes were piled inside — the ones we’d sent on ahead.

“I picked out bedding, not sure what your taste was. Just wanted you to have somewhere to lay your head.” Sally wrung her hands, clearly feeling bad about the state of the room. “Billy wanted you to have your own bathroom and some privacy. Away from the other boys.”

Sally pointed to a door off to my right. As I stepped inside I saw it was a small bath. It contained a tiled shower, a toilet, and a single sink. It could have been worse, I supposed, and Billy had very little time to prepare. I wondered who’d done the work. I tried not to think about my bathroom back home, with its large shower and more counter and cabinet space than I needed.

“Thanks.” I nodded quietly, taking in the green floral sheets and brown checked quilt.

She left me to settle in, said breakfast would be ready in an hour or so. Again, I nodded. Ethan squeezed my hand as he left my room, shutting the door behind him. I walked over to one of the large windows and stared blindly out toward the mountains.

Movement below caught my eye, and glancing down I saw our driver from this morning walking toward the barn. The sun caught his ginger hair, setting it on fire. I wondered again what his name was — he didn’t seem like a
Bentley
to me. Ginger, I guess I’d call him for now, until I knew. I watched him until he entered the barn, vaguely aware of the almost animal quality of his movements. He seemed so sure of himself. Full of confidence. Not arrogance, just confidence. I envied him.

I didn’t have any confidence, was just a broken shell of who I’d once been. So much pain inside. So many thoughts and feelings and fears raging in my head and in my heart. Staying closed off seemed the easiest way to deal with everything.

For the last several weeks, ever since the accident, I’d been strong — or at least I tried to give the impression I was strong — for Ethan. Truth was, I was exhausted, and sometimes I just wanted to let the fatigue take me, let it drag me under, right to the bottom, where I could just let go.

Josiah

JOSIAH ADJUSTED HIS GRIP
on the steering wheel and glanced to his right. Billy was asleep, the exhaustion evident on his face. Reaching for the mirror, Josiah checked the occupants in the backseat. The boy, Ethan, was asleep as well; his head was tipped back, his mouth slightly ajar. Josiah adjusted the mirror again. Crimson was also asleep. His blue eyes took her in, ghosting lightly over her features. She was beautiful. Fragile. It looked like even the slightest breeze might shatter her.

Josiah knew pain, was well familiar with it. And he saw her pain. She was filled with it. She wasn’t dealing with it, though. She was hiding from it. Josiah knew from experience that you had to take the good with the bad. He knew Crimson would have to face her fear, face her pain, if she ever wanted to truly live again. He knew that sometimes people in pain refused to try, refused to face it — they gave up, gave in, and let the pain just take them. Josiah wouldn’t allow Crimson to do that. He’d watch her, give her some space, some time; but then, if she was still avoiding, still hiding, he knew he’d have to make his move.

Crimson Sage

I STOOD IN THE
center of my room; thoughts rattled around in my brain and I tried to make sense of them. There were things I’d been certain of, things I’d known to be true. Now, everything about me was being called into question.

My name is Crimson Sage Smyth. I’m eighteen years old. I was born in Winchester, Virginia. My birth certificate lists my name as Crimson Sage
NewTowne
. NewTowne. Not Smyth. Dad, the man who’d given us the last name Smyth, the man I’d always thought of as
my
dad, was not. At least not by birth. He was my dad in every way except blood.

I had been created in an act of violence.

Approximately nineteen years ago, Mom had been raped here in Idaho. Her rapist had never been caught. After she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d been counseled to have an abortion, to just have me killed, have her nightmare ended. Mom had refused. That was why I’d never known of my grandfather. Her dad, Billy, had encouraged her to have me terminated, to end the pregnancy. When again she refused, he advised her to give me up for adoption.

Sharp pain rocketed through me as these thoughts revolved in my head, bringing me swiftly from my daydream. I walked over to my carry-on bag, lifted it, and took it to my bed. I climbed up and leaned back against the headboard. After unzipping the bag I pulled out a large manila envelope stuffed full. I held it for a moment, just staring at it.

Inside, it contained letters Mom had written to Ethan and me, explaining all the things she’d been unable to speak. It was in reading her letters and journal I’d learned about her rape, learned about my creation. I swallowed the lump in my throat. Mom wrote that she’d been unable to have me killed, unable to bring herself to do it.

Anger and pain played a prominent role in my head right now. Why?
Why
had she never told me any of this before? Why had I been left to find out from her letters and journal that my entire life, past, and history had been built upon half-truths and assumptions? I had so many questions, and there was no one left to answer them for me. Mom had written the first letter to me before I was born. She’d written hundreds of them since and had numbered each one of them. I hadn’t read them all yet. The first few were the hardest. My heart was sick and I was so angry I hadn’t been able to finish them.