Drinking Life (Keeper of the Water Book 1) (12 page)

Something moves deep in the forest but I don’t have a clear view and it doesn’t stay in one place for long. I sense danger nearby. I should rush back to the garage and find my father or Celeste but I don’t. Survival instincts have taken over and I choose fight over flight. I trust myself more than anyone else to keep safe. It helps that I have my bow in hand and a quiver of arrows slung over my shoulder. Nervous excitement flows through me and I take off into the woods, heading
toward
danger instead of away.

I run through the forest, moving faster than I’ve ever gone, the trees and shrubs no more than a blur. There are plenty of things I could crash into along the way but I hit nothing, my feet moving quickly and silently. It’s as if an invisible hand guides my way, protecting me, a sixth sense I never experienced. For the second time I feel like I’m dreaming though I know I’m wide awake.

Finally I hear the
rustling
of running footsteps up ahead and I dart in that direction. I see another flash of movement between the trees but whoever is out there runs as fast as me. The longer I run, the less nervous I feel. Suddenly, I know that danger is no longer out there, no longer staring at me. After a few minutes of chasing, I slow down just before I reach a tiny creek where I see my opponent. A deer stands on the edge of the water, drinking heavily. It doesn’t see me hiding behind a tree and probably figures it outran whoever was in pursuit.

The deer is beautiful and I see it in a way I’ve never viewed another animal. The rest of the world seems to disappear around the deer, its body slender yet muscular, its shiny brown coat speckled with white dots. It’s truly one of Mother Nature’s magnificent creatures and I can pinpoint on its chest where its heart beats rapidly within. So why does the sight make my belly rumble? Make me raise my bow and aim for a perfect kill shot? My hand pulls back the arrow against my bowstring but I stop myself from releasing it.

What am I doing? I suddenly realize how cloudy my mind is, how I’m unable to recognize who I am or how I’m acting. I lower my bow just as the deer looks in my direction. Our eyes make contact for a brief moment and I feel a strong connection with the deer just before it turns and runs off. I watch it disappear into the trees as I try to bring myself back to reality.

I look around and have no idea where I am. But I don’t panic; I’ve always been comfortable in the forest. Although everything around looks the same, I locate the slightest hint of my trail and follow it back toward the garage. Chasing the deer felt like it only lasted a few minutes but it takes me nearly twenty to get home. I no sooner emerge from the woods when my mother spots me. She looks worried.

“Where did you go?” she asks.

I skip the part about feeling like someone was watching me and go straight to the part about following the deer. After all, I can’t say for certain that some
one
was out there, though my senses usually don’t fail me.

“Well our client is here for the tour,” Mom tells me.

“Customer? As in one? I thought there was supposed to be three of them.”

“Only one young man showed up; the other two couldn’t make it I guess,” Mom says. “But he still paid for all three and still wants the entire tour.”

“This should be
real
fun,” I say sarcastically. Three people for a VIP tour already seemed the minimum but having only one would be downright boring. It’s going to feel more like a family trip with a stranger tagging along. I start to think maybe I should give my shooting lesson and stay behind. But when I look toward the parking area, I don’t see another car. I’m not sure what I then notice first: the motorcycle parked beside the adventure van or the tall guy with long hair helping my father secure the canoe atop the van.

My heart stops when John turns and looks at me.

He wears big dark sunglasses and his hair falls over his face, not tied back like usual. He’s almost unrecognizable for a moment. But since I forget to breathe for several seconds and my feet feel glued to the ground; there’s no question it’s him.

Once I recover from the shock of seeing him, I remember how he got mad at me the last time we talked, which was
before
his two brothers—if that’s who they really are—caught me snooping around their backyard. I expected him to never want to see me again and feel a huge sense of relief when he smiles at me. I somehow find the ability to walk and talk again.

“What are
you
doing here?” I ask as I approach the van.

“You two know each other?” Dad wonders.

I forgot he was even standing there and don’t know how to answer. I’m afraid Dad can already tell that John is the boy that Cassie said I like.

“We go to school together… well, maybe not this week we didn’t,” John jokes. “Nia talked so much about how great the tours are so I had to try one. I’m just sorry my other two… companions couldn’t make it. But I still look forward to going on this adventure.”

Now I do, too. I try to flash John my cutest smile but I’m sure it comes off more like goofy, as usual. I suddenly feel eyes glaring at me again but this time I turn to see my watcher: Celeste. I can’t tell if she looks annoyed or is merely deep in thought. But she glances from me to John’s motorcycle and back to me. Telling her about Cassie’s new ‘motorcycle-riding’ boyfriend now seems like a bad idea.

“Seems like late notice to cancel the other two people,” Celeste says icily. “We prepared for three.”

Oh yeah, she does
not
like John. I’ve never heard her talk to anyone—let alone a customer—in such a manner. But John stays cool under her scrutiny.

“I am very sorry for the last minute change. It was unavoidable,” John says.

“No need to apologize,” Dad interrupts. “We appreciate that you’re honoring the contract and paying for everyone. The four of us will still have a great time.”

Celeste snorts and continues prepping the gear. She drops a heavy cooler on the ground and it makes a loud
bang
that echoes throughout the quiet early morning. Celeste turns and looks worriedly toward her house and my stomach sinks, too. Until this moment, I hadn’t even considered that Cassie was inside sleeping while her
boyfriend
was out here. Does she even know that he was coming? I’m guessing she wouldn’t want him alone with me
or
her mother so Cassie must not know. I can tell that Celeste agrees with me that it will be much better if it stays that way.

“I’ll hurry up and give the bow lesson so we can get going nice and early on the river,” I tell Dad and Celeste.

I grab John by the arm and pull him toward the shooting range. My fingers tingle at the touch of his warm skin. I barely suppress a grin when he doesn’t pull away from me. I still don’t know what kind of reaction to expect from him. Once alone, he pulls back his hair and removes the glasses—he looks more like himself now.

“Don’t worry about Celeste. She’s usually really nice; nothing like Cassie,” I say. I hadn’t meant to insult his girlfriend—well, maybe subconsciously I did—but John doesn’t seem to notice. He slowly turns in a circle, taking in all of the trees and flowers and local vegetation.

“If the rest of the tour is as beautiful as here, I am in for a great treat,” he says. “This area is truly one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in the world.”

It makes me happy to see how appreciative John is of our surroundings. I’ve lived here for months now but never once have I taken for granted the nearby nature. But the words he used to express that thought—along with his accent—make me wonder just how much he’s actually seen.

“In the world, huh?” I ask. “Have you been to many places around the world?”

We’ve moved around plenty but always within the United States. Talking to someone like John makes me realize how much more of the world I’d love to travel.

“Yes, I have been to many places, both good and bad,” he admits.

“Anywhere exotic?”

John shrugs. When Cassie told me she and John did very little talking, I thought that was code for them doing something else, that she was rubbing it in my nose. Now I realize differently. Getting information out of him is like pulling teeth.

“Where were you born?” I ask.

The perpetual smile vanishes from his face. I might be pushing my luck with all the questions. But a faraway look glazes over his eyes before he starts to talk.

“A small town in Spain,” he says. “But I have lived in many other places as well. Florida, Puerto Rico, South America… the Poconos.”

“Do your parents move around a lot for business?” I wonder. “That’s why we move every few years.”

Again John looks away, clearly hesitant to answer. I think of the big secrecy about whatever is in his backyard. I’m desperate for answers but don’t want to push him away in the process.

“I’m sorry for prying. I swear I don’t usually blab this much. You can tell me to shut up if you want,” I say.

A sad smile crosses his lips. He turns and looks at me straight in the eyes. I thought they’d burned with fire when he and I battled the lacrosse players but that was nothing compared to the serious intensity his eyes now hold. My feet are rooted to the ground and I can’t look away from him.

“Do you remember how I became angry when you asked me what my parents were building in the backyard?” he asks.

“I know, I shouldn’t have asked about your personal business. I mean, I barely know you. I’m not usually nervous but I just act that way around you for some reason and I ramble on and – ”

John holds up a hand to stop me. I feel like a bumbling fool. For a moment, his sad smile turns truly happy, though that doesn’t last for long.

“I should apologize to
you
,” he says. “I shouldn’t have gotten to mad at you for something you didn’t know about. I became upset because both of my parents are dead.”

“How did they die?” I blurt. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“They both got sick, some kind of disease we had no medicines for,” he says. “It happened a very long time ago. I barely have any memories of them.”

I’m very sad for him, especially since I know the benefits of being raised by two caring parents. But then it hits me like a ton of bricks: I’m going to have to start realizing that both of my parents
didn’t
raise me, at least not both my
real
parents. John and I have more in common than I thought.

“My dad’s dead, too,” I say without thinking. “At least my
real
dad. I just found out recently.”

He raises an eyebrow and before I know it, I launch into the whole story about finding my dad’s files and sending away the DNA test and what the results meant and on and on. A part of me realizes that saying so much is a bad idea; after all, he
is
Cassie’s boyfriend and for all I know he could rush back to her and tell her everything. Dad obviously knows about the situation but he’s the only one I planned to
ever
know. Now John can bust the secret wide open. But this doesn’t stop me from talking. By the time I’m done, my soul feels much less burdened.

“I never expected to tell that to anyone,” I admit. “So please don’t say anything to Cassie about it.”

But I already feel confident that my secret is safe with him.

“Cassie already looks for any reason to give me a hard time. I don’t even want to think what she’d do with this information.”

John nods. “Yes, she can be very vindictive and controlling if you give her the chance,” he says, his voice oozing with bitterness.

I’m surprised by his frustration and can’t stop myself from chuckling. That’s
not
the reaction I expected from him.

“It’s like you’ve known her forever,” I joke.

He smiles back. “Yeah, it feels like that sometimes.”

But now I can’t tell whether he’s joking. I
should
just leave this subject alone but I can’t. I hate my recent inability to stay quiet about questions I probably don’t want the answers to.

“Then why are you two… well, why do you hang out with her?”

“
Me
? Why do
you
put up with her antics, with her lies and betrayal?” he shoots back at me. “I’ve seen the way you fight. You could easily make her regret that cruelty towards you.”

Now I’m
certain
he’s no longer joking and I feel a thrill in my chest to hear him talking about her like this. But my natural instinct kicks in to protect her and I make up excuses about the difficult life she’s lived without a father. I also explain how our families are best friends—and business partners—and that I’ve always made sure to keep things civil with Cassie for that reason. What I
don’t
bother trying to explain is the overwhelming—and yet inexplicable—desire I constantly feel to keep Cassie safe. But I’m apparently not the only one to feel that.

“She draws you in even when you don’t want her to,” John says, perfectly describing what Cassie does to
both
of us. We share a sad contemplative silence for a moment but I refuse to let Cassie get between us when she’s not even here.

“Ready to learn how to shoot?” I ask, picking up my bow. I hand him one of the older one.

“If you promise to be gentle,” John smiles.

I shrug. “We’ll see how well you listen.”

I demonstrate how to hold the bow and load the arrow, how to exhale a deep breath just before firing. My arrow zips across the empty spaces and lodges squarely in the bull’s-eye.

“You always have to be careful because you never know when your next shot can be your last,” I say, the same advice I give
all
of my students. I don’t know where I came up with the saying but I started saying it once and now it’s my mantra.

I turn to John, excited to see his reaction to my shot. But he merely nods his head at the sight of the bull’s-eye, like that was supposed to happen. He obviously doesn’t understand how skilled a shooter must be to make that shot—he must know less about the outdoors than I thought.

“Usually people are more impressed,” I say.

“I’ve seen the way you play sports and how you fight. I would expect nothing less,” John says.

He steps up to take the next shot. I don’t expect much but he raises the bow and has the proper form. I usually watch my students’ feet, their shoulders, their hand placement, the way their bodies are turned—all key factors in determining the accuracy of a shot. But I can tell right away that he has great form so I look at his face, tensed in extreme concentration. One look and I can tell he doesn’t want me to outshoot him. Despite my countless daydreams of him over the last week, I’ve never been more attracted to him than right now.

He fires his shot and immediately grimaces. Without looking, I can tell whose shot is better. But when I glance at the target,
I’m
the one surprised. His arrow is only a few inches below mine, a hair outside of dead center.

“Wow, great shot,” I say. “Have you ever done this before or am I just that good of a teacher?”

“I have not shot for many years,” he says. “I used a bow back when I lived in Spain. Both of my uncles were in the military, so I’ve been around my share of weapons.”

I immediately think of the two large men who confronted me in his backyard. They hadn’t appeared old enough to be his uncles but my mind had been too preoccupied to focus on many details.

“Those are the men from your house?”

John nods. “I have been living with them for many years now.”

“Tell them I’m really sorry for trespassing. I never should’ve been there without you home.”

John’s eyes suddenly burn in anger and I worry I’ve talked myself into yet another hole.

“
They
should be ones to apologize to you,” he says. “A lifetime of military service has turned them into brutes, has turned them too aggressive when they become nervous. They have caused me great headaches in the past as well. When I learned how they harassed you, I became irate. Truth be told, that is the reason that only
I
came today. I can’t trust them to act civilized.”

“I’m sorry for causing you so many problems. You must think I’m a hypocrite for calling Cassie a troublemaker when I’m doing the same thing. I promise I don’t mean to.”

He waves away the suggestion. “Those two men are terrors. I can’t wait for the day when I can get away from them for good; I hope that will not be long. They should’ve known to leave you alone.”

“Why would they have known that?” I ask.

He opens his mouth to answer but nothing comes out. It’s the first time he’s failed to produce the right words, a feeling I know all too well. I have to stop myself from chuckling at his momentary shyness though it’s a relief that he’s not
always
Mr. Smooth.