The Missing

along Fort Morgan Highway, and she would just know. She would feel it. Whether she would be in time, that part would have to play itself out. “I’ll just know. It’s almost like there is some kind of magnet, and it will pull me in.”

    Cullen pulled her up against him, and she cuddled in close. His calm, simple acceptance was nothing short of amazing, and Taige didn’t know if she’d ever get used to it. She didn’t know if it would last or not, either. She worried about it sometimes, late at night when she was thinking about him or over the past winter while he was back in Georgia. They wrote, and he called her a lot, always over at Rose’s or at the restaurant. Never at home. Taige had all but moved in with Rose as it was, spending only one or two nights a week in the small, depressing bedroom in the house where her uncle lived. Rose had offered her Dante’s room after he had moved in with a girlfriend, and Taige knew as soon as she turned eighteen, she would do it.

    Not yet, though. Not until her uncle had no more legal hold over her. He was mean enough to try to make Rose’s life a living hell just to hurt Taige. Once she was eighteen, the bastard couldn’t do anything. Another couple months. She still had her senior year to get through in high school, but she could do that just as well living with Rose.

    “You thought any more about college?”

    “Nothing to think about,” she said softly. She wasn’t going. She didn’t have the money, and although she knew she could get a grant, maybe even a scholarship or two, she wasn’t cut out for college.

    “You just going to keep working at the restaurant the rest of your life?” He shifted around, facing her.

    She met his gaze levelly. Taige knew he didn’t get it. Knew he didn’t understand. Working at the little restaurant might not be the best-paying job, and it wasn’t anything special, but she didn’t need special. She didn’t need glamorous, and she didn’t give a damn about pulling in a six-figure income.

    What she wanted was quiet and solitude. Here, at home, she got that, to an extent, anyway. People here knew her. Some of the locals still treated her like some sort of freak show, but she couldn’t imagine going to someplace where nobody knew her. She’d really look like the bearded lady then. Or a charlatan.

    Taige could handle people not believing in what she could do, but too often that interfered with doing it, and she didn’t want to risk that.

    “The restaurant’s all I need, Cullen.”

    He reached up and fisted a hand in her hair. “Maybe, but you deserve more.” He leaned in, and she held still as he kissed her, soft and slow. He touched her so gently, so carefully. It seemed reverent, somehow, and it never failed to melt her heart. His tongue touched her lips, and she opened to him, groaning in her throat as he tugged her closer.

    “You know, when I was a kid, that wasn’t called fishing.” Cullen jerked away as the sound of his dad’s voice intruded. Blood rushed to Taige’s face, and she covered her face with her hands. She glanced through her fingers to see Robert Morgan watching them with a stern look on his face, but his eyes were smiling. “Sorry, Dad,” Cullen said. His voice didn’t sound sorry at all, and Robert just shook his head and grinned.

    “Can’t say I blame you, but if your mama knew I was letting you two carry on like that, she’d have both our heads on a platter.” Then he winked at Taige. “And she’d feel the motherly duty of giving you a talking-to, Taige. So you two just save us all that, okay? Wait until I’m gone.”

    Summer 1996

    The sun had set and with it went the heat.

    Taige lay on the beach blanket, staring up at the stars overhead and trying not to panic. Cullen was crouched over the small campfire they had built, and she wanted to roll over onto her side so she could watch him. That man certainly looked good in the firelight, the yellow orange flames deepening his already tanned skin, casting dancing shadows all over the long, rangy muscles in his body.

    He’d been seriously cute that first summer, but now . . . saliva pooled in her mouth just looking at him. That man was definitely drool worthy. Over the past four years, his lanky body had filled out, his shoulders had broadened, and his face had gone from good-looking all-American teenaged male to pure male perfection. Without a doubt, the man was a work of human art and definitely worth staring at.

    But