Sweet Peril (The Sweet Trilogy #2)(73)



I wanted positive thoughts on Kai’s mind when we parted today. I took his hand, searching for hints that this stranger in front of me was my Kai. Even his eyes were wrong. Then my eyes landed on his lips. Ah, yes. I recognized those.

“I love you,” I whispered.

We leaned over the console for an embrace. It was strange to feel the cloth covering his face and neck. I kissed a bare spot on his upper cheek. Then his nose and his lips. The fake facial hair tickled my chin.

“Please be safe,” I whispered. “No crazy, unnecessary, dangerous stunts. Ya hear me?”

I let a little of my Georgia drawl seep in and he grinned. It was beyond strange to see the grin I loved show up on this unfamiliar face.

Kaidan gathered his bag from the floor. I tried to imagine him meeting Zania.

“Do me a favor,” I said, thinking of something. “Take a picture of me with your phone to show her we’re allies.” Maybe then she wouldn’t try to kick his butt or something.

“Brilliant,” he said, digging out his phone. He took a picture of me then grinned cutely as he saved it. Next he leaned over to take one of us together. We both laughed, looking at it afterward—the odd couple. Me with my high, blond ponytail and black tank top; him in his full Middle Eastern regalia.

“You’ll have to erase them after you show her,” I said. He nodded, seeming forlorn as he stared at the pictures. He slid the cell back into his bag.

Worry knotted my insides like a clenching fist. They’ll be okay, I told myself.

“Call Blake,” Kaidan said. “I don’t want you to be alone, and I know he’d be happy to have your company. Actually—” He checked the time. “He’s got that dirt bike competition today. You’d enjoy it, I think.”

“Okay,” I whispered, a tendril of anxiousness still whipping around inside me.

Kaidan fiddled with the GPS until he found the Motocross Outdoor Arena address on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. He kissed me one last time before he climbed out of the car and strode away. Off to save Zania.

And I prayed.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MOTOCROSS SURPRISE

I drove one-handed, biting off the fingernails I’d managed to grow. The pain of ripping them too short barely registered as I watched the road, calculating how long it would take Kaidan and Kope to get to Syria—around eighteen hours. I hoped to hear from them the following evening. From then it would take another day to get home, if all went well.

A long conversation with Patti did wonders for keeping my mind off the mission. Patti had been frantic when I hadn’t shown in Atlanta and she couldn’t get ahold of me. But she forgave me and cried when I told her how Kaidan had come after me, and how he was going to be a part of my life now. She cried even harder when I told her what had happened to Zania, and the fact that the two Ks and Flynn had been sent on a mission to retrieve her.

“They’ll be okay,” she told me through sniffles. “This whole thing is probably a blessing in disguise. She’ll finally be away from that monster of a father.”

“I know,” I said, but Patti surely sensed the hesitance and fear in my voice.

“It’s all going to work out, sweet girl. I just know it. Call me when they get Z to safety.”

“I will,” I promised, calmed by her certainty. “Just a few more days. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ve missed you so much.”

Before I knew it, the GPS was leading me into a giant dirt parking lot.

It was past eleven in the morning when I climbed down from Kaidan’s giant vehicle into the California heat. The games were under way. Dirt bike engines whirred on the trails, jumping peaks and spitting up clouds of dust. The audience was spread wide throughout the sprawling motocross duplex, with some people crowded into bleachers, and some standing on top of vans and buses. Clustered groups were scattered across a nearby hillside on blankets. The guardian angels were almost impossible to see in the bright sunlight, like thin apparitions.

Heat prickled my exposed skin while I stood there, and I regretted not thinking about buying sunblock on the way. I scanned the racing bikers, using my extended sight. Blake was catching air over a jump, in the lead. His win was met with cheers and whistles. A group of girls sitting on the hill did a chant for him, his own personal cheering squad.

The crowd began to shift during the competition transition. People headed for coolers and restrooms. I could feel my skin burning, so I made my way to the hill, finding a patch of shade near the cheerleaders. A pang of longing sliced me as I watched them laugh together, drinking hard ciders. They sat in the direct sun, soaking rays into their already golden skin. One girl stood to tell a story and the girls never took their eyes from her. The leader of the pack. She was the embodiment of a California girl: blond multihued highlights, wafer thin with curves in all the right places, tan, and fashionable. More than a few girls’ auras darkened with slivers of forest green as she grew animated in her storytelling.

Her own aura interested me. I noticed the deep violet of pride surface as she captured everyone’s attention. Her friends were giggling like mad now as she reenacted an argument she’d had with someone. I almost didn’t notice Blake sneaking up behind her, his bright yellow motocross suit catching everyone’s attention. What was he doing? He put a finger to his lips at the crowd of girls, then grabbed her around the waist.

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