Somewhere to Dream (Berkley Sensation) by Graham Genevieve

Author:Graham, Genevieve [Graham, Genevieve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2013-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

PART 3

Adelaide

CHAPTER 24

Terror From Trust

Of course I knew they would give Jesse the choice of whether to stay or go. I suppose I could have told him that would eventually come, but for some reason I hadn’t. It was strange, because initially I couldn’t wait for him to leave, and then, well, then I hoped they would change their minds and not permit him to go. Then he wouldn’t have a choice. He couldn’t leave. He’d have to stay . . . with me.

I had always had a choice. I had chosen to stay with the Cherokee when Maggie married Andrew, when she moved into her beautiful home with him, near her new friends who had come all the way from Scotland. They were good people, and I had never felt even the slightest fear of those men, for some reason. Every one of them was large, gruff on the outside, intelligent within, and yet I’d never thought twice about being around them. They treated me like glass. As if I were their little sister. I could have been happy with them had I chosen to stay there. And I would have been kept safe.

But I hadn’t. I had chosen to stay here in the village, with people who lived with their ancestors forever perched on their shoulders like angels, people with a passion and dedication to their world, with an unselfish need to love one another with ferocious loyalty. With people who accepted me despite all my fears and oddities, people who taught, included, and understood me. These were the same people who wore practically nothing and shrieked like demons around a fire, singing primal, ancient songs that froze my blood every time I heard them. People who thought nothing of slitting an enemy’s gut open then rejoicing at his suffering.

As a result of my decision, I lived an uneasy life, not knowing where I belonged, not liking either option. Something had always been missing.

Then Jesse had come along, clearly not belonging either.

“You see?” he asked.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Say it again?”

He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He frowned at me, frustrated. “How much didn’t you hear? I’ve been talking awhile now.”

“Since you told me about Ahtlee’s decision, and how you weren’t sure what to do.”

“Huh.”

We sat side by side on cold granite boulders, wrapped in an extra layer of deerskin. The breath of warm summer air had chilled to a brisk warning of what was coming, stirring greens into golds, shaking the first layer of loose, dead leaves from rustling branches. I’d led Jesse back to my favourite place atop the mountain, the place where I had first explained Jesse’s Cherokee name to him. Where Soquili had once told me about the beginning of the world. On our way up, the pathway had been slick with fallen leaves, rain-soaked, and rotting. Jesse caught my hand when I slipped, and I’d wanted both to cling to him and to run from him.

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