CHAPTER ONE
MAEVE
“Idon’t care if we’re late,” Kelly mumbled as she twisted a strand of cotton candy around her fingers and licked it off. “This diabetic coma I’m about to inhale is a hundred-and-twenty percent worth it.”
“Nothing can be a hundred-and-twenty percent worth it,” I reminded her, biting into the enormous ball of cotton candy we held between us. The pink fluff dissolved on my tongue.This is way better than a birthday cake.“It’s a mathematical impossibility.”
Kelly made a face at me, her mouth full of cotton candy. “No math on your birthday. Now be quiet and help my finish this sugary fluff, Einstein. We’re running late.”
My adoptive sister was the only person I let get away with calling me Einstein. Being the lone science nerd in Coopersville, Arizona, was hard enough without having to deal with a nickname that confirmed to the world I didn’t fit in. There was a jock in sixth grade who tormented me with the name. It lasted until I “accidentally” tripped him in chem lab. His head hit the corner of a lab table and he head to get stitches. Don’t be fooled, kids, science kills.
He left me alone after that, but then I made the mistake of chopping my brown hair into a layered pixie cut, and the kids started to call me a whole other kind of name, when they bothered to talk to me, which wasn’t often.
Kelly might be annoying as hell sometimes, but as well as being my sister, she was my only friend. No way was I going to hurt her any more than I already had. So I was stuck with Einstein.
We shoved our way through the thick crowd that had gathered on the fairway. Harried-looking mothers tugged their children from sideshow to sideshow, dishing out tiny plastic tokens like they were prescription painkillers. A long line at the shooting range stretched past the hot dog stand as the high school jocks waited for their chance to show off their skills.
Our parents told us to meet them at the Ferris wheel twenty minutes ago for some awkward Crawford family fun time. Mom was big on family fun time, especially on birthdays, andespeciallyif it included wholesome and PG-rated activities like attending the annual Coopersville county fair, which occurred every year on my birthday. It’s not exactly a twenty-first birthday blowout, but Kelly could make anything fun. She dragged me away from our parents as soon as we got inside the gates. She didn’t want anyone from school to see us with our parents. It was bad enough for her being the pastor’s daughter, but being seen with them in public was just too much.
I couldn’t really care less. I graduated high school two years ago. I’d been living at home since then, taking advanced physics classes at a community college in Phoenix while I saved money for a real college. I didn’t really hang out with anyone apart from Kelly and the folk in the college astronomy club.
Plus, I was checking out of Coopersville in T-minus forty-three days. My mind flashed to the MIT acceptance letter with a full academic scholarship pinned to the fridge at home. FinallyI was getting out of podunkesville and starting my lifefor real. Goodbye horse manure and creationism class in school and jocks ruling the world – in just forty-three days, I’d be sitting in classes at one of the best colleges in the country learning about the universe from top physicists and astronomers.
Hey, gorgeous.” Some dumb guy fell in step beside us, interrupting my vision of receiving my acceptance into the NASA graduate space program. “Where are you off to in such a hurry? All the fun is right here.”
I didn’t bother to slow down. He couldn’t be talking to me with my pixie hair (now sporting a vivid pink stripe through the bangs), and my boring hazel eyes. My birth mother was British and died during childbirth, so the only thing I had of hers was a name no one could pronounce and skin that burned at the verymentionof sun. Not exactly a turn-on for the opposite sex when surrounded by bronzed, blonde Arizona beauties like my sister.
Speak of the damsel – Kelly switched on her hot-guy-incoming smile, but I grabbed her arm and started dragging her away. She shot me a filthy look I pretended not to notice. It wasmybirthday, after all. The guy was hot, I’d give her that – he spoke with a British accent and stood out as much as I did. Dark hair tinged with gold flopped over his face, with broad shoulders and black-and-grey tattoos peeking out from his collar and cuffs, and luminous skin that looked as though it hadn’t seen the sun in decades, clear and smooth as crystal.
He also had cold, predatory eyes and a self-satisfied smirk instead of a smile. I already disliked him. But Kelly dug her heels into the dirt, and we ground to a halt.Fine, whatever.
“I haven’t seen you around before, sugar,” Kelly purred, reaching out and touching the stranger’s arm in that overly-familiar Arizona way. “You new to Coopersville?”
“I’m just passing through.”
“Ah, a wanderer?”
“You might say that.” He flashed Kelly his cat-ate-the-canary smirk, but his crystal eyes remained focused on me. A flicker of unease squirreled around my gut.
“We can’t talk now,” I said, squeezing Kelly’s arm. “We’ve got to meet someone.”
“We’re going to the Ferris wheel.” Kelly batted her eyelashes at the guy. “You want to join us?”
Damn it, Kelly.Forget subtlety. I elbowed her in the ribs. She winced but continued to ignore me.
“It would be my pleasure to escort two fine ladies.” His deep, velvety voice caressed my ears, but something about it seemed… off. His accent was almosttooperfect, like he’d practiced every word in the mirror beforehand. He inserted himself between us, wrapping his arms around our shoulders. His hand snaked down the edge of my tank top and I flinched away. I didn’t want him touching me.
Kelly shot me a look of ‘stop cramping my style.’ And I remembered that I was leaving her alone in forty-three days, so I clamped my mouth shut and tried not to think about the guy’s arm around my neck.
He kept his gaze fixed on Kelly as we pushed our way through the crowd, but then his hand slipped again, his fingers brushing against my breast.Oh, no you don’t.I ducked out from under his arm. “Don’t touch me, creep.”
“Whoa, ease up, sweetheart.” He held one hand up in mock surrender, the other arm still firmly wrapped around Kelly’s shoulder. I noticed his other hand pressed against the side of her breast. Kelly shot me a look.
Stop being so uncool, she mouthed.
Whatever. If cool meant having to hang out with this bellend (I loved that word; picked it up from a British TV show, and I got to say it a lot because my parents didn’t know what it meant), then I was perfectly happy being a square. I thoughtabout putting my foot down and dragging Kelly away, but I knew the guy couldn’t do much in the crowded fair, and Kelly could handle herself.
I shrugged. “Three’s a crowd. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just meet you guys at the wheel. Kelly, just remember what we learned in school about gloves.”
