She tucked her leg underneath her body as she turned toward him. “Want to talk about that?”
Never had she sounded more like a therapist than that moment.
“I’m not your patient.”
“I wasn’t thinking you were. It’s just you brought it up, so it makes me think you might want to talk…or you could be like me and just want to share stuff without diving too deeply into it.”
“What don’t you want to talk about?” he asked, turning the conversation back to her, because no, he didn’t want to discuss the sullen teenager he’d been.
“The fact that most of the time I needed to be the same as my friends to feel like I fit in,” she admitted. “Ridiculous, right? I mean, I’m a Colton, so I already have that and everyone knew who I was. But I’m not like everyone else. What about you?”
“Same. Not like anyone else, but really hearing you now, I realize we were probably just like everyone else. There is something about being a teenager that makes you feel so isolated. Like you’re the only one who’s not fitting in.”
She put her hand on the back of his neck; her fingers were cold, but then she leaned up and kissed him. Just the side of his cheek. “You’re smart.”
“Maybe. Not as smart as I’d like to be,” he admitted. Realizing he was minutes away from taking the kiss he really wanted but she’d tucked her arm back under her blanket. “I’m still not sure there’s a real connection between the women who’ve been taken all over the state.”
Safe topic. Sort of.
“What is the link?” she asked.
“It’s loose. They were all in foster care. But not the same family services or any other connection.”
“Except that they have no family, right? I mean, that’s a connection,” Ava said.
“Yeah. But it tenuous. Why would someone target women like that?” he asked her.
She tilted her head to the side. “I’m not sure. But they’d be able to do whatever they wanted without anyone causing an uproar over their disappearances. I mean, in most cases it was only after they didn’t show up to work for a few days which is how Fern was listed as missing.”
Chay took another bite of his stew. “And then she went into the system. People do leave and move on. The fire and the circumstances that Fern outlined are the only reason I’m pursuing this line of investigation. That and Annie Ross.”
Ava put her bowl on the ground. “I’m curious about her as well. What was she doing all the way out here?”
“Something we might never know. The only thing, and it’s a weak link that connects her to Fern, is that Annie had filed amissing-persons report on a friend of hers. And both Annie and her friend had aged out of the foster care system, like Fern.”
She tipped her head to the side, studying him. “Back to your theory. It does seem worth pursuing.”
“Maybe. I mean, right now we know two men drugged and kept Fern in a makeshift cabin. Annie was found just wandering in the wilderness. Unless someone had a grudge against those two women…there’s not much there.”
A grudge had been his first thought, but neither woman moved in the same circles or had anything really in common. So he was back to someone—a gang, maybe—targeting woman who aged out of foster care.
“I bet you’ll figure it out,” Ava said.
“Why’s that?”
“You seem like a very thorough man, Chay. Someone who doesn’t give up until they get answers.”
He put his own bowl on the ground next to hers, stretching his arm on the bench behind them and drawing her closer to him.
“I am a very thorough man,” he confirmed, bringing his head closer to hers. “Right now I need to confirm that one kiss we shared wasn’t a fluke.”
“Fluke?”
“Yeah, did I imagine you tasted better than anything I’ve ever tasted before or am I making that up?”
“We better find out.”
He tasted like stew, Chay and the wildness of being outside. She burrowed closer to him, pulling her blanket with her as she shifted so she could deepen their kiss. He felt so right, tasted so good, and for the first time that day, she really felt like she wasn’t on edge.
