BRIDGER (13 page)

Liam wasn’t ready to let it go, though.
 
“Jesse, you’re the one that should getting chewed out, not me.
 
You have the whole lot out there and you can’t keep a peg on her.
 
What does it take, a GPS device?
 
A leash?
 
There were three of you and she still could have been anywhere.
 
What if something happened?”

“Nothing happened.
 
We would know if it did.
 
You just need to make sure that Ashlyn doesn’t get in the way,” Jesse said.

A pause ensued.
 
“What do you mean by that?” Liam asked, his question obviously a layered one.

I was in the way?
 
So last night’s conversation hadn’t meant a thing.
 
Liam was just doing his job; keeping me out of the way of whatever else the rest of them were up to.

I should have known that Liam didn’t like me.
 
He was out of my league, anyway.
 
Hadn’t I always said it would take the hand of God to find someone interested in me?
 
Here was the proof.

Tess intercepted the argument before it could get out hand.
 
“Jesse, back off.
 
Liam can handle his job.
 
You need to do yours.”

Someone let out an infuriated sigh.
 
Slamming through the saloon-like doors that separated the kitchen from the living room, Jesse came to a halt right before he nearly ran me over.

I made sure the intent behind my question was understood.
 
I glared at Liam as he stood behind Jesse, both of them staring at me.
 
“Um, hi.
 
Am I in your way?”

Liam looked appropriately abashed.
 
“Ashlyn, I can explain…”

“Don’t worry about it.
 
Jamie and I can find something to do and stay out of your way.”
 
Turning on my heel, I walked back down the hall, going back to the room that housed the person I least wanted to talk to right now.

Knocking on the door, Jamie came and opened it up. She was still sulking. "Back to yell at me some more, Mom?"

She had some nerve. Walking in, I grabbed my book bag and threw some money and food in it. "No, I was curious if you would want to show me around the city, actually."

Jamie regained her usual bouncy step immediately. Yanking the towel off her head, she ran into the bathroom to put on clothes. "Of course! Let's do it!" There was a pause. "Wait, is everyone else coming, too?"

I smiled, knowing my response would make her day. "No, we need some girl time. It'll just be us."

A squeal erupted from the bathroom. Today was going to be interesting.

* * *

Once we were away from the overpopulated, tension-ridden house, Jamie went back to being her normal, bubbly self.
 
We walked all over Cork, catching rides in the backs of trucks as people passed.
 
We covered an impressive distance, having started early in the morning and just now heading home as the sun was setting.

We went to the Blarney Castle Estate and took pictures of each other kissing the Blarney stone.
 
After that we went to the Cork Vision Centre to learn about the history of the town.
 
Jamie was a huge history buff, which had been a surprise to me when I first met her.
 
She ate up all the historic stuff the Vision Centre had to offer, buying multiple maps and making me swear we’d go to Desmond Castle.
 
Apparently it had been used as a prison for captured American sailors during the American War of Independence.

Snapping her video camera shut for what felt like the hundredth time, Jamie sighed with satisfaction. “We’re going to be able to make such awesome movies from all this footage.”

I laughed. “No one will ever see those videos anyway, James. You know you’re not allowed to post those on the Internet without first showing me.”

“You never know when they could come in handy. Helps to remember all the good stuff that happens.”

As we walked, she turned the camera back on and put it in my face. “Close up! I want to remember how happy you were to meet your family. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

As the sun set and we were on our way back to the little house, I shared with Jamie the argument between Jesse and Liam. After finishing the frustrated tirade, Jamie said nothing.
 
She just continued to kick a particularly large rock she had found along the road about a mile back.

“I mean, why would I be in the way of them doing their job?
 
And what is their job when you’re not here? What do they do when they’re not making sure you don’t get kidnapped in the middle of the night when you decide to go on a random hike? Didn't Tess say they were security guards? And the other thing is, Liam was telling me how all the folklore from Ireland was true. He acted like he really believed it.”

Jamie’s head snapped in my direction. “What folklore?”

“You know, the stuff Memaw has always talked about. Fairies and goblins and whatnot.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know, not really. It seems like a bunch of urban legends. I mean, he talked about these things called Changelings and how they’d taken his brother, Aiden. I think he’s just really confused and upset about losing Aiden. He’s just not handling it well.” Talking about it was not helping my mood. I punted the rock Jamie had been kicking across a fence into a yard.
 

Jamie breathed a sigh of relief and laughed. “There for a second I thought we were gonna have to institutionalize you,” she motioned to the lawn the rock had flown into. “You know, you could replace the field goal kicker for the football team.
 
That was pretty good.”

Grinning, I shook my head. “I think I’ll keep my pursuits to music and being able to eat more than anyone else in the entire world.”

“If you could do both at the same time, you might be onto something.
 
You could be a sideshow act,” Jamie said, slowing down.

Matching her pace, I lifted my eyes to the horizon.
 
“We really need to get back.
 
It’s getting late.”

“Want to stop by the convenience store and grab some snacks?
 
We could go by the pool hall as well; they’re close to each other over this next hill…” Jamie left the offer hanging.

In all honesty, the pool hall didn’t sound the least bit fun.
 
“We can stop and get some snacks, but I don’t want to hang out with any creepers.”
 

Jamie puckered her lips into a pout.
 
“They’re not creepers, but fine.”

We grabbed some identifiable snacks at the convenience store and then continued on our way home.
 
Jamie eyed the pool hall with sadness as we passed.
 
The loud ruckus coming from inside did nothing to convince me it was somewhere to spend any amount of time.
 
I pulled Jamie along.
 
She finally gave up and returned to our previous conversation.

“You know Ash, I don’t think Liam is up to anything good.
 
It seems like him and Jesse are trying to get in between us.”

I was instantly defensive.
 
“What are you talking about?
 
They’re family.”

“Oh, so you’re drooling over your relation?” She teased, rolling her eyes.

“You know what I mean.”

The guys couldn’t be up to anything bad.
 
I wholeheartedly believed they were just looking out for our best interests, which was tough to do when Jamie was running all over town at midnight.
 
The trip across the countryside started to seem a bit foolish; wasn’t that the kind of stuff Memaw had warned me against?
 
We were lucky nothing had happened. Tess was probably worried sick at this point.
 

A black truck slowed as it neared us, an old man sticking his head out of the driver’s window.
 
He looked older than time itself, his skin layered and translucent.
 
I could see half the veins in his face and his eyes were sunken in, his eyelids drooping over them like a basset hound.

As I tried to figure out how he could even see out of his eyelids to drive, Jamie squealed in delight. She ran to the window as if she’d known the old man forever.
 
“Andy!
 
How are you?”

Andy?
 
Who was Andy?
 
Trying to figure out how Jamie could know Father Time, I stood in place, apprehensive about the situation.
 
This just seemed too weird.
 
It felt like the temperature had dropped fifteen degrees since Andy had pulled up.
 
The guy gave me the creeps for some reason.
 
Nervous, I played with the pendant on Memaw’s necklace through my shirt.
 
It was still as cold as ever, even after being against my skin all day.

Jamie introduced us.
 
“Ash, this is Andy.
 
We played pool together last night.”

Andy didn’t seem to fit the bill of a person Jamie would play pool with.
 
Actually, he didn’t fit any bill of Jamie’s.
  
She was no Mother Theresa and she definitely didn’t hang out in old folks’ homes back in the States.
 
I nodded, waving to the man out of common courtesy.
 
He nodded back, smiling as though he had just won the lottery by Jamie showing up.
 

His smile revealed many missing teeth.
 
The ones that remained didn’t look like they’d been brushed in a long, long time. “Do you ladies need a ride?”

“Oh, that’d be great,” sang Jamie, hopping into the bed of the truck.
 
“We’re only about three miles down the road, on the left.
 
It’s a little cottage.
 
You can’t miss it.”

She was settling into the back, which meant there was no hope of turning down this gesture from the strange man.
 
I sighed and used the tire as a ladder in.
 
Still uncomfortable with this arrangement, I sat on the corner of the bed, not completely getting in.
 
Jamie noticed and called me on it.

“He’s not a rapist, Ash.”

I rolled my eyes.
 

“It’s only three miles,” she whined.

“It’s fine.
 
We need to get back, anyway,” I said, holding onto the edges of the bed.
 
“Let’s go.”

Jamie began our previous conversation yet again.
 
She wasn’t going to let this go.
 
“But, like I was saying, there’s something fishy about the guys.
 
I just think it’s odd they’re all about stalking me and keeping you out of the way.
 
That sounds like horror movie material.
 
I mean what are they expecting, a serial killer to come after us?”

She was mixing up all of my words, jumbling them into a different order.
 
However, when she put it that way, she had a point.
 
I wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.
 
It seemed like everyone had a secret they were keeping except for her.
 
I was glad to have one person I could confide in and trust.

“We should go play pool tonight with Andy,” she said as we came around the bend and the Walsh’s house came into sight.

I was going to listen to Memaw and stay with the guys and Tess.
 
It wasn’t a hard promise to keep.
 
I enjoyed their presence, even if we had gotten in an argument that morning.
 
“No, Jamie, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”