Losing Francesca (5 page)

I drag my attention back to the lessons going on in front of me.

The ponies are cantering around the arena now. The girls who were trailered in are fair riders, but Aimee has a very nice seat and her leg position, regardless of her sloppy foot, is also excellent. Either that or her pony has a very smooth gait and her legs are glued to the pony's belly. Aimee blows those rich kids out of the water with her skills.

The oldest rich girl is just rounding the far corner of the arena when the dirt bikes come racing down the back road. Her pony shies, not bad, but she's just a little girl, and she falls sideways in slow motion until she plunks on the ground and starts to cry.

I have to hold down my laugh.

Angela is waving her fist and screaming at the troublemakers, but they are long gone.

I wonder if that was dirt bike boy? I couldn't see them, there are too many trees and shrubs in the way from this angle.

The fallen girl refuses to get back on the pony and suddenly the lesson is over. Angela walks with the girl's parents apologizing while Aimee just sits on her pony in the middle of the arena, a very sad look on her face.

"
Cosa succede
?" I call out to her.

"I wanted to ride! And that stupid girl…"

I look back over my shoulder to see if the parents are listening, but Angela has them all the way across the parking lot where they are trying to load the unhappy pony in a trailer.

"Shhh!" I say. Then motion for her to take her pony back out to the perimeter and continue. She smiles at me and breaks into a smooth canter.

I watch her do this for several minutes and it's like she never gets tired. I wonder how long she'll keeping going round and round before she stops?

There is a small cross jump in the middle of this arena. It's a very low obstacle and most horses would step over it instead of waste the effort and energy it takes to jump. So when Aimee comes around the next time I point at it and she squeals.

I don't need to tell her twice, she aims straight for it and her pony lifts his feet like a pro. Aimee bobbles a little, yanking on the reins, but she stays on. I clap for her and call her over.

Her face is flushed with happiness and she's all out of breath and sweating like crazy from the cantering. She stops her pony and leans down over the fence at me. "I think I love you, Francesca. I hope you never leave."

I smile at her and nod so I don't break her happy moment, but inside I hope she's wrong.

August fifteenth cannot come soon enough for me.

Chapter Six - Francesca

I spend the rest of the afternoon helping Aimee gush about her pony, who is called Heavenly, even though he is a boy and that's kind of a girly name. We wash him, towel him down, brush him out, we even pretty up his hooves with oil and make them sparkle. There is a show here at the farm this weekend, she tells me, and that's why it's so busy. She's not allowed to participate because she's Frank's daughter, but she and Lindsey ride in shows almost every weekend all summer long.

Sean and the other boys, Jake and Quinn, are gone the whole day. Aimee says that the twins hang out with the Mason boys, even though Sean forbids it. No one really listens to Sean when he's not around, but if he is—she wags her finger at me during this part of her speech—you better not let him know you're not listening to him.

I nod. Sean does look like a pretty straight guy. I can't imagine these Mason boys are as bad as he makes them out to be and I shudder to think what he'd say about my father, given the chance.

We are just finishing up braiding the pony's mane when all the boys suddenly appear.

"Well," Aimee says. "It must be seven o'clock."

I just stare at her with a weird look on my face.

"Dinner time. Everyone has to be home for dinner or you're in big trouble. The only time you get out of it is if you're Sean and you're working, or when Lindsey and I are at a show. And even then, we have dinner at seven somehow. Even if it's just pulling off at a McDonald's and eating with the horses in the parking lot."

That sounds nice, actually. To have something so constant in your life as a child. My life was anything but constant. I'm not complaining, we are filthy rich and I have been given every opportunity. I spent half of my time away at school, but I've never felt unwanted. It was for my own safety. And I have a father who loves me and my stepmom, Sophia, who treats me like I'm hers. She was in Greece when all this happened in America and they wouldn't let her come see me after I was confiscated, so I have no idea how this is affecting her. I imagine she's pretty upset, I mean she's raised me since I was seven.

We walk into the house together and the whole place smells like Italian food. I smile at everyone in the dining room and they laugh and start pretending to speak Italian, but all they can say are food dishes.

We eat lasagna and pizza. The thin kind. Everyone is happy and chatty, even the boys, and I'm comfortable and if not happy, at least not sad. It's an improvement from last night when all I said was
I'm not Fiona Sullivan
.

And… that's when the questions start.

From Frank.

"So where did you go to school, Francesca?" is the first one.

I shake my head at him. "
Privato
," I say.

"None of your business," Jake translates, laughing. But Frank is not amused.

"Why can't you say?"

My breath huffs out in annoyance. What part of 'none of your business' doesn't he understand?

Lindsey changes the subject. "What do you like to study at school, Chessie?"

"Science, I bet," Aimee snorts.

"
No, no. Io odio la matematica. Mi piace l'arte
."

"Art, she says," Sean translates.

"Oh," Aimee squeals. "I got you paper and colored pencils. Did you see them on your desk?"

I shake my head. "
No, sono stata fuori tutto il giorno
."

"She was outside all day. Where did you learn to ride, Francesca?"

"
Ho dei cavalli e prendo lezioni. Sin da quando ero bambina
."

Sean nods at me. "She has her own horses. And she took lots of lessons."

"Well, maybe you can tell us where you learned English, Francesca?" Frank's question comes out like a challenge, not friendly banter like the others.

I scowl at him and simply answer, "
Privato
."

Frank throws down his fork and it bounces along the table. We all jump and Angela is yelling at him, but he puts his hand up. "You know English, yet you refuse to talk to us? You make us do tricks for you, like pets or something? Do you think you can come here and make all the rules, Francesca?"

"Frank, stop!" Angela scolds.

But Frank isn't interested. "This is my house and I make the rules. So from now on, if you refuse to speak to us in English, then I refuse to let you speak Italian. You can be silent and say nothing for the next seven weeks because I'll be damned if I'll let you come in here and act like you don't care that you might be my lost daughter and Sean is your brother. I will not allow you to rip us apart again."

He shoves his chair back, making an awful screech as he drags it across the floor, and then he walks out.

We all sit and stare at each other.

And then I say, "
Mi scusi
," and go upstairs.

I pace my small room. It's really not anywhere near as big as the other rooms up here, but I guess that's the trade-off for the terrace. I'd like to go out there right now and pretend I'm on my own terrace back home, but I hear the boys even through the closed doors. Sean is talking to Jake and Quinn and then they go over to his carriage house.

I lie down in the bed and the tears start to flow. Just a small leak at first, but soon everything that's happened to me over the past few months comes back in a rush. All the nights I had to spend in hiding so my dad couldn't find me and steal me away. And they did a good job, too, those FBI people. Because my dad never did find me. I'm sure he tried his best, but this is not our country and here they only see him as someone bad.

He has no power here.

I turn over in the bed and lie there until I'm so tired from crying I simply fall asleep.

Chapter Seven - Brody

I stay out in my garage for the rest of the day. Just doing stupid shit with the Jeep because I simply cannot think straight.
Fiona
. It's the only thing on my mind.

How the hell do I come to terms with this? She's back.

It's almost too much to accept, like the day my parents died. It will probably take a while for reality to sink in.

I don't even bother to call for a pizza when Case and Parker start complaining about dinner, and if Renn was here, he'd be pissed that I'm shirking my duties over a girl. But they survive because if there's one thing we know how to do, it's survive.

The thing that makes it wrong isn't the fact that I refuse to get them food, but that I don't care. I honestly, in all the time my mom and dad have been dead, have never
not
cared if my brothers had dinner to eat. Never.

Until today.

When Fiona came home.

I sit on my dirt bike. I've been sitting here for a while, actually. Thinking I'm gonna ride right down there and demand to see her. What can they say, really?

The laugh comes out automatically. Frank would definitely call the cops on me, that's what they could say.

But I need to see her. I need to talk to her, to ask her questions. Where was she? Who took her? Why did she leave? Why does she refuse to be Fiona now?

Because Fiona Sullivan is my soulmate. I knew it from the first time we played together. My mom used to babysit her and Sean back when we were all very small and they'd come over for a few hours a couple times a week. I remember looking at her when she was four years old and I was six, thinking to myself,
I love that girl. That is the girl I will marry.

And sure, little kids think that shit all the time, but I still felt that way when she started school the next year and we shared a bus seat on the way home.

My head sinks down onto the handlebars again.

I can't just drive up there on my bike. Frank would shit his pants and Sean really would want to fight me then, because he warned me. And maybe I can beat his ass and maybe I can't, but I'm really not interested in fighting him, because my Fiona would not want me to fight her brother.

I pull out my phone and check the time. It's a little past eleven. I could walk over and try to see if she's on the terrace. It's only about a mile down the road.

I cover the distance between our houses at a jog, and then regret it when I get there and I'm sweating like a mechanic under a car at high noon. I take off my shirt and tuck it into the waistband of my jeans to cool down and scope this shit out.

Sean is definitely still awake because I can hear voices coming from his house near the back barns.

Fiona's window is dark. Shit. Do I want to wake her up?

Definitely.

I jump up and grab the lowest limb of the old oak tree that leads up to her terrace and then shimmy my way up several more boughs until I'm even with the railing. And then I simply step over and I'm there. Mere feet from her sleeping body.

I check down below to make sure Sean and the others stay put, then sneak across the terrace and try and peek in her window.

It's too damn dark, so I have only one option. I knock. Softly. Just a little tap, tap, tap. Then lean in on the glass to see if this wakes her.

Nothing.

Quinn and Jake are coming out of Sean's house now and I sink to my knees and wait for them to go inside the main house. They are not quiet at all and I can hear them inside.

Did this wake her? I peek in again, but I stay kneeling, just in case Sean is still outside.

Nothing. Damn, she's a pretty sound sleeper. I knock again, but this time I make it count.

I know she heard it this time because she falls right out of bed.

Chapter Eight - Francesca

I'm hearing things. Tapping noises, maybe the branches from the tree outside. Is it windy? I strain to listen for wind, but it seems still to me. I have no windows open because this room is air-conditioned, and I prefer that at nighttime, even when it's cool.

I close my eyes again and try to go back to sleep, but then I can hear the boys outside. They get loud when they come in. Maybe everyone is still awake? Because they don't seem concerned with the noise level. I open one eye and try and see the digital clock on my desk. 11:15. Not too late for summer, but still. There seems to be a lot going on and the boys are not settling down below me. I wonder if my room is above theirs?

My eyes are still so tired from crying that I don't even care and try to go back to sleep.

The knocking coming from my terrace door scares me so bad I fall out of bed and thump to the floor.