Carnelian (11 page)

I hadn’t really ventured off campus at all
since I arrived. There was too much to do on campus right now, I
didn’t even think of it.

Seth paused at a road that ran north in
front of us. We were headed in the general direction of the lake,
but I still had no idea where we were going. Seth walked me across
the road to a driveway that was gated. He opened the gate, and I
paused. Seth smiled and pulled me along when I didn’t verbalize my
protest.

The long driveway led to a large house. Seth
didn’t stop at the house as he strolled past to a smaller,
waist-high gate to open, ushering me in. I paused as I viewed the
lake in front of me. Lake Superior was all I could see in front of
me. I stood in awe as the sun reflected off the water. I grew up
near Chicago and had seen Lake Michigan many times before, but the
Great Lakes always amazed me. These bodies of water that were large
enough you couldn’t see across them. The waves lapped up ten feet
away from us.

“A beach picnic.” Seth indicated to the sand
at our feet I failed to even look at. I looked up and back at the
house. It was the only property around here. I looked down the
small beach and up the other side. There were no more homes along
this particular beach.

“Private beach?” I asked.

“Yes, Sangre family beach.” Seth nodded back
to the house. I had wondered why we had walked past someone’s
house, but it made more sense now. This was owned by his family. Of
course the Sangre family wouldn’t just own a house, but a whole
beach as well.

Kicking my shoes off, I wiggled my toes in
the sand. It was still warm even though the sun had set enough
behind the house to now place the entire beach in the shadows. Seth
led the way down the beach a little so that we were not sitting
right in front of the house as he reached in the bag he was
carrying and pulled out a blanket. He laid it on the sand and sat
down, patting a spot next to him for me to sit. I sat down across
from him and the food he was pulling out.

He concentrated on what he was doing, and I
couldn’t help but study him. He was one of the most beautiful guys
I had met. His eyes were framed by long eyelashes that would make
any girl jealous, followed by high cheekbones and a perfect mouth.
I looked away from his mouth. His chest was broad and muscular
which I could look over as he didn’t wear a shirt. The cooler night
didn’t seem to bother him one bit. His arms were perfectly-shaped.
He had a very exotic look to him. He was not from around here, but
where he was from was beyond me.

“I grabbed one of everything at the food
table,” he smiled guiltily, indicating the amount of food between
us now. I could just picture Seth asking some awe-struck, innocent
girl to give him one of everything.

I reached over and grabbed a wrapped
sandwich. It looked like it was roast beef. I wasn’t really the
picky type when it came to food so it didn’t matter.

“You do know that this is enough to feed at
least two more people,” I said, grabbing a small container of
fruit. Seth grinned.

“Not with my family,” he answered. I looked
back down and giggled. Seth was right. I bet a guy Ty’s size could
eat this on his own.

I bit into the sandwich and looked across
the lake. The fading sunlight sparkled off the water. The sound of
the waves on the shore was relaxing as we both just ate in silence.
There was something about Seth. It didn’t feel awkward at all to
just sit and watch the water. He seemed to be as mesmerized with it
as I was. By the time we had our fill, the sun was fully hidden
now. We probably only had thirty minutes or less left of any
sunlight breaking over the horizon.

“I miss the water the most,” Seth said,
interrupting our silence. I nodded though I had no clue what he was
talking about. “Where I come from, it’s normal to build your home
next to the river. Anywhere you go in the house, you can hear the
water lapping against the shoreline.”

“Where are you from?” I asked. If he was
truly in the witness protection program, I’m sure he couldn’t tell
me; but then again, if he was trying to hide, why would he be a
star quarterback? I guess that didn’t add up after all. Seth and
his brothers were still a mystery. Even more now that I was alone
with him. Without the dozens of eyes of every girl around following
him, he wasn’t the cocky ladies’ man any more.

“I don’t know,” Seth replied. “Mr. Sangre
found us and took us in. I don’t know where I come from, and he
told me not to look into it. All I have are my memories and this
charm.” Seth pulled at the rope necklace he wore. Woven into the
necklace was a red stone no bigger than my thumbnail. It looked
familiar to me, but I had no idea why. I wasn’t really the jewelry
type. I only owned a ring and few bracelets, and I didn’t even have
my ears pierced.

“And that’s from your home?” I asked.

“Kind of,” he replied, but didn’t
elaborate.

We fell back into silence. I stole a glance
at him. Seth was intently staring at the water, lost in his own
thoughts. He was such a mystery, and I couldn’t help but want to
know more. Did he truly not even know where he came from? Is that
why he didn’t have a past? He just didn’t know? I glanced at him
and saw that he was still watching the water. The thought struck me
that if he didn’t know, then he could never go home. I couldn’t
imagine never going home.

“So, friend,” Seth said, snapping out of his
thoughts. “Since I can’t tell you much, you tell me, where are you
from? That’s what friends do, right? Talk?” His confidence was
present again, but under the surface it was as if he was trying to
test me.

I smiled and shook my head in exasperation.
Back to the friend act.

“I grew up in a suburb outside Chicago,” I
replied.

“You’ve lived there your whole life?” he
asked.

“As long as I can remember.” I was pretty
sure my grandfather had always owned the home I grew up in. It was
packed too full of his lost finds that graced all the wall and
cabinet space available. In his travels around the world, he wasn’t
just there doing a job, but collecting his own ancient art in the
process. And I don’t think he threw an item away his whole life.
The house was a little too full to up and move.

“And you grew up with family?” he asked. The
question seemed odd. Didn’t everyone grow up with family of some
sorts? His tone even changed, like he was asking me some
super-secret question.

“Ah, yes,” I replied, raising my eyebrows in
question. “My mother and grandfather.”

Seth looked perplexed by my answer. How
could I having family perplex him? Wasn’t he the odd one out, that
he couldn’t even remember where he came from?

“No father?” he asked, changing to friendly
talk again.

“No. I’ve asked my mother several times, but
she said he died a long time ago and I’ll never be able to meet
him. I would have liked to meet him. I mean, yes, I look almost
identical to my mother, but still, he was my dad after all. She
said he died before I was born,” I explained way more than I needed
to.

“I’m sure he would have wanted to meet you,
too,” he answered. Somehow, that reaction seemed unexpected from
him. He might have been playing the cocky friend, but he was still
real under it. “Why does a girl living in the big city travel
across the world?” I was beginning to sense that Seth paid
attention to every detail around him.

“My grandfather is an anthropologist, and
kind of an art historian. He’s a private consultant and goes around
the world authenticating items and dig sites. My mom and I go with
him sometimes.” I couldn’t believe I was actually sitting on the
beach talking with Seth. He was being nice and hadn’t even hit on
me once since we’d been alone. He was slowly changing my mind on
him being just a player.

“Anthropologist?” he questioned, as if he
didn’t know the word.

“You know—someone who studies humans. More
correctly, he studies ancient artifacts and is an expert on many of
them.” Seth nodded his head in understanding.

“Then if I were to show him the carving on
the back side of my charm, he could tell me where I come from?”
Seth sounded a bit like he didn’t believe it was true.

“Probably not,” I answered. “He studies
ancient things. Anything in the last century is too new for him. It
took me almost two years to convince him to get a cell phone. We
don’t even have a TV in the house, and the computer we have is only
because he needs it to do business.”

“Even if this is a family heirloom that has
been handed down to the oldest son for centuries?” Seth asked. It
didn’t look that old.

“Centuries?” I asked.

He smiled sheepishly at me, like I was
catching him doing something wrong. “Okay—I reset the stone into
this necklace,” he admitted. I had to chuckle. He was admitting
that he moved the stone like it was a cardinal sin.

“There’s writing on it?” I asked, getting
back to his question.

“On the backside,” he explained, taking it
off. He handed it over to me and watched me intently.

I took the necklace the by woven rope and
turned it over. Sure enough, there was writing on the back. The
symbols were way too small for me to make out what they could be. I
had seen enough of my grandfather’s things over the years to pick
out some specific ancient scripts, but this was just too small and
the light too dim. I was sure my grandfather would be able to tell
if this was really ancient, and if so, where it came from. I went
to hand it back to Seth, but immediately dropped it when I felt a
sharp part poke the skin in my finger.

“Ow,” I complained, putting my finger in my
mouth before checking it for a wound. Something sharp on the
necklace had just poked me. “You might not want to put that back on
right away,” I warned Seth. “I think there’s something sharp on
it.”

I only caught his awed stare for a moment
before he reached down and picked it back up, hiding his face from
my view. He shoved the necklace in his pocket rather than putting
it back on. Seth looked back to the water and the glow that was
almost gone from the setting sun on the waves.

“Guess we should head back, before Sim gets
really mad at me for taking you away.” Seth piled all the
containers from our picnic into the middle of the blanket before
making it into a makeshift bag. He led the way back down the beach
to his house, leaving the left-over food and empty containers
beside the house. He led the way we came. Soon we were at the
wooded pathway between east campus and west campus.

“Mari,” Seth said, suddenly breaking the
silence and my wandering thoughts. “Please promise me not to walk
this way at night alone. I hear the guys talk, and there’s just
stuff that can go on around here. It isn’t safe at night.”

“Yet, here we are walking through it,” I
replied, teasing him about his concern.

“You’re always safe with me. I promise you
that,” Seth answered, leading the way down the path. I wasn’t
expecting such a serious reply. There wasn’t even a hint of kidding
there.

As we walked on, I stumbled on something
across the pathway. It was too dark to even be sure what it was.
Seth reacted quicker than I did, and he caught me. Standing me
upright, his hands lingered on my waist. He didn’t say anything,
but just stared intently at me in the darkness. I could barely make
out his eyes by now, and wished I could at least try to read his
expression, but it was too dark. Seth finally let go and continued
to lead the way. He was now looking for anything else I might trip
over to save me from that. He was really taking this protecting
thing seriously. I glanced back once to see what I’d tripped on and
was surprised to see someone following us at a distance. Without
knowing what I tripped over and the person lingering behind, I was
thinking that my fall wasn’t exactly an accident, but then again, I
had always had an overactive imagination. I glanced back one more
time and no one was there.

Reaching the dorms brought noise back to our
quiet walk. Seth led the way up to my room. It was if he read my
mind and knew I didn’t want to be a part of the noise in the
courtyard. We stopped in front of my door as I unlocked it. As I
expected, Sim was still at the party. Hopefully she had found
someone to hang out with since I had left with Seth.

“I know for some reason you won’t believe
me, but I’m completely serious about you, Mari,” Seth began. “If my
only way into your life at this point is as your friend, then
that’s what I’ll be, but just know that what I really want is more
than that. I’ve been searching for years for you.”

“You don’t even know me,” I retorted, trying
my best to move the conversation to something else.

“I know all I need to know about you. You
are the girl I’ve been searching for. Now I just need to convince
you that maybe, just maybe, I’m the guy for you.” Seth grinned like
he was accepting the challenge. “Just know that I’m not giving up
on you.” And before I could reply, he leaned down and kissed my
forehead before turning and strolling away, leaving me speechless
before the open doorway.

I marched into my room and slammed the door.
Seth Sangre was good. I could still feel the tingles from where he
had kissed me. Heck, I could still feel his hands around my waist
as he caught me from falling. He was such a puzzle to me now. He’d
been nothing but a gentleman all night. In fact, he only kissed me
on the forehead when I was standing there shocked, even though he
could have kissed me on the lips. I probably wouldn’t have even
pushed him away if he had tried. He was a riddle to me, filled with
secrets, yet when he said he would protect me, I knew he was
telling the truth. Most players I’d known in high school would
never go that far for a girl, even just to impress them. Seth was
turning out to not be the person I thought he was, but even so,
there was no way to be sure. If I said yes and went out with him,
and he turned out to just be the normal, player jerk, I’d be the
one with a broken heart.