"So, where are we going? Because last I checked, your house was that-a-way." I chucked a thumb over my shoulder after Sebastian made a right out of the airport parking lot instead of a left. A dozen or so bangles jangled cheerfully on my wrist, the gold glinting in the midmorning sun. I had to admit it was a nice change being out in the sun without the humidity of India that made it seem like you were choking on a mouthful of water every time you inhaled.
"We're not going home," Julian said beside me, tapping away furiously on his phone.
"Then where are we going?"
I wriggled in my seat, trying to get comfortable. Jammed between two of the quads in the back of Sebastian's Integra wasn't much of an improvement to being suffocated by the huge lady on the plane and the sniggering boy. Clay accidentally elbowing me in the ribs only fuelled that thought and although most of my anger was directed at Jumbo Lady I shoved him back, squirming even more.
"If you sat still, I wouldn't be jabbing you so much," he said, wrenching his arm from where it was mashed between us to throw it over my shoulders. I sighed irritably and leaned over him to wind down the window. They'd stuffed me into the middle seat with Seb's logic being that I was small enough for him to see over when he had to look out the rear window. Sucks to be short. I slumped into Clay's side, his lean body actually making a halfway decent pillow. Though considering I'd only slept for about an hour in the past two days, I wouldn't have complained if someone handed me a jagged rock to use. Unable to keep my eyes open any longer I let them slide shut, only half listening to Julian's response to my earlier question.
"The where is a surprise. And we would have brought Duncan's jeep but Speedy Gonzales over there went and crashed it, so it's in the shop. Guess that's what he gets for listening to his -"
His reply was cut off by a strangled noise somewhere halfway between a cry of protest and a growl. I snapped my eyes open and gave Duncan a startled look.
"Julian!" he hissed, twisting in his seat to pin his brother with a murderous glare. "Not now."
Julian flicked Duncan an annoyed glance before sliding his eyes my way. I raised my eyebrows in question but when he spoke, it was to Duncan.
"If not now, then when? Because I'm getting tired of lying for you, especially at the expense of others."
Okay, cryptic much? I frowned, suddenly annoyed at being out of the loop. "Okay," I snapped at Duncan. "What's going on?"
"Nothing," he said too quickly, giving me a strained smile. "Just, try to get some shut eye, yeah? Because for what Mom has planned for you, you're going to need all the rest you can get."
I clenched my teeth at his obvious dismissal, not willing to let it drop.
"Duncan, I -" but he'd already turned back around, turning the volume on the stereo up to an ear splitting crescendo.
I sighed, equal parts aggravated and bone tired. Fine. I'd let whatever it was slide for now, but only because I'd have to scream to be heard and I got the feeling it was a conversation best had in private. So instead of pressing the issue I let my eyes droop shut once more, and despite the rambunctious music bouncing off the car's interior was out before my head hit Clay's shoulder.
"You have got to be kidding me," I wheezed as I took in the ginormous cliff face.
It had taken just over two hours to get here - one and a half on the road, with the last forty minutes being a hike through the wilderness. I slept blissfully in the car, so tired that I'd actually been snoring louder than the stereo according to Julian. And when they'd woken me and I'd peered blearily out the windows at the dirt clearing Seb had parked in, I'd had a brief moment of disoriented panic where I thought, this is where they leave me in the middle of nowhere to die, before Seb had cracked up at my horrified expression and said it was all part of the surprise Mrs. S had planned for me. I relaxed visibly until they'd informed me that we'd be continuing on foot from here. Into the dense woods.
Now, I was fit, and liked to think I had a good sense of both balance and agility, but Jesus Christ, by the time we'd come to a stop at the cliff face, I was wheezing so bad I sounded like a chain smoker with a twenty year habit, and I was leaning heavily on Julian, trying to ease the burn in my calf muscles.
Note to self: get back on that endurance training programme Dad had saddled me with last time I'd seen him. I'm sure he'd cluck his tongue disapprovingly if he found out I'd ditched it two days after starting it. And then laugh when I told him it would have come in handy today.
I wiped the back of my hand across my sweaty brow, ruffling my bangs that were so long they half shielded my jade green eyes. I'd been trying to grow them out, and while the rest of my waist length hair was growing at maximum speed, it seemed my fringe had forgotten how.
"This is her surprise?" I continued when I was no longer desperate for oxygen, but still breathing a tad faster than normal. "Throw the jetlagged teen at a cliff face and make her climb it?"
Any other day I would have been psyched. Rock climbing was a favourite pastime and a competitive sport in the Sinclair family, one I'd adopted and been practising for the last decade.
At first I'd started tagging along because a just-turned-eight year old staying home alone was grounds for child neglect. Then, after watching the boys and their mother scramble up the walls of the indoor rock climbing arena with such ease and grace, I'd decided to give it a go. Turned out I was a natural, or so I thought until I realised Mrs. S was actually hoisting me up using the harness, and I was scaling the wall so fast my hands and feet barely brushed the colourful rocks protruding in front of me. But seriously, a couple of months of going every weekend and I found myself enjoying it, even to the point where I anticipated the next trip.
My parents, who had been in some far off place, most likely somewhere too dangerous for a child to be, had even sprung to get me my own gear. So every time I was in the states; every time my mother sent me to the Sinclairs because she was entering dangerous territory and my father was out on some classified mission, Mrs. S would prepare an extra special rock climbing expedition in lieu of my homecoming. Before we'd progressed to outdoor walls and actual cliff faces she'd scouted out all of the rock climbing arenas in the state of Montana, trying to find ones that would provide some sort of challenge for us. In turn, to keep up the harsh conditioning my body was still growing used to, I'd started climbing in the different countries I was travelling with my parents. Finding mountains, a hundred foot high rocks with the right footing, even settling for large trees when there was nothing but flat land for miles. It had made for dangerous playtime, especially since my parents didn't have the time to keep a close eye on me, but somehow I managed not to break my neck. I used the knowledge Mrs S. had given me about grips and knot tying, how to free climb and use all of the proper equipment.
As a result, my body had eventually accepted and embraced the flexibility needed to manoeuvre myself around seventy feet in the air with nothing but a thin rope between me and death My arms had stopped screaming in protest every time I slipped and ended up dangling single-handedly. And the muscles in my legs had stopped tearing painfully every time I had to sit back on my haunches with my foot at such a precarious and unnatural angle. On the downside, my nails were always a lost cause, short and chipped, sometimes even ripped clean off when I forgot to cut them, my hands rough from countless calluses and mega blood blisters. My lips were always chapped, and more often than not I had windburn, sunburn or a combination of both. So although I'd never gone through the pimply stage of puberty, my skin hated me all the same for the constant peeling and dryness.
Beside me, Seb cracked up laughing, startling me from my thoughts. "Don't be so melodramatic. It can't be that long since you've climbed."
I frowned, mentally calculating. "Nearly three months," I said, surpriseded that it had actually been that long. My fingers were even throbbing in anticipation of being put through the torture of climbing after such a long reprieve.
"Ouch," Seb said, wincing. "Getting back into it after that long is going to be a bitch."
"Tell me about it," I muttered, flexing my calf muscles that were still twinging slightly.
"What, they didn't have mountains in India?" Duncan said, leaning against an old gnarled tree.
It was the first time he'd spoken since shushing Julian in the car. Again, he regarded me somewhat warily, as if I might have picked up more than he'd liked from the boys' cryptic conversation earlier.
To put him at ease, but still ever so curious, I smiled. "Oh, they had mountains, all right. Didn't your mother tell you exactly why I was sent back here?"
Duncan shook his head, and even Julian perked up, giving me his full attention.
I shrugged, going for nonchalance even though the memories of my little mishap played out in fast succession, from the big bang that left my ears ringing right up to the point where my mother had uncovered me, sobbing messily with a mixture of sand and sweat in her eyes. No matter how blasé I was about to make it sound, it had definitely been a heart wrenching moment. And not just for my mother, because for the minute or so I was buried alive, the only thought going through my head was that I was going to die in the-middle-of-nowhere-India.
"I had a little mishap with some explosives and ended up with a significant portion of the mountain I accidentally blew up landing on top of me."
For a second, nobody did anything. Then Clay's eyes widened with incredulity, Seb cracked up laughing and clapped me on the back, and Julian frowned, shaking his head slightly. But Duncan, who I was focused on, just stared at me, his expression unreadable. It was no secret that I was a bit of a daredevil, but even I had my limits. No doubt he was trying to uncover the thought processes behind my idiocy. Because lately, it had known no bounds. And in my latest attempt at rebellion, I'd not only seriously endangered myself, but Ranjit as well.
"That was those bruises are from?" Clay asked, nodding his head at my arms and the purplish bump near my temple.
"Yep," I said, running my hand along my left arm from wrist to shoulder, which had borne the brunt of the impact when I'd thrown it up to protect my face.
"Gah, what's taking her so long?"
We all looked over at Julian who was pacing in front of the cliff face, hands in his pockets. He'd changed out of his fancy clothes in favour of a gray windbreaker and a pair of shorts. I snickered at his impatience. Some things never changed. As far as Julian was concerned, if you said you'd meet him at a certain time and then didn't show up at said time, specifically on the dot, he just about blew a fuse. And since Mrs. S had said she'd be no later than one in the afternoon and it was now three minutes past, I was betting we were in for the common treat of watching Julian spit and sputter about punctuality and making appointments people couldn't keep.
Unfortunately we were only able to witness a series of aggravated huffs and the opening line of his tirade which we all knew by heart, then there was a loud rustling coming from the direction we had earlier.
"I'm here!"
The breathless cry of Mrs. S preceded her stumbling into the clearing, carrying a huge black duffle bag slung over one shoulder, a red chillybin in her hand. Panting, she dropped what she was holding and raced over to me, grabbing me by the face and planting kisses all over my cheeks and forehead.
"Oh, my baby girl, it's been too long," she cooed, drawing back but not letting me go. Her white blonde hair was in a tight braid, and she was wearing a black and gray fitted tracksuit, the thin material hugging her in all the right places. Definitely tailor made. And the woman sure knew how to work it. She was pushing fifty yet didn't look a day over thirty.
"Hi, Issus Ess," I said, finding it hard to articulate my words when she was mashing my cheeks together. She let out a cry of joy, tears threatening to run over the brim of her pale green eyes, then reined me back in by the face, throwing her arms around me and squeezing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. Still, I was just as happy to see her, and hugged back as hard. When she loosened her hold, I breathed in deep, the smell of her citrus perfume the true indicator that I was now home.
"Ma!" Seb exclaimed, his tone chiding. We both let go to give him a puzzled look. He'd gone to retrieve the things she'd dumped, and was carrying them back towards us.
"Did you carry all that crap here by yourself? Where's Michael?"
"Right behind her," came a slightly less breathless voice, tinged with annoyance.
Michael stepped into the clearing, laden down with twice as much baggage as his mother. Without a word, he shoved one of the bags at Duncan and another at Clay.
Surprised, but also happy to see him, I broke away from Mrs. S to give him a quick hug.
"Michael," I said, giving him an extra squeeze before letting go.
"Mischief," he said back, chuckling.
'Thought you were in new York."
He grimaced and ran a hand through his short spiky hair. Like the quads, it was inky black, and he had the same sharp blue eyes, but where they were lean and tall, he was shorter at five ten, and slightly broader. He also had his eyebrow pierced, which I thought was pretty awesome.
"Ah, yeah. That didn't quite go as planned. So I'm back home for the next couple of months while I regroup."
I arched an eyebrow but didn't say more. Last I'd heard Michael recently graduated from Columbia, managing to cram his four year degree in Business and Marketing into three years. His plan was to stay in New York with one of his college friends. The two of them had been in talks of starting a computer software company together. From the sound of dejection in Michael's voice, I'd say they didn't quite get it off the ground.
"Enough talk about school and work," Mrs. S said, already digging around in one of the bags. She chucked something at me that I barely caught before it hit me in the face. I smiled. It was my climbing harness.
"The boys and I have already tackled this a few times, but we thought you might like to give it a go."
I looked up at the cliff face again, and for the first time noticed there were already some cams stuck into crevices, and if you played join the dots with them, you could make out the crooked lines they formed.
I gave her my best excited smile, tried to shove the fatigue hanging over me like a rain cloud out of my mind.
"Great," I said and shucked on the harness.
"You okay?" Duncan asked twenty five minutes later, peering curiously at me. Apart from a light sheen of sweat covering his forehead and damp patches around the neck of his shirt and his pits, he was far too unruffled and neat.
No. No, I was not okay. I was perched somewhere near eighty feet off the ground, hanging on by nothing but my fingertips and the toes of my shoes. I had dust in my eye, the skin on my fingers was cracked and starting to bleed, I'd just about chewed through my bottom lip gnawing on it in both frustration and uncertainty, and to top it off I had a major wedgie. Something Michael was probably getting an eyeful of, what with him standing underneath me and feeding me rope.
"Yeah, great," I managed, trying to control my fast breathing and ignore the stitch in my side. "Just peachy keen."
Duncan snorted, letting go of the cliff with one hand. He swiped at a drop of sweat trickling down the side of his face and gave me a knowing look.
"If you're that out of shape, just call it quits and head down," he said, the barest hint of a challenge in his voice.
"Who says I'm out of shape?" I snapped back, wanting desperately to let go long enough to rub my itching nose. And although my legs seemed to be holding up okay, the burning in my thighs and calf muscles notwithstanding, I just didn't trust myself not to fall if I risked it.
"We're not even halfway up and you're winded," he said, his own breathing nice and even. "I've been trying to keep pace with you but you're getting slower and slower. Your fingers are even bleeding."
"Yes, well, we can't all be perfect little climbers like you," I said, flicking him a dirty look. "Besides, this is the first time I've climbed in three months, I'm just getting the feel of it back is all."
Until this conversation, I thought I'd been doing pretty well. Guess I was rustier than I'd like to admit.
"You two going to move, or just hang there and chat all day?" Seb called up. He was belaying Duncan, not that Golden Boy needed it. But Mrs. S made it deathly clear that nobody was climbing without a belayer.
"I am moving," I called back. "Just because it's more of a sideways sway rather than an upwards climb doesn't mean it's not happening. Check your freaking eyes, Seb."
Julian's chuckle reached me loud and clear, joining in with Michael's laughter.
"You know, the other day we were just commenting on how much we missed your sarcastic cheer and vigorous aggression," Michael said.
"But now that it's back, I'm regretting ever having missed it," Julian drawled.
I twisted my neck around so I could see him and poked my tongue out.
"Bite me, Armani Boy."
"Charming," Clay yelled up, and proceeded to take a photo of me clinging to a giant rock with my tongue stuck out unattractively and a good portion of my pants lodged in the crack of my ass. Charming indeed.
"Christ, you can see her wedgie clear as day, even in the photo," Julian remarked, leaning over Clay's shoulder to get a better look at the photo. "Totally Facebook worthy. And Twitter worthy."
"Don't you dare," I screeched, and for a split second I did let go of the wall. And almost keeled over backwards. Totally an amateur move, but hey, I was having a rough day and the last thing I needed was for my idiot friends to post unflattering pics of me for the whole world to see.
Duncan swore and snapped his right hand out, grabbing a fistful of my hair to stop me from going arse-over-kite. Not that I would have gone far with my last cam only three feet below me, but I guess it was instinct versus knowledge. And instinct proved very painful.
"OUCH!" I screamed, barely aware of Mrs. S puttering about beneath us, flapping her arms slightly and muttering incoherent nonsense, worry radiating from her.
"Tasinee, I think you should come down, now. Maybe we should try it again after you've had a couple days rest."
Clamping my hands back onto the miniscule ledge at my eye level, I shot Duncan a baleful glare.
"Was that really necessary?" I hissed, and winced with each tug of his hand trying to gain it's freedom from my tangle of hair.
He grinned, the smile anything but apologetic. "Reflex."
He tugged some more and I yelped. "Duncan," I warned.
"Your mane is stuck on my fingers," he snapped back like it was all my fault he'd grabbed a good chunk of my hair.
"Well, fix it, Golden Boy."
He cursed under his breath, and using only his feet and left hand managed to steer himself closer to me. I tensed, half expecting him to slip and rip my hair out as he fell, but he made the two steps easily, which left us shoulder to shoulder. Well, more like my shoulder to his chest, because he angled his body in such a way that his front was melded to my side.
"Stop tugging," I whined, resisting the urge to pull back from him.
Because the truth was, having him this close unnerved me. My heart started to beat slightly faster in my chest, and my hands became clammy, a fine coating of sweat forming over my palms. His face was way too close to my own, sharp blue eyes full of irritation as he tsked at me.
"I'm not tugging," he said, then went ahead and tugged hard. "Okay," he amended at my hostile glare. "I tugged that time. But God damn, what the hell is in your hair? It just won't let my hand go."
I groaned, and not just because my arms were starting to burn and my fingers starting to cramp in protest of me hanging motionless for so long.
"Soda."
"Soda?"
"Long story. Don't ask. Just get your hand out of my hair so we can move already. My arms are dying."
He sighed, and moved even closer. "I can't see," he mumbled, his eyes trained on the task at hand. I huffed out an impatient breath, and when I inhaled caught a good whiff of him, his cologne standing out first, the spicy scent pleasant, but underneath it the hint of clean sweat and coffee. I couldn't help a small smile. Duncan had always been a coffee junkie, drinking the stuff like it was water and he was in a dessert. And despite the fact he hadn't had a cup in over two hours, the scent still lingered, like he'd just walked out of a Starbucks.
"Got it," he said a few minutes later and his fingers slipped free. He shifted his weight and his body, coming right up behind me, hands braced either side of me on the cliff.
Startled, I bit back a squawk of protest. "Duncan, what are you doing?"
"Everything okay up there?" Michael called out.
"Fine," Duncan called back. "Just got my hand caught in her hair. Give us a minute."
To me, he said, "Let go."
A bark of laughter preceded my answer. "Come again?"
"Let go. Keep your feet planted and lean back for a second. Give your hands a break."
I sputtered indignantly, pride keeping my hands firmly where they were. "I don't need a break. I'm fine."
"Jeez, you can never give in without a fight, can you?" he murmured into my ear. "Let your guard down for a sec, Tassy. Nobody's going to smite you if you do."
For a second I did nothing, mentally tallying up the pros and cons of showing weakness in front of Duncan Sinclair. In the end it didn't much matter. The cramps in my fingers became too much and almost of their own accord they broke free of their grip and I smacked into Duncan quite hard instead of leaning into him gracefully as I would have liked. He grunted against the impact, but the protective circle of his arms didn't give, and I moaned in relief, a sound that extended itself and turned to one of pain when I uncurled my fingers and flexed them a few times.
"Yikes," I said, bringing them to my lips and blowing on them, trying to ease not only the sharp cramps, but the sting from the numerous cuts, scrapes and blisters. Damn, three months had turned my hard, callused hands soft, and now they were paying for it dearly.
"Told you to call it a day and head back down," he chided, amusement in his voice.
I scoffed, but kept up the gentle blowing on my fingers.
It also felt nice having the warmth of him at my back. Like I could almost forget that we were settled part way up a cliff face with his family watching avidly below us. Kind of like we were back in Korea six months ago, when the quads had come to visit me and Dad, and Duncan and I had snuck out of our rooms in the middle of the night and headed to the docks. Just the two of us and a blanket, the stars above us while we -
"Tassy? You okay?"
His voice snapped me out of my thoughts and my cheeks burned a deep red. Where the hell had that come from? I mentally slapped myself. Come on, girl. You said you'd let it go; bury it so far in the past it would stay there for ever. Because it seemed like Duncan had had no trouble doing the same.
"I'm fine," I snapped, maybe a bit harsher than was necessary. I took a deep breath, trying to get my focus back.
"So are you going to concede I'm right and head back down?" he asked, shifting slightly, his arms becoming a tighter circle around me. I squashed the urge to shove him away from me. Last thing we needed was for both of us to fall off and tangle the ropes.
"Like I'm going to give you the satisfaction of being right," I said, and took the time to stretch my arms over my head, roll my neck on my shoulders, and even scratch that itch on my nose. That it was no longer itchy was beside the point. My joints popped, a brief pain flaring before the tightness in my limbs eased some, and I sighed in relief. I drew the line at picking my wedgie after some serious thought. Having my hand jammed between my butt and the front of Duncan's pants just didn't seem like a good idea.
Behind me Duncan chuckled, the throaty sound dancing about my ears, the vibrations from his chest caressing my back. I took in a shuddering breath and decided it was way past time to get moving again.
"All right," I said, grabbing the wall and stifling a hiss at my stinging fingers. "Reprieve's over. Back to work."
After making sure I had a firm hold, he obediently shifted away, stepping back over to where the crooked line of his cams were.
Then he smirked at me and I arched an eyebrow.
"So, what's it gonna be, Miss Phoenix? Up or down?"
I gave him a devious smile and re-established my grip. "Race you to the top, Golden Boy."