Desire in Frost (15 page)

I thought back to the funeral that I’d seen in a dream. “So, Jeff didn’t have anything to do with this?” I asked. 

“It doesn’t look like it,” my mom answered. 

I looked over my mother’s shoulder and caught a glimpse of Robin. I excused myself and made my way over to him.  

His left eye was a dark shade of purple. He noticed me staring right away. “She got in one good punch,” he explained. 

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” I exclaimed.

Robin pulled me into a gentle embrace. “Forget about me. What about you? How’s your shoulder?” 

“I’m fine,” I answered, but the truth was that I was still a little shaken up. 

“Fine enough that I can punch you?” He playfully punched my good shoulder. 

“What was that for?” I asked, my voice rising a few notes above normal. 

“For thinking you could handle something like that. Why didn’t you wake me up? You may not have that nasty gash in your shoulder if you did.” 

My mouth twisted up guiltily. “I’m sorry.” There was a brief moment of silence. “Hey, how did you know to save me anyway?” 

“I didn’t. I woke up and saw you were gone, only I could see you weren’t with Teddy or Andrea, either. They didn’t even notice when I went around the side of the house to look for you. I caught a glimpse of motion in the garage window, and then I heard you scream. When I went to check it out, you were getting your ass kicked.” 

“Hey,” I defended playfully. “I ended up being fine.” 

“Only because I was there!” His arms came to wrap tighter around me again, pulling me to his chest. “I can’t imagine what would have happened if I wasn’t. She could have killed you, you know.” 

I hadn’t thought about that, but I still wasn’t entirely sure what lengths Lauren would go through to continue convincing herself that Hope was her daughter. Perhaps Robin was right. I was more thankful for him now than I’d ever been before. 

“Thank you,” I said softly, and then his lips came down to meet mine. 

Tears streamed down my face. “Stop it, Robin!” My words were separated between my giggles. Robin’s hands were clamped around my midsection, and he’d just found out how incredibly ticklish I am. I wriggled beneath him on my living room floor after we arrived home from our trip, but my attempts to flee were rendered useless.

“Teddy and I are leaving soon,” I told him between giggles. “I have to get ready to go.”

I screamed a high pitched yelp when his fingers found my most ticklish spot and dug in. I watched upside down as my mother entered the room and looked at us with an amused smile fixed on her face.

“Mom,” I cried between laughs. “Tell him to stop.”

“Robin,” my mom scolded with a laugh.

Suddenly, his hands stopped moving, and I was finally able to catch my breath again.

“Sorry, Andrea,” Robin said.

“Sorry? I was just going to say that you’re doing it wrong.” And then my mom bent to my level and tickled me under the arm pits. I screamed in laughter. Part of me wanted to kick each one of them in the face while another part of me was enjoying the fun.

The doorbell rang just then, and the hands tickling me pulled away. My mother leapt up from her crouch and headed toward the door while Robin and I dragged ourselves to the couch.

We still hadn’t stopped laughing when I heard a familiar voice behind the door. “Emma!” I exclaimed, springing up to greet her.

My mother held the door open as Emma came into the house and crushed her body into mine in an embrace. I winced when she pressed against my bad shoulder, but I tried not to let the pain show through because I was too excited to see her. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as it had been a few days ago. Derek followed behind Emma and gave me a light hug.

Emma bounced on the balls of her feet. “We missed you.”

“I missed you guys, too.”

“So, did you have fun on your vacation?” Derek asked.

“It was pretty good,” I answered, unable to hide the bit of blush that was brewing in my cheeks as I thought about how close Robin and I had become in the last few days. I glanced at him quickly and realized how awkward this must be for all of them. “Uh, guys, this is Robin,” I introduced.

“We met before,” Derek pointed out, which made me feel a bit like a fool.

“Right,” I said.

I watched my mom exit to the kitchen, and then I looked back to Emma. She was giving me a wide eyed look like she was trying to tell me something, only I didn’t know what. I furrowed my brow in confusion.

“We need to talk,” she whispered even though everyone else in the room could hear her. She gripped my arm and pulled me toward my bedroom. “You two get to know each other or something,” she called back. “We’ll be right back.”

I could hear Derek behind us. “Must be a girl thing.”

“What is it, Emma?” I asked once she shut the door to my bedroom.

“I have something to tell you, but you have to promise you won’t get mad at me.”

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. What could she say that I would be mad about? “Um, okay. I won’t get mad.”

“Promise?”

I wasn’t entirely sure because my psychic radar wasn’t picking up on what she was about to say, so I didn’t know if it was something I should be mad about or not. “I promise,” I said anyway.

Emma pressed her lips together as if stifling a smile, and her cheeks flushed. I could even see the blush beneath her tan complexion. “Derek kissed me.”

I smiled at her, partially out of happiness and partially because it was my duty as a best friend to tease her. I raised my eyebrows a little. “Ooh,” I said, elongating the sound.

“You’re not mad?”             

“No, why would I be mad?”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I knew he kind of liked you for a while, and I still wasn’t sure if you felt the same way about him.”

“Derek? No.”

“It’s just,” she continued, “we kind of had time to get to know each other on a personal level with you gone, and I don’t mean that in a bad way—that you being gone was a good thing, but it kind of was.” Emma bit her lip and didn’t meet my gaze. “Finding his dog, spending Thanksgiving with him, it was all just so—“

“Emma,” I stopped her. “It’s fine. I’m with Robin now anyway, remember?”

She nodded. “I don’t want you to feel like a third wheel or something.”

“Emma,” I put a hand on her shoulder and stared seriously into her eyes. “I’m fine with it.”

A giant smile formed on Emma’s face. “Thank you so much, Crystal.” Emma surprised me with a hug so tight I could barely breathe.

“Calm yourself,” I teased.

Emma rushed out of my room and back down the hallway. I followed. She raised both her thumbs in excitement. “She said yes!”

Derek’s smile grew, and he hugged Emma. “That’s great!”

It was a little weird to see them together like that, but if Emma was going to be with any guy, I was glad it was Derek.

Just then, Teddy entered the room. “Ready, Kiddo?” he asked.

“Ready,” I said, grabbing my purse off the side of the couch. “Sorry, guys, but I have somewhere I have to be,” I told Emma and Derek. “We can hang out later, okay?”

A few minutes later, Teddy and I arrived at the police station. Hope’s mom, Melinda, said she wanted to thank me personally for helping rescue Hope, and Teddy agreed to mediate a session—not that we needed a mediator, but I felt more confident facing Hope’s mom with Teddy there, especially since a part of me still felt guilty for not finding her sooner.

Happiness washed over me when I spotted Hope standing by her mother’s side. It gave me extra reassurance that I really had rescued her and it wasn’t all in my head. Hope looked mostly like her dad, but I could see now that she had Melinda’s eyes.

Teddy introduced us. Immediately, Melinda’s arms enveloped me. I grimaced as she squeezed my injured shoulder tight, but I knew she probably didn’t know I’d been hurt, and if she did, she was probably too overcome with emotion to remember.

“Thank you so much.” Her voice cracked, and I didn’t need to look at her to see that tears were falling down her face. She pulled away and looked me in the eyes. “Hope tells me you were the one who found her. That’s what the news has been saying, too, although they never mentioned you by name because you’re a minor.”

I nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I did.”

“I can’t imagine. And what are the chances that you’re from Peyton Springs, too?”

I shrugged because I didn’t know what else to say. Surely I couldn’t tell her it was all because of my abilities.

“Lucky, I guess. But I mean, Teddy was there, too, and he’s been working on the case, so it’s not that much of a coincidence.” I was babbling, but I didn’t want to have to explain myself, so I babbled instead.

Melinda wiped at her eyes. I looked down at Hope to see her smiling up at me and her hand held firmly against her mother’s. It wouldn’t surprise me if Melinda didn’t let Hope go for a long time, which is why I was shocked with the next words that came out of her mouth.

“Hope won’t stop talking about you. I’m looking for a babysitter who I can trust. My previous one is scared after what happened. I know I shouldn’t let Hope out of my sight, but with Scott gone, I can’t give up any extra work. Hope seems to really like you, so I thought maybe you’d be interested.”

My jaw dropped in disbelief. I’d never imagined she would ask me this, and the thing was that I really liked Hope, too, and I knew we would have a blast together.

Melinda took my silence as a negative response. “It will only be a few hours every day after school. You would just have to pick her up from school and stay with her for two hours or so until I got home. You can have the weekends free.”

“Please, Crystal,” Hope begged. Her chocolate eyes widened until she looked like a sad puppy dog.

My shock only lasted another split second until I finally composed myself. “Yes!” I practically shouted. “I’d love to!”

Hope beamed at me, and I smiled back. After all the stress I went through to bring Hope home, I was glad I’d made a friend out of all of it. I could only wonder what I would gain from my next physic adventure.

To say that I published
Desire in Frost
by myself would be a lie. I had a lot of help along the way, and I can’t thank these people enough.

To my team of beta readers, thank you for putting up with my constant questions and being honest with me. You all deserve a shout out: Heather, Deb, Cindy, Candy, Jan, Christin, Jason, Kelley, Jennifer, Anna, and Paul.

To my editor Emerald Barnes, thank you for your constant encouragement and feedback along with your uplifting and inspiring attitude. And, of course, thank you for catching my silly mistakes!

A huge thank you to Clarissa Yeo for her fantastic artwork on the series’ covers.

Finally, I can’t thank fans and readers enough for encouraging me to continue the series and for leaving their reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

              Alicia Rades is a freelance writer, blogger, and editor. When inspiration strikes, she is also an author. Alicia has been captivated by the YA paranormal and supernatural genre since reading
The Seer
series by Linda Joy Singleton when she was 12 years old. The Crystal Frost series
was born out of the love for the genre and is Alicia’s first series. In college, Alicia majored in professional writing. Alicia lives in Wisconsin with her husband and too many fish to count.

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