Page 9 of Miles

5

Miles

“She’s awake,”I announced when I strode into the sitting room on the first floor, which had become a gathering spot since the clan took over.

At any time of the day or night, there was bound to be a handful of us passing the time here.

In a tall cupboard lived a collection of games which had all been played at least once by each of us.

Ainsley and Isla looked up from their checkers, smiling radiantly. “She is? How is she?”

I shrugged before sinking into a leather chair, affecting a carelessness I didn’t feel. “I don’t know. She didn’t say a word.”

“Is she mute?” Isla wondered, eyes wide.

“How would I know? She didn’t speak,” I reminded her, and I had to chuckle.

She had always been slightly scatterbrained, somewhat gullible, but with a good heart.

Ainsley’s auburn curls bounced as she shook her head. “It’s probably the shock. She doesn’t know where she is or who we are. Poor thing. Imagine, expecting to wake up dead, then waking up here, instead.”

“If she’d expected to die, I don’t guess she would’ve considered waking up at all,” I grumbled.

Was this what they did? Sitting around, guessing about the mystery girl? It had been days, but we’d found nothing to help us.

A Jeep was left on the cliff, close to the spot where she’d jumped, but Tamhas had found nothing inside to identify her. No purse, no wallet. As though she’d intended to stump anyone who came across the vehicle.

“She didn’t want anybody to know who she is,” Isla whispered with a sigh. “How terrible it must have been for her, then. The poor dear.”

That was another thing which managed to get under my skin. The way they all insisted on referring to her as the “poor dear” or “poor lamb.” As though they knew her or understood anything about her reason for jumping.

“Maybe she was on the run from the law,” I suggested, more irritable than ever. “Or she smuggles drugs for a local kingpin and has been keeping part of the proceeds for herself—but he’s on to her now, and she decided that jumping from a cliff was preferable to what he had in mind for her.”

“Oh, you.” Ainsley waved me off. “Watching too much television.”

“Just the same, it’s perfectly possible. She might not be the unblemished flower you all insist on making her out to be. I think it’s a good idea for all of us to maintain a degree of realism. This way, when we learn more about her, it’ll be easier if what we learn is unsavory.”

They blinked, silent for once. Ainsley cleared her throat, throwing a glance at Isla before asking, “When did you become so cynical?”

“How can you not be?” I retorted. “After everything that’s happened recently. How can either of you allow yourselves to be overtaken by flights of fancy when it comes to this girl?”

“She’s… interesting, is all,” Isla murmured, blushing.

“She’s a human being,” I snapped. “Which means she’s far more complicated than a tragic heroine from a film. She didn’t fling herself from a cliff over a broken heart or terminal illness. That would be too easy. Nothing is really that easy.”

I got up, suddenly restless, and stalked from the room.

The girls whispered about me as I left—no surprise there.

Within an hour, every living being at the resort would know that I’d been acting strangely.

Even Mary’s men, who loved their gossip just as dearly as a group of old ladies in a sewing circle.

I supposed they needed a way to pass the time, the same as anybody, but would’ve preferred I not be one of their methods for doing so.

“What was that all about?” Gate jogged to catch up with me as I strode down the wide corridor.

The shining floors gave voice to my footsteps, which echoed off the high ceilings.

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