Run to You Part Two: Second Glance

  Part Two in the riveting romantic thriller about a family on the run from a deadly past, and a first love that will transcend secrets, lies and danger...

  Tessa Carson has unlocked her heart and her secrets to Tristan Walker—but Tristan has secrets of his own, and his might just mean the end of Tessa’s family. Unaware, Tessa embraces falling in love and being herself for the first time since she was attacked when she was only eight years old. But secrets can’t be run from forever, and sometimes love is too good to be true....

  RUN TO YOU

  Part Two:

  Second Glance

  Clara Kensie

  Dedication

  To J:

  I.D.W.T.M.A.T.

  Contents

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Run to You Part Three: Third Charm

  Excerpt from Another Little Piece of My Heart

  Chapter Seventeen

  I’d asked Tristan to say one word. One word, one time. I’d told him the word to say, and it shot up like a bullet into the cold November air, then came careening back to earth.

  But it didn’t explode upon impact.

  Tristan only gazed at me, then caressed my cheek with such tenderness I barely felt it. “Tessa,” he whispered.

  He had just spoken my name. My real name. He’d said Tessa. Except for my family, no one had said it in over eight years. It sounded so right, so perfect, coming from his lips.

  But that was it. Once would have to be enough.

  “Who—” he started.

  Taking his face in my hands, I silenced him with a kiss. “It’s freezing,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  * * *

  With me tucked safely under Tristan’s arm, we squeezed our way back through the party. It had become even more crowded, and Ethan’s entire house vibrated with the booming bass. I needed to find Jillian and get her out, now, before the cops came, and before I left with Tristan.

  We finally found her teetering in the kitchen near the keg and surrounded by a small group, her blond hair and yellow top making her the sun in the center of the planets. A spoon rested in her open palm. “Shelby,” I shouted. “We have to go.”

  A girl who was wearing a skirt even shorter than Jillian’s waved us away. “Hold on. She says she can move things with her mind. She’s gonna show us with that spoon.”

  Stone. That’s what my body turned into. A block of solid stone. Muscles immobilized. Lungs paralyzed. I tried to speak, to shout, to do anything to stop her, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out but a panicked little squeak.

  Tristan tensed up beside me. “How much has she had to drink?”

  My sister stared at the spoon in her palm.

  It didn’t move.

  She shifted and stared again at the spoon, furrowing her brow.

  Nothing.

  “Ji—” I stammered, until some tiny part of my brain reminded me to use her alias. “Shelby!”

  Face contorting, she grunted with effort, and when the spoon didn’t float or wiggle or even vibrate, she squealed and flung it to the ground as her friends burst out laughing.

  I could have fallen to the floor right along with that spoon. It was the beer. My parents never drank alcohol, not even on holidays or their anniversary. Alcohol inhibited their powers. Thank God. “Tristan, I have to get her home.”

  Chuckling, Tristan scooped up the spoon. “I think your career as a magician is over, Shelby,” he said. “Time to go.” She laughed along with her friends but glanced at me as Tristan pulled her away, with just enough sobriety behind those unfocused eyes to show me her horrified guilt.

  Tristan and I drove Jillian home, then he waited in the driveway while I helped her from the car. “I’m sorry,” she cried over and over. “I’m so sorry. Please, please, you can’t tell Mom and Dad.”

  She was right. If our parents found out she was drunk, Dad would start watching us again, making his headaches worse and probably blowing out his mobile eye completely. And if they found out she’d tried to show her friends that little magic trick, our time in Twelve Lakes, and my time with Tristan—the boy I loved, the boy who loved me—would be only a memory by morning.

  I helped Jillian inside and brought her up to her room, where she fell asleep before I even shut the door. As I told our parents she must be sick with some kind of stomach virus, I stared at an old stain on the carpet. I couldn’t look them in the eye.

  I hated how easy it was to lie to them.

  * * *

  An hour later Tristan and I lay, curled up together, in the back seat of his car. Not wanting his aunt and uncle to disturb us, we’d parked at the end of the road under a streetlight that didn’t work, the darkness broken only by the glow of the dashboard and the occasional passing vehicle. Our fiery kisses had slowed to grazing lips and gentle caresses. The car windows were steamy, and he’d never even crossed the Borderline. We didn’t need the heat on anymore, but he left the battery running so his iPod would play in the speakers.

  Eyes closed, I snuggled into him, sated and sleepy. I loved him, and he loved me. One day my family was going to leave, which made it even more important to enjoy the time we had left together. One month, one week, one day. However long we had, we would love each other until the end.

  He stroked my arm with one hand, and with the other he played with my hair. “Clockwise.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Who is Tessa?”

  My eyes opened, and I was no longer sleepy. But I didn’t gasp, I didn’t run. My lungs stayed open. I’d expected this. I wouldn’t have asked him to say it if I didn’t want him to know.

  So I whispered, “Me.”

  Tristan froze, didn’t even breathe.

  “Sarah Spencer is an alias,” I said.

  He swallowed. “An alias.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Tessa,” he said deliberately, listening to himself say it. “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you why.”

  “Then why are you telling me your real name is Tessa?”

  I caressed his cheek, rough with stubble. I loved it. I loved him. “Tonight at the party you said you know I have secrets. Yet you never confronted me, you never tried to trick me or force me into telling you anything. You love me even though you know I’m lying.”

  I gave him a kiss, then continued. “Tonight at the party you also told me you know the only time I’m happy is when I’m with you. That’s true too. But every time you call me Sarah, I hate it. That one word reminds me I’m deceiving you. I want you to love Tessa. Not Sarah.”

  Using the dim lights of the dashboard to see, I studied him to make sure he understood. His eyebrows drew together, but he said nothing.

  “I love you, Tristan. And I trust you. I tr
ust you’ll accept this secret and not ask me to explain it. I also trust you won’t tell anyone.”

  He remained silent.

  “You must think I’m crazy, or playing some sort of game,” I said. “And if that’s what you want to believe, that’s okay.”

  “No, I believe you, Sarah...Tessa.”

  I loved hearing him say my name.

  “Do you want me to call you Sarah or Tessa?” he asked.

  “I’d be so happy if you’d call me Tessa when we’re alone together,” I said. “But you can’t slip up when we’re around other people. Including my family. Especially my family. If you don’t think you can keep it straight, you’d better just stick with Sarah. Now that you know the truth, it won’t bother me as much.”

  He took a deep breath. “Tessa.” As he said it a car approached, its headlights shining directly on us.

  “Shh!” I said, even though, logically, I knew no one in that car could hear him.

  He waited for the car to pass. “Tessa,” he said again, this time in a whisper.

  I smiled at the sound, then frowned. “This is a big deal, Tristan. If my family finds out I told you, we’ll leave town.”

  “So Shelby, Scott...those are fake names too? Everyone in your family has an alias?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are their real names?”

  My only answer was a cryptic smile.

  “Is Spencer your last name?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  I shrugged in reply.

  He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Is your family in trouble?” It didn’t sound like a question.

  It hit me, right then, that I had made a mistake. I should never, ever have told him my real name.

  Of course he would assume my family was in trouble. He would ask questions, and he would probably tell someone we needed help, maybe even law enforcement. I had to get out of here. I started to scramble away, to fling open the door and run, but he grabbed my arm. “It’s okay,” he said. “Whatever it is, I can help you.”

  A vise clamped around my chest, and I pushed against him. “I have to go home. I have to tell my parents I slipped up. We have to run. Right now.”

  He held me effortlessly. He slid his free hand behind my head and kissed me, hard, crushing my lips, until I stopped struggling and kissed him back, with the same desperation and urgency as he kissed me.

  He pulled away but didn’t release his grip on me. “Sarah—Tessa, look at me. Breathe.”

  I inhaled, then exhaled.

  “Again.”

  I inhaled again, then exhaled again.

  “Just tell me,” he said, “are you in immediate danger?”

  I swallowed. “No.” I resisted an impulse to reach for my cell phone. I wouldn’t be in immediate danger until it rang.

  “Then we have time to figure this out. There’s no need for you to leave tonight.”

  I started to object, but he interrupted me. “All you did was tell me you want me to call you Tessa. I still don’t know anything, and as long as I’m sure you’re not in immediate danger, I won’t pressure you to tell me anything else.”

  I looked into his eyes, trying to read him. I saw he was worried; I saw he loved me. I knew he would do anything to keep me with him. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “No. Will you?”

  “No.”

  The vise unclamped from my chest as we both sighed with relief.

  “So we’ll be Tristan and Tessa whenever we’re alone together,” he said. “And we’ll be Tristan and Sarah everywhere else.” He grinned. “Tristan and Tessa. That sounds nice.”

  I smiled too. “I know. It does.” Much better than Tristan and Sarah.

  “I’m going to kiss you now, Tessa.”

  He kissed me until 11:55, then drove me home in time for my midnight curfew. “Tessa, Tessa, Tessa, I love you, Tessa,” he whispered, before I hurried into the house and shivered with delight up to my room.

  It was just a tiny secret.

  Minuscule, really.

  I hadn’t even told him my last name. And hearing him call me Tessa instead of Sarah would make being with him so much easier.

  I pictured a scale in my mind, a scale of lies instead of a scale of justice. Each lie I told was a round silver weight. These were the secrets I was keeping from the people I loved. The scale on Tristan’s side was weighed almost all the way down, burdened with all of the secrets I was keeping from him. Tonight, his side was lightened a bit when I told him my real name. That weight moved to the other side of the scale, representing the secret I was now keeping from my family.

  The tiny, itty-bitty, infinitesimal secret.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Tessa, Tessa, Tessa,” Tristan sang softly the next day. Our textbooks lay unopened on the coffee table as we lounged on the couch in his living room. Philip was hammering away in his garage workshop, and Melissa was upstairs reading a book.

  “I love hearing you say my name,” I said with a contented sigh.

  “I’ve been practicing all night. Tessa, Tessa, Tessa, I have something for you.”

  Expecting a kiss, I puckered my lips. Instead he pressed something into my hand. A metallic blue rectangle.

  I sat up straight. “A cell phone?”

  “Yep. I’ve already activated it. It’s on my account, so don’t worry about paying for it.”

  I shoved it back to him. “But you know my parents won’t let me use a cell phone.”

  “You told me your entire family has fake names, and even though it’s killing me, I won’t ask you about it. But in return, you have to do something for me.” He stared at me until I nodded. “I want you to keep this phone with you. Always. At night, keep it under your pillow.” He pressed the phone back into my palm and wrapped my fingers around it. “If anything happens—anything—I want you to call me. I’ve already set it up for speed dial. Just hold down the one for my number.”

  The phone felt heavy in my hand.

  “Whatever is going on with your family, Tessa, I will not let you just disappear into the night.” He stared at me with such fierce intensity, I had to look away.

  I ran my fingers over the tiny keys. Tristan obviously realized my family was in trouble. If agreeing to hold on to this phone would give him some peace of mind—and keep him from investigating further—then I would do it.

  I would carry this blue phone with me and sleep with it at night, and when we had to leave Twelve Lakes, I would use it to call him. But not until we were hours away. I would call him from the road, before we reached our next location, before we even decided where it would be. I would thank him for giving me the happiest days of my life. I would tell him how much I loved him. Then I would tell him goodbye. And finally, I would give the phone to Jillian and tell her to destroy it.

  I pressed the one button on my new cell phone and held it down. A few seconds later Tristan’s phone rang. The ringtone was the chorus from “Wildflowers.”

  * * *

  That night I waited in Jillian’s room while she brushed her teeth in the bathroom. While I’d spent the day with Tristan, she’d spent the day at home recovering from her so-called stomach virus.

  I tried, but I couldn’t be upset with Jillian for what she’d done at Ethan’s party. What I’d done was much, much worse. And I couldn’t even tell her. I couldn’t tell her that Tristan knew my real name or that I now had two cell phones clipped to my waistband.

  But I could tell her that Tristan loved me, and that I loved him. Maybe if she knew that, she’d realize that I needed to stay in Twelve Lakes for as long as possible. She’d realize that she needed to stay out of trouble.

  As I waited for her, I paged through a college catalog she’d left on h
er bed. College. A waste of time. Why prepare for a career we’d never live to have? But it was another thing my mother wanted for us because she never had it for herself. Jillian wanted it too. Lately she’d been taking catalogs from TLC for colleges all over the country, though we’d never be able to go away. To stay safe, we’d have to live at home. Arlington Community College was one town over from Twelve Lakes, and if we were still here next year, Jillian would have to go there.

  That didn’t stop her from wishing otherwise, though. This catalog was from Hoffman University, a small, private college in eastern Iowa. She’d circled the pre-med courses, as well as some dance classes: African, Indian, kabuki. Arlington Community College probably didn’t offer any of those.

  With a sigh, I flipped through the pages. My eyes landed on a word, and I had to blink and focus on it again to make sure I’d read it right.

  I had.

  Oh my God.

  I knew how to find help. I knew how to save my family.

  I knew how to stop Dennis Connelly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “What’s the big secret?” Logan asked. He and Jillian stood before me in the school’s computer lab. I’d slipped a note into their book bags last night, telling them to meet me here right after school.

  I held out the Hoffman catalog, opened to the course title that had caught my eye: Parapsychology.

  Logan made a swiping motion with his palm and read the course description without touching the catalog, but Jillian snatched it and read aloud. “Parapsychology is the branch of psychology that studies psychic phenomena. Professor Pruitt Fielding offers a survey of paranormal occurrences and theories, including the ability to move objects without touching them, mind-reading, ESP, predicting the future, and more. Students will conduct experiments to prove, or disprove, the existence of psychic phenomena.”

  She glanced at the door, which slowly swung itself shut. “So? We don’t need a college course to prove psychic phenomena exists.”

  “It’s not about the class,” I said. “It’s the professor. Maybe he can help us. I need you to fix a computer so we can send him an untraceable email.”