“So how did you get your dad to lift your boyfriend visitation ban, not to mention let me up here in your room? I mean granted the door has to remain open,” he nodded toward the hall.
Guilt swirled around in me like a tornado, and Echo chuckled.
Oh, come on Eden, I would have done the same thing, only I would not feel guilty about the guilt-tripping you did—not allowing you to see your love brat was a little harsh, even for Daryl.
Echo, he’s not a brat.
If you say so, but from where I’m standing, he is a nosy brat—just like you.
With that, she had nothing more to say but rather than slipping deeper into my conscious, I could feel her right under the surface as I filtered through the secrets the box had kept hidden from the world. Her emotional balance was a multitude of diverse feelings that rippled through me as I peeled layer after layer of her past away. Then I got to the pictures and her emotional state leveled and softened to a light-hearted, completely consuming, sense of adoration.
He was handsome—really handsome. His eyes glinted in the sunlight that had caught them in the picture I was holding. They were the most metallic shade of silver—just like mine. It was weird seeing that eye color on another person. He had long, flowing, wheat blonde hair that hung past his shoulders and a dazzling smile for whoever was behind the camera. I flipped the picture over, and it read: Elm Point – July 8th, 2000.
That made me smile because it was the same place Drew had taken me for our first date. Apparently, it had been considered a good place for guys to take their girls almost twenty years ago too. I heard Echo chuckle at my thought, and I knew a smart ass comment was coming.
Oh, it was—but I can promise you, star gazing, and an engaging conversation wasn’t what we went there for.
I rolled my eyes, “Echo, I don’t care to hear about your sexual excursions with my father.”
“What is it with men and taking pictures with their vehicles,” I asked as I looked over the picture. My father didn’t look a day over eighteen, but I knew better. He was eight years older than Echo, which would have made him around twenty-three in the picture. Echo turned sixteen the following February.
“Wait what,” Drew said and damn near fell off the bed as he made a grab for the picture, but I whipped it out of his reach before he could.
“Well, that’s rude!”
I chuckled playfully at his irritated expression. He hiked a brow at me, and my playful chuckles immediately turned into nervous giggles. That look drove me crazy and he knew it. If it wasn’t for the fact that my dad was right downstairs, there’s no telling what it would have driven me to do. My mind was still in turmoil over the prospect of being intimate with Drew, but my body wasn’t pulling any stops. He gestured for me to pass over the picture with his outreached hand.
“I don’t come to fingers, Drew.”
He sat back and full out laughed as he shook his head. “No, not yet you don’t, but just you wait.”
His smile was mischievous and a little dangerous. It took every ounce of self-control to keep from outwardly shaking with the shiver that coursed through me because of everything those words implied. I let out a breathy sigh and handed the picture over.
“What is so important about him taking a picture with his truck anyway, Drew?”
He tapped his finger against the photo’s glossy finish and then glanced at me from the foot of my bed. A small triumphant smile crept across his face as he flipped the picture around and pointed to what he’d gotten so excited over. There below the bumper of the midnight blue truck was a white license plate with what looked like a dreamcatcher in the center. Oklahoma was written in red above it and Native America below. On one side of the dreamcatcher was a set of three teal letters and, on the other side, three teal numbers.
“That,” he said, “is going to tell us exactly who your father is. I just need to write that number down, and the year and month it was registered based on stickers. Aiden will do the rest!”
Echo came unglued. Her emotions tilted and whirled out of control, it didn’t take long for her aggression to bleed over into my own, and before I knew it, I was fighting with her for control over conscious dominance—something she hadn’t been successful in gaining over me in quite a few years. This time her emotional output was so strong that it was starting to grasp for the reins of my control.
NO! He can’t, it’ll ruin everything. Enough is enough; you would have never got this far if it wasn’t for your damn boy toy!
She was enraged and on the verge of homicidal delirium, whatever secret she was trying to keep meant enough to her that she was willing to physically hurt Drew to keep him quiet. She was fighting with all she had, and her will power was starting to overpower my own. Her intent rang loud and clear in her emotions, so it was no surprise when she verbalized those intents.
This ends right now! I won’t let him drag Danny down—not like this. I’m sorry, Eden, but he has to go.
“Drew, you have to go, please—just leave.”
“What…” he started to ask but was cut short when my right hand flung out toward his face. Amazingly, he dodged it and grabbed both my arms. Damn, he was fast! It didn’t take him but a second to pin me to the bed and keep me restrained there.
“It’s Echo, she wants to kill you right
