I got out of bed slowly, making my way to the bathroom. I jumped in the hot shower, letting the water surround my body with warmth washing away all the night sweats. A pair of tattered blue jean shorts and a black tank top was waiting for me to put on. I'm sure Grandma won't approve of it but I was planning on getting a little messy today. I ran down stairs and my grandparents were sitting on the front porch.

"You slept in late this morning. Your breakfast is in the kitchen." Her voice was a little hoarse, while she sipped the hot coffee to soothe it some.

"Thanks Grandma." I went back inside to grab whatever she had made this morning. Then went back and sat on the front porch with them. "Grandma can I ask you something?"

"Sure sweetie; I knew you would want to talk this morning. I was just telling your Pa here that you had a lot of questions last night and we will try our best to answer your questions."

"Actually I was going to ask you where the movers put my wind chimes. I haven't seen them since I moved here."

"I guess they would be in the basement dear." She smiled a crooked smile, somewhat confused because she was thinking I was going to ask something else.

"Joel is on his way over; he is going to help me look for them is that alright?" I took a bite of my ham biscuit. Grandma always made the best biscuits from scratch. My mother on the other hand would have fixed them right out of the can and they would have been burnt to a crisp on bottom.

"I guess so sweetie, just clean up when you're done."

As we waited for Joel to get there, I finished off the biscuit and a glass of orange juice. The atmosphere felt strangely quiet of tension between the three of us. Grandpa finally spoke up. "What are you really looking for Shayla?"

"Wind chimes, that's what I'm looking for. I remember mom putting them in my window when I was a little girl and I thought they would be nice back in the window." I gave him a smile. I don't think he believed because he hesitated so long before saying anything else.

"That it would." He paused silently. "Shayla can we go for a little walk before your friend gets here?" Grandpa had reminded me so much of my mother. She had taken a lot after him. She carried herself the same way as he was right now.

"But he will be here in a minute." I had started to argue, but then I notice that this was not one of those times to argue. So I stood up and said no other than, "Sure let's go," I said remorsefully.

We walked around the house, while Grandma went back in the house to clean the morning dishes. He was quite for a few seconds and then he stopped and looked at me. He stared at me as if he seen something different about me. "You are getting so big; I wish your mother was here to see you. I wish that she could tell you everything that you need to know." He placed a finger on his nose. "Your Grandma is worried sick about you."

"I don't want her to worry about me. I don't want you to worry either, Grandpa. I am going to be fine. It has been hard without them you know and now..." I sat down on the old wooden fence, as he interrupted me.

"And now you are trying to figure out the truth all on your own." He finished the sentence for me but that was not what I was going to say. "I know. We have known since the day you came here that you would be looking for answers. You see Shayla, sometimes in life things are just the way they are. Everything happens for a reason. You came into your parent's life for a reason. They loved you, made sure that you were safe, and took good care of you. They did what they thought was best for you."

"But I'm not theirs, am I?" I looked at him with curious eyes hoping to get the right reaction from him, hoping that he would tell me the truth.

"That depends on how you look at it. Your mother may not have given birth to you; however she did take great care of you. You were everything to her so in other words you were hers."

My jaw nearly hit the ground and my eyebrows raised for I believed that he was going to really tell me the truth. I had been right all along. "Do you know my real mother, Grandpa?"

"I have heard speculations of who she might be, but the only ones that really know are your parents."

"What if I told you that I knew who she was, would you believe me?" I asked squinting my eyes in the bright sunlight.

"How would you know? How could you..." He shook his head in disbelief, knowing that I must have been searching a lot more than he thought. I was however like my mother, the one who raised me. She always wanted to find out the truth like 'Harriet the Spy.'

"Because I am her daughter. Her name was Kamilah. She lived in Shady Grove. Have you heard of the place?" I whispered so that no one would hear us talking, even though we were the only ones outside in the middle of nowhere.

I knew by his facial expression that he had heard of the place. "Stay away from there. Don't ever let me find out that you have gone there. Do you understand?"

"O.K." I said defensively. "So you are saying that you do know of the place?" I asked again.

"Yes, and no I will not say anything else about that place." His eyes lit with fire. He brought his hands up and shook them vigorously. "How would you know of that place?"

"You're going to be mad at me, aren't you?" I bit my bottom lip, just like mom use to do.

"You went didn't you?" He lowered his head, bringing his hand to his mouth. "Oh! Lord. They know that you are here don't they? They will keep looking for you; they will come. Promise me that you will not go back. Promise." He was begging now. Maybe demanding now.

"I promise. I didn't know that it would be a bad thing. Isaiah said that he would take care of it."

"Isaiah?" His eyebrows formed closer together. If he only knew that Isaiah could be the bad guy he would have never let me go off with him.

"Yes, He lives near Shady Grove."

"You are not to ever be with him again." He insisted. "Do you understand me?"

"You sound like my father." He always told me what to do, never thinking of me or how it may affect me in any way. My father never listened to me and half the time I never listened to him. The funny thing is my father knew me. He knew that in reality that I didn't have to really go, all I had to do was dream about it. It's weird how I can vision things, seeing things happen before it does.

"I'm sorry Shayla, but he is not your friend he is playing you." He looked upset at first, then the lines on his forehead caved in, his cheeks turned red of madness realizing that Isaiah and I had been together this whole time.

I knew he was right. Isaiah had been playing me from the beginning. He knew who I was. He knew both of my real parents. Maybe he wanted some kind of revenge because of his own mothers' death. Just then Joel pulled up, leaving a trail of dust behind him. I looked up at Grandpa and he shook his head. "Be careful; go on get out of here." I reached over and hugged him. Grandpa was just trying to protect me, just like everyone else. If only I knew what to be afraid of.

I ran around front to meet Joel as he got out of his truck, wrapping my arms around him. He stared me down, looking at my attire. "Why Shayla what have you planned today?" He said grinning from ear to ear.

I pulled on his shirt to bring him closer to me. "I was hoping that you could help me go through some of the boxes in the basement. I'm looking for something."

"Sure, but I don't know if I can keep my mind on searching for something with you looking like that." He grinned a crooked smile as his right eye lowered to wink at me. He rounded his lips as if he was about to whistle but didn't because in the distance Grandpa had just walked back around the house.

I punched him in the arm. "Such a flirt." I grabbed his hand and he followed me down into the basement. Boxes were stacked on boxes, dust an inch think. There was a few spider webs hanging down from the ceiling and among all the boxes. It would be like looking for something in a haystack.

We thought that it would be easier to start with one box a piece. Thankfully the moving people wrote on the boxes so some of them we didn't even go through. We went through all the boxes that read breakable or fragile written on it. After an hour of pulling out dishes, glasses and old figurines Grandma came to the top of the steps. "Would you like something to drink, maybe some ice cold lemonade?"

"Sounds great." We said at the same time.

She brought it down half way, Joel met her the rest of the way, thanking her for the drink. I happened to notice the way that she smiled at him; I have a feeling that a part of her really likes him. We sat down and took a few sips, letting the cool liquid cool our bodies off.

"So we are looking for wind chimes?" He asked again taking another sip of the freshly squeezed lemonade.

"Yeah, when I was little my mother placed them in my window. She told me that they would keep the bad dreams away and they would protect me from evil."

He got closer to me. His knees touching mine as we sat on the boxes. His hand reached out for mine, pulling himself closer to me. So close that I could feel his breathe on me. "I will protect you if that's what you need," he crooned. "I can hold you; make the bad dreams go away." He kissed me, making chills run along my body all the way down to my toes.

I was breathless, speechless for the moment. I thought of my mother's journal and how she talked about kissing my father for the first time and how things happened so suddenly. I wanted him like that. But then I stopped him, pushing away from him. "My Grandparents are up stairs," I murmured. I couldn't imagine how they would have reacted to see me in his arms, kissing him. I wondered what my mother would have thought.

He grinned and looked up. "Yeah, maybe later. Let's look for the wind chimes so we can get out of here. It sure is stuffy down here." I smiled, but a part of me wanted to cry and pull him closer to me because I knew that Joel was the one for me. He was the one who would protect me from everything.

About an hour later, he stopped going through the boxes and sat down. I heard him taking in a deep sigh of relief, disappointment. I looked up to see what he was doing. His hands held on to the box and his eyes were fixated on what was inside.

"Did you find them?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I think so." He pulled one out and then another and another. "The one on top was broken; I hope it wasn't your favorite," He said disappointedly, making a sad puppy dog face with his bottom lip sticking out just slightly.

I walked over to him, looking at the broken one and started to giggle. The poor dragon fly didn't have a chance of survival. The wings were broken and the tip of the tail was gone.

"What is so funny?" He looked at me as if I had lost my mind. "It's broke and half the pieces are not even in here."

"I broke it when I was little. I was mad at my mother and took it all apart and broke a few of the pieces." I held one of the pieces in my hand, remembering back to that day. "I was so mad at her. That's when she told me why she had put them in my window to begin with. The dragon flies are to give off peace and strength. She said I would understand more as I got older. We were both crying and then she gave me the neck-lace." I stumbled over my own word and froze thinking of the day. The necklace was my mother's, it was Kamilah's. That's what went in the journal. It all made sense now. It was given to her by someone very special. It would protect me. But I haven't worn it in so many years. Then I remembered it was in the black box, that's where it was. I was lost in my own world for a few seconds until Joel grabbed a hold of my arm.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking." I grabbed two of the wind chimes and started up the stairs. "Can you grab that box and carry it up to my room for me?"

"Sure." He grabbed up the box and followed me up the stairs and then up to my room. As we passed by my Grandmother she smiled and said, "I guess you found what you were looking for."

"We did, Joel is going to help me hang them." I continued to walk up the stairs without looking at her.

"Alright then, ya'll be careful." She called up to me.

"We will." I yelled back down as I was about to open my door.

"This is your room?" He asked as if it couldn't possibly be mine.

"Yeah. Uhm." I walked over to the bed and put down the wind chimes. "I wasn't planning on you coming in here so it's a little messy." The bed was not made. I had clothes thrown on top of my bed and on a nearby stool that went with the vanity set. The top of the vanity was messy with make-up and fingernail polish, jewelry and such, everything in black of course. In the floor was a small pile of clothes from last night and my mother's journals were still scattered on the bed. I went to pick them up first and placed them in one of the drawers of the vanity. "Sorry I should have cleaned." I apologized again.

"No reason to apologize, it's your room; it's well lived in." He placed the box on the bed by the other wind chimes. "So where would you like to hang these, Ms. Farris." His eyes roamed around the room.

I ignored the name for now. "In the window. I guess we need something to hang them with uh. I'll be right back." My index finger rose slightly to let him know to wait a second and I would return.

I ran downstairs to get a few hooks from Grandpa and then ran back up the stairs. Joel was looking at the pictures on the mirror of the vanity. He touched one softly as if it was too fragile or he didn't want to smear it in any way. "Who is she?" he asked as I returned. He must have heard me coming back up from the steps.

"That's my mom. This was her room when she lived here before she married my father. My Grandparents have kept this room just the way that she had left it. That is her and a few of her friends." I pointed to the one under it. "This one is a picture of my dad and her." It was an old picture back when they had first started dating in high school. They were in formal wear, perhaps the prom. She was beautiful in a sky blue dress that rested on the floor. He was in a black tux with the same shade of blue on his tie and a blue flower in the upper right hand pocket of his tux. They were a cute couple.

"They dated in high school?"

"Yeah! They got married not to long after that." I changed the subject fast. "Here are the hooks; they should be able to twist right into the wood." I handed him the hooks touching his hands so lightly.

While Joel was putting up the wind chimes, I dug into the back of the closet for the black box. I pulled it out and placed it on the floor on the other side of the bed. I pulled out a few things, paper, a spiral notebook, an old diary, and pictures that I had drawn and kept to myself over the years. Then it sparkled in the darkest part of the box. I pulled it out and held it tightly within my hands. I walked over to the vanity and got out my mother's journals and got the one out with the last few pages glued together with the hole in the middle and placed the necklace inside. It was a perfect fit. As I sat back down, Joel startled me.

"What is all this?" He picked up a few of my drawings.

I felt a little awkward at the moment; the only person who knew about the box was Andrea. It held my past. It held the visions and dreams that I had. I hadn't looked at them in so long that I forgot what they looked like. But now as I looked at the one in his hand it was so familiar to me. It was a picture of the old woman with something in her hand. The other picture was a big splatter of paint with red streaks; a young girl was standing off to the side with her eyes covered. My eyes started to fill with tears. Joel didn't notice.

"It says you were five when you painted this one, what is it?" He asked curiously and then he looked up to me and noticed that I was in shock. I was crying now as he put them down and knelled down beside me to hold me. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have asked," he apologized quickly.

"You have no reason to apologize, no reason to be sorry. I have known this whole time. Why would I have forgotten about it? My father told me that it was just a stupid dream, another stupid dream. When I was young I would wake up in the middle of the night and draw like crazy of all the things I had seen in my dreams. As I got older I started to keep track of the dreams and even writing them down and then stating if it happened or didn't happen. My mom didn't mind as long as I didn't show my dad. She thought that maybe it would help me figure out what my dreams were trying to tell me. Just before my sixteenth birthday my dad threatened me and made a deal with me. I had to promise to never talk to my mom again about any of my dreams whatsoever and if I kept my word he would buy me any car that I wanted."

"So what happened?"

"I got a brand new royal blue Mustang. Mom thought it was a little bit much for a birthday present but she didn't know about the deal we made. I was doing really well about keeping my mouth shut up till the day we came up here. It was so real. I tried to shake it off but she knew I had another bad dream. She kept looking back at me from the mirror in the sun visor. She knew it was going to be bad. I think it upset her more because I just shook it off pretending that everything was fine. But she knew better she always did. We were fighting; he didn't see the cow in the road. They died on impact. I was jerked out and watched my brother die. There was nothing that I could have done. The thing is that picture there," I pointed, "I painted that when I was five, that's the accident."

"Is that possible; how would you have known at five?"

"It's complicated, I know things are going to happen, I just don't know when." I started to gather up everything, putting it all back into the box. I just couldn't look through all the pictures and the things I had wrote down at the moment. Not with Joel looking too. I took the necklace back out and put it on top of the vanity, then put the journals in the box to look at later. I got up and put the box back into the closet and looked up at the wind chimes. "They look nice there, thank you." I tried to remember what she had said about each one of them. The butterflies have to do with the human soul. The dragon was to ward off all evil spirits. The one with the lily pads and frogs was for sensitivity, hidden beauty and power. And then the dragonflies for strength, illusion and dreamtime. My mother was trying to tell me something. She was trying to keep me safe from the outer world. Or maybe she was trying to keep me safe from myself.

"No problem." He reached over and touched the necklace. "This is nice, what a fine piece of Tourmaline." He picked it up and proceeded to put it around my neck. We stood looking at it mysteriously. "It looks good on you," he said with a smile.

"My mom gave it to me when I was very young. I had forgotten all about it until we were in the basement and you talked about the broken wind chime. It was a very sad day and my mom gave it to me telling me that it would protect me. It was given to her by someone very special. I didn't know it at the time of course, but now I know that it belonged to my real mom, the one who had me."

He smiled and reached over closer to me to kiss me again. "Are we done here?" His nose tickled against mine for a brief second.

"I guess so why?"

"Come on let's get out of here." He grabbed my hand and headed downstairs to his truck.

I yelled back towards the house, "Be back later, we are going in to town." Even though I had no clue where we were really going, I got in the truck.

We did not go to town like I said we were, instead we ended up on his farm and riding Catori out into the pasture. We got off to let her rest, walking along beside of her. He reached for my hand, pulling me into his arm. I put one hand in his back pocket and he did the same to mine. "What am I going to do with you Mr. McCallister?"

"Would you please stop calling me that?" He begged as he nudged me in the side, coming to a sudden stop.

"But aren't you the man of the house?" I teased, pulling away from him. At the same time I took off his hat and waved it in the air.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you to leave a man's hat alone?" He reached over to get it, but I continued to wave it even higher in the air, praying that he would chase after it like a playful kitty after a ball of colorful yarn.

"Actually, yeah once but what are you going to do about it?" Teasing him I twirled the hat in my hand and ran away from him.

"Get back here." He started to chase me and followed me down to the pond. He reached and missed a few times and then just as he grabbed hold of it I slipped and fell right into the pond. Before I knew it he had jumped into the pond searching for me. We came up at the same time. "Are you o.k.?" He asked worried that I may have gotten hurt.

I shook my head yes, but then pretended to go back under as if I passed out. He pulled me out and placed me on the ground beside the pond. He got really close to me to see if in fact that I was breathing, putting his lips to mine just as I opened up my eyes. He glared at me for a second, as if it made him mad and the next thing I knew he was kissing me like crazy. "I would die if something ever happened to you. Don't ever do that to me again," he scolded.

I looked back into his eyes, feeling the pain that I had caused him. "Sorry, I didn't know you loved me like that, Mr. MaCal-." I wasn't able to get the rest out because he kissed me again.

"Well I do. I would give my life for you." And he kissed me again. I kissed him right back. Our clothes were drenching wet. He pulled off my top and then his shirt and we laid there kissing and touching each other. I could feel his breath along my hairline and down my neck. The wetness and the breeze of the cool afternoon wind gave me goosebumps all over. My heartbeat raced along with his, both of us breathing heavily now. I close my eyes for a second and smile, letting him touch me so softly with his callus hands. He placed one hand on my upper thigh, rubbing my leg ever so gently. I wanted him just as bad as he wanted me. We were so close to move on to the next level of our relationship but then Catori nudged him on his side. He took a deep breath and rolled off of me. "Thanks Catori," he huffed.

"Maybe some other time, besides did you even have any protection?" I looked at him thoughtfully.

"No. I guess maybe next time I could be a little more prepared and maybe even keep Catori at home." He smiled and handed me my shirt. He had left his off and rolled it up, placing it in the satchel on Catori's back. "Come on let's go get something to eat; I'm starving."

We rode back to the barn and put Catori back up. When Joel turned back around, I touched his bare chest. He was tanned down to the waist line a farmers tan. What fine abs he had. His arms and chest was full with muscle, not one inch of fat. His chest contained of no hair what so ever, like one of those models one would see in the Calvin Kline aids. I kissed his chest making my way up to his neck and on his lips. He started to breathe a little heavy, as he kissed me back.

"I thought we were going to wait?" He whispered between kisses.

I smiled, starring into his eyes. "We are I just couldn't control myself."

"Can I ask you something a little personal?"

"I guess." I snarled my nose when I looked up this time.

"Have you ever been with a guy?"

"Have you ever been with a girl?" I laughed.

"I asked you first."

"Well that depends on what do you mean by being with a guy. Back home I dated a guy. He came here during Spring break. We got very close to doing it, but it never happened. We got close several times, but we said we would wait till we got married or at least until after we graduated. Then there was your sweet dear cousin, Landon, on prom night. I knew what he had planned before hand and even though he tells everyone that we have, it is a lie. It was something for his reputation and his sweet little girlfriend, Julie. She made me mad so I pissed her off by acting like we did something."

"What about Isaiah?" His tone said it all. He as well as everyone else thought that we had something going on.

I started to laugh, "Oh please. He is just a good friend or at least I thought he was. I have a feeling that it is not over between us. He knows who I really am and he knows about my real parents. I have to talk with him again. It's just so complicated right now. But I can tell you that we have never dated or anything it's just not like that. So how about you; have you ever been with a girl?"

"Just you. I made a promise a long time ago that I would never date, much less fall in love with anyone. Watching Landon all these years, man he has been with just about everyone in the school and town for that matter. Seeing my mom without my dad-" He paused for a second. "Well let's just say why should I get all into a girl and then be heartbroken. Besides I have too much work to do, no time for a girl." I think he noticed my expression because then he stated, "Except you. I want only you. I think I have fallen head over heels for you girl." His hand brushed up against my cheek and as his fingers touched my lips as he kissed them again while his other hand found its way in my belt loop pulling me closer towards him.

"I think we need to get out of here. Didn't you say that you were hungry? So what are we eating?" I said cheerfully.

"Whatever mom is fixing." He gleamed.