Home > Lost and Found (Lost and Found #1)(2)

Lost and Found (Lost and Found #1)(2)
Author: Nicole Williams

I’d been called a million and a half other colorful names, but those were the most popular. However, labeling me a goth or an emo was just an insult to actual goths and emos. I didn’t want a label; I didn’t want to fit into a certain crowd. I was who I was, wore what I wore, and did what I did because that was who I was. Or at least the person I’d convinced myself I was.

I wasn’t overly mysterious like a goth or exceptionally sad like an emo. I’d done drugs, but I’d never wandered into first period stoned off my ass like the hardcore druggies. I wasn’t sure “loser” fit either, since I was a conscientious objector to all things that made conventional “winners” and “losers” out of people. So maybe out of all of those labels, the one that fit me best was freak.

A few more people shuffled by, and their attempts and immediate failures to ignore me confirmed I did freak well. As I fell in line behind the second to last person, my belief that people basically blew went up a few conviction levels.

Montana was bit warmer than Portland; that was the first thing I noticed as I stepped off the bus. The next thing? It already smelled like cow shit. Not overwhelmingly so, but that pungent tinge was in the air, along with the sweet note of grass and the not-so-sweet note of a sucky summer to come.

I almost sighed. I came so close.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t sigh anymore. Sighing showed disappointment, but I didn’t hope anymore . . . thus eliminating disappointment from my life.

But I came pretty darn close when I examined the landscape. I’d been right. Wide open spaces, no building in sight taller than two floors, and nothing remotely resembled something I was familiar with.

“This must be your bag, young lady,” the Greyhound employee said as he held out my bag.

“Why would you assume that?” I snapped, ignoring the man’s overdone smile. “Because it’s as dark and dilapidated as my clothing?”

That overdone smile fell quicker than my GPA in middle school. Apparently Montana and I were already off to a rocky start.

“Ehhh . . . no,” the man said, clearly flustered. “It’s the last bag in here.”

I glanced at the storage compartments. Empty.

Well, crap.

“Oh.” I took my bag from him. “Sorry about that.”

“I meant no offense.” The man dusted his hands off on his pants before closing up the compartment doors.

“Me, either,” I said as I headed away from the bus. “It just comes naturally, unfortunately.”

My bag had to weigh almost as much as I did. I wasn’t exactly a light packer, and sporting a black hoodie in the heat of a Montana summer day while attempting to haul my huge bag was my bad. I didn’t make it far before giving up my one-woman trek toward the parking lot. Tossing my beast of a bag on the ground, I plopped down on it. I couldn’t tear out of that hoodie fast enough.

I was supposed to meet one of the ranch hands from Willow Springs in the parking lot. I couldn’t remember his name, just that it began with a J and was one hundred and ten percent a cowboy name. I was supposed to link up with some total stranger, after driving across a couple state lines on a Greyhound bus . . . and that was the first step toward proving my responsibility to my mother?

Yeah, that was f**ked up.

Tilting my head back, I searched the sky, half expecting buzzards to be circling.

Man, even the sky was different. Too big and too blue. Where I came from, the sky was gray on most days, and on the rare day the cloud cover did shift, the sky was never quite blue. Almost as if it couldn’t let go of the gray consuming it more days than not.

I was just about to close my eyes for a quick siesta and let Mr. Ranch-Hand-With-A-Gritty-Cowboy-Name wait when a figure passed by me.

On a typical day, I was passed by hundreds, if not thousands of people. Passed by, passed over, passed something, so I don’t know why that particular figure caught my attention. Leaning up, I shielded my eyes from the sun and watched the “figure” I couldn’t ignore. After a second, I understood why.

The guy was wearing positively the tightest, most painted-on jeans I’d ever seen a guy slide into. And my generation thought guys sporting skinny jeans was socially acceptable.

However, that cowboy, in what I could only assume were a pair of faded Wranglers, had just secured the sash and crown in the Tightest Pants in the Universe title.

“Excuse me, sir?” Tight Pant Boy tapped the shoulder of the employee I’d snapped at. He waited for the employee to turn around and acknowledge him before continuing.

“Yes?” the employee said, shaking Cowboy’s hand when he extended it.

“Is this the bus that came up from Portland?” Cowboy Tight Pants glanced up at the windows like he was looking for someone.

“Sure is. Last passenger just got off a few minutes ago.”

The cowboy’s back was to me, although his back wasn’t exactly what I zeroed in on. My attention had nothing to do with ogling, lusting, or wanting to run my hands all over it . . . I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how those stitches were holding strong with pants two sizes too small cupping those butt cheeks.

“Was there a young woman on board? A girl about my age?”

“There were lots of young women on board, son,” the employee replied, doing a better job of masking his sarcasm than I would have. “Do you have a description? Maybe a name?”

“I think she’s blond, maybe strawberry blond,” he began, tilting his head to the side. “Petite, I’m guessing . . . I don’t know. I’ve only seen a picture of her that’s ten years old.”

   
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