Alice glanced up at Sidney Gates, not because she trusted him more than Dylan, but because he was an outsider. Surely he could offer some objectivity to these bizarre unfolding events.
“It’s true, Alice,” Sidney said gently instead. “Your real name is Adelaide Lynn Durand. You’re the daughter of Alan and Lynn Durand, and you were the center of their world. They absolutely adored you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she said incredulously, turning to Dylan. It stunned her, to realize he would play this cruel joke on her. “Why are you two doing this to me?”
Dylan gave Sidney a flickering glance before he grasped her hands. He squeezed, and as always, she felt that sense of a center. Grounded by his touch … even when she shouldn’t be, given this bizarre situation.
“Alice, this isn’t some kind of a trick. I’ve never been more serious, but I know it must be overwhelming. Do you need to go lie down for a bit? Or do you want to know more now?” Dylan asked simply.
She gave a bark of mirthless laughter. “You can’t say something like that and then expect I’m going to drift off to sleep. You’ve got to tell me now, preferably the punch line of this joke.”
“It’s the opposite of a joke,” Dylan said grimly. He gave her hands one more squeeze and then stood. He crossed the room and opened one of the cabinet doors of the built-in bookcase. From her place on the couch, she caught a glimpse of several photo frames, stacked and laid on their sides on a shelf. Bewildered, she glanced at the many shelves in the room. There wasn’t one photo on them. Someone had removed the framed photos and put them in the cabinet, she realized dazedly.
Dylan removed a dark red leather box and grabbed the top frame. On the way back to his seat next to Alice on the couch, he snagged a small table with one hand. Sidney moved his chair aside to make room for the table, and Dylan plopped it down in front of Alice. Both men sat, Dylan next to her on the couch.
“I can only imagine how strange this all sounds to you,” Dylan said after he’d set down the box on the table. “But the fact of the matter is, I knew you a long time before our meeting at your interview.” He handed her the framed photo. The sunlight cast a glare on it, and Alice squinted to see.
The image resolved before her eyes.
It was a photo of a tiny girl sitting on the back of a shiny black pony. She wore khaki-colored riding breeches, a white blouse, black boots, and a little black riding helmet that was strapped under her chin. Two strawberry-blond wavy pigtails fell from beneath the helmet. She looked at the camera, her smile the most unguarded, innocent, blissful one Alice thought she’d ever seen in her life.
Standing next to the little pony and the girl stood a tall, thin, rangy young man who wore jeans, a T-shirt, and dusty boots. He looked like he might be fourteen or fifteen years old. His longish brown hair gleamed in the bright sunshine. His stance was a little stiff. Not awkward, necessarily. Wary, Alice recognized. He gave a half grin to the camera, a glint of amusement or even happiness shining through his guard. One hand was on the girl’s saddle, the gesture somehow joining the boy and little girl in the photo.
That … and the glow of pride on both of their youthful faces.
Alice couldn’t pull her stare off the boy.
“That’s you,” she whispered to Dylan.
“And you,” Dylan said.
The two words seemed to bounce right off her. She stared up at Dylan’s face. She could see the similarities to the photo. Both boy and man were beautiful, but in different ways. The boy’s innocence was still evident, despite his wariness. Despite his wounds. The man was everything the boy had promised to be, and more.
She swallowed thickly. “What happened?” she asked blankly.
He briefly closed his eyes. “You were kidnapped when you were four,” he said heavily. “Taken from the Durand estate. Taken from me.”
“From you?” Alice asked, hearing him, but not really absorbing what he was saying.
“You know how I told you that I met Alan and Lynn during the first summer I came here when I was twelve? They taught me to ride that summer, and we became friends. Alan saw how much I loved the horses, and he requested that the camp manager make a special assignment for me as an assistant to the stable manager. Late that next summer, I met you. Your dad would bring you down to the stables. You were three, and you loved the horses,” he said gruffly.
“You loved Dylan.”
Dylan stared down at the floor at Sidney’s interruption, his expression wooden. Alice blinked, her trance broken by Sidney’s voice. “Your father told me about it several times, before he died. You idolized Dylan. The two of you had a special bond. I remember Alan saying fondly many times that his daughter was usually a Sweet Adelaide, but occasionally she would be a Sour Citrus,” Sidney smiled, naming two ic
onic Durand Enterprises candies Alice recognized. “You could be headstrong, but you listened to Dylan. And Dylan came out of his shell a little, around you—a tiny, innocent girl who saw the world as fresh and beautiful as the first day it was minted. Seeing how much his little girl loved horses—and the boy at the stables—Alan purchased a gentle pony for you that following summer. That pony right there,” Sidney said, nodding at the framed photo she still clutched in her hand. “Both Alan and Dylan were there when you first mounted her.”
“Angelfire,” she said slowly, deliberately, as if attempting a foreign language. The name lingered on her tongue, strange and beautiful.
Dylan’s head jerked up. “Yes. That was your pony’s name. Do you remember anything else, Alice?”
Alice shook her head. On the contrary, her mind felt strangely blank. “No. It just came to me … like a shot in the dark.”
“Are you all right?” Dylan asked.
“Yes. I’m fine. Better than before, actually,” she said honestly. “Please go on with your story.”
“It’s your story,” Dylan said stiffly. “And it’s not a story. It’s your life, Alice.” He flipped off the lid on the dark red box and withdrew some folded newspapers. “On August second, almost twenty years ago, Camp Durand was in session. I was fourteen years old, and you were four. Alan and I were teaching you to ride Angelfire, and you were coming along.” He opened the newspaper. “Alan had been letting me take you out for short, early morning rides.”