Lost and Found (Twist of Fate, Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Lost and Found

  Twist of Fate #1

  Lucy Lennox

  Sloane Kennedy

  SKLL Books LLC

  Copyright © 2017 by Lucy Lennox & Sloane Kennedy

  Cover Images: ©www.stefanocavoretto.com, ©www.willowpix.com

  Cover Design: © Jay Aheer, Simply Defined Art

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN-13:

  978-1548557362

  ISBN-10:

  1548557366

  Contents

  Lost and Found

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  Afterword

  About Lucy Lennox

  About Sloane Kennedy

  Also by Lucy Lennox

  Also by Sloane Kennedy

  Lost and Found

  Lucy Lennox

  Sloane Kennedy

  Trademark Acknowledgements

  The authors acknowledge the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Rugrats

  Iphone

  Ranger Rick

  The Sound of Music

  Who Let the Dogs Out

  Let it Go

  Do you want to build a snowman

  Frozen

  Cinderella

  Sketchers

  Big Brothers Big Sisters

  Legos

  Legoland

  Godzilla

  Ickis

  Aahh Real Monsters

  Barney

  Transformers

  Moon Pie

  Chips Ahoy

  Band Aid

  Flight for Life

  Acknowledgments

  We would like to thank our beta readers, Claudia, Courtney, Karie, Kylee, Leslie and Lori, for giving us quick, valuable feedback on our first collaboration project. You have no idea how much we appreciate your support.

  Chapter 1

  Xander

  “No,” I said coldly just as the man in front of me smiled wide and stepped forward, clearly intent on embracing me.

  “Xander?” he said softly, his voice a mix of confusion and hurt. I ignored him as the sharp pain in my belly threatened to send me to my knees.

  Bennett Fucking Crawford.

  “Xander?” Jake said in surprise.

  “No,” I simply said again and then I started to walk away, not caring that what I was doing was beyond unprofessional. My only thought was to get the hell out of there. My dog, Bear, quickly came running after me, easily ditching the kids who’d been lavishing him with the belly rubs he assumed were his due.

  Benny, please, I need you…

  I shook my head in the hopes of casting that voice aside.

  My voice.

  My scared, broken, fourteen-year-old voice.

  Fire crawled up my spine as I remembered how Bennett had looked at me that night… right before he’d turned his back on me. It had been the last night I’d seen him.

  “You okay?” Jake asked with a confused look on his face.

  I should have been relieved at the sound of my good friend’s concern, but it just made me want to stride off into the woods.

  Alone.

  I did alone well. I knew alone. Alone never let me the fuck down.

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. He was smart enough not to touch me, but his expression drew into a frown. Gary, the head of the wilderness expedition company I worked for, strode over to us from across the trailhead parking lot. Both he and Jake looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “What’s going on?” Gary asked.

  I couldn’t help but glance back at the bus where over a dozen kids were mingling, along with several adults. But my eyes automatically sought out just one of those people. Dark hair, warm brown eyes, lean body…

  Fuck.

  “I know one of them,” I motioned with my head towards the bus. “We grew up together.”

  Both men looked that way.

  “Which one?” Gary asked. “Aiden—”

  “No,” I interjected. “Bennett Crawford.”

  “Bennett,” Jake said in surprise. “The Bennett?”

  I nodded. I’d never told Jake everything about Bennett and me, but he knew enough. “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “What? What am I missing?” Gary asked.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this.”

  “Xander, they’re here. They’ve paid… the kids are looking forward to this trip,” Gary began. He shook his head. “Come on, man, I’m counting on you.”

  Guilt went through me as I studied Gary’s face. Yeah, he was technically my boss, but I worked freelance as a wilderness guide and was in high demand. I didn’t need the money from this group of inner-city kids, and I could easily find another company to guide for. But I also wasn’t the type of guy who just left people in the lurch. I looked back at the kids who were completely unaware of what was happening as they talked excitedly amongst themselves and went through their gear.

  “I’ll take the Five Lake Loop,” Jake offered. My eyes snapped to his and he sent me a smile. I’d been friends with Jake for several years, ever since we’d met on an adventure expedition to Patagonia. When he’d moved to Haven, Colorado a year ago, I
’d suggested Gary hire him as a guide. While I appreciated what he was trying to do, I knew it would never work. There was a reason I’d been selected to guide the group of older kids. I just hadn’t realized who the chaperones would be for those kids until I’d seen the names on the roster just moments before the group had gotten off the bus.

  “Jake, you don’t know the Five Lake Loop and you’re not equipped to teach rock climbing or high-water river crossings yet,” Gary said kindly, voicing my own concerns. “Xander—”

  “I’ll do it,” I murmured, cutting him off. As much as I wanted to just take off and disappear for a few days, I couldn’t let Gary down… or the kids. I automatically dropped my fingers to search out Bear’s head. The Newfoundland mix had become my shadow in the three years since I’d found him abandoned as a puppy in one of the campgrounds at the end of the summer camping season. I’d felt an immediate kinship with the dog as I’d watched him sitting among the remnants of a deserted campsite, staring in the direction of the narrow dirt road leading out of the campground.

  Waiting for his loved ones to come find him, no doubt.

  I’d known that feeling.

  All too well.

  I turned and began striding back towards the group of kids who were starting to look a little bored. My hiking boots made crunching sounds on the sparse pebbles scattered across the unpaved lot. The late afternoon sun slanted through several tall pine trees just beyond the bus, and shadows danced along the overgrown tufts of grass at the edges of the clearing where the kids stood talking.

  I felt, rather than saw, Bennett’s eyes on me as I approached, but I ignored him and went to the tall, arrogant-looking man standing next to him. “I’m Xander Reed; I’ll be your guide. We’ll be leaving in fifteen minutes, so if any of the kids need to make use of the facilities one last time,” I motioned to the building opposite the bus, “they should do it now.”

  The man with Bennett was a good-looking guy who should have had all my cylinders firing. He had a rangy, muscular body and sharp blue eyes. His chestnut hair was thick and his little bit of beard scruff was usually my kind of thing. But I felt nothing. Well, not true… I felt something. But it wasn’t directed at the tall stranger.

  “Aiden Vale,” the man returned as he shook my hand. He glanced uncertainly at Bennett, but I didn’t follow his gaze.

  “Xander…” Bennett said, but I didn’t look at him.

  Aiden spoke up. “Mr. Reed, this is my associate, Bennett Crawford—”

  “Fifteen minutes,” I said and then I was moving again.

  “Xander, wait!” I heard Bennett call, but I ignored him. I wasn’t surprised when he followed and darted around me so he could step into my path. I’d gotten a glimpse of his tenacity on the very first day we’d met as polar opposite five-year-olds. Bennett hadn’t remembered the exact details of our first meeting, but I remembered that day as if it were etched into every brain cell. My parents had spent all of breakfast arguing about the fact that my mother had to work on a Sunday, and after she’d stormed off, my dad had taken me to the park to play.

  Though he hadn’t been interested in playing with me like he usually did.

  He’d merely sat on the park bench by the small playground and stared off into the distance after telling me to go swing by myself for a while. I’d sat on the swings watching him, wondering how to make it so he wouldn’t seem so sad all the time. I hadn’t even noticed the short, dark-haired kid plop down on the swing next to mine at first. It wasn’t until he’d started talking a mile a minute that I’d turned my attention on him.

  “You like rats?” he’d asked me.

  I’d immediately laughed at him. “Rats?”

  “Rugrats, I mean. You know, the cartoon.”

  What a weirdo, I remembered thinking.

  I’d tried ignoring him at first, but Bennett had been hard to ignore.

  He still was.

  I forced myself to stop walking so I wouldn’t bowl him over, because unlike when we were kids, I was now considerably larger than he was. He was only a few inches shorter than me, but my active lifestyle had given me the kind of body you couldn’t get in a gym. And while Bennett looked fit, I probably had a good thirty pounds or more on him.

  “God, Xander,” he whispered. His eyes raked over me. I inwardly cursed myself as the effect of his perusal went straight to my dick, though I knew he couldn’t be looking at me that way. Jesus, what the fuck did it matter how he was looking at me?

  “What?” I snapped.

  Bear whined, but before I could put my hand down to reassure him I was fine despite my raging anxiety, Bennett dropped his fingers to the animal’s muzzle. My dog sniffed him a few times and then he pressed his big body up against Bennett’s legs. Stupid fucking traitorous dog.

  “I just… I thought we could talk,” Bennett said.

  “About what?”

  “About what?” he repeated dumbly. “About… everything. About that night, about your dad—”

  I didn’t even consider who might be watching as I fisted my hands in Bennett’s shirt and forced him backwards until his shoulders hit a tree. “You don’t get to talk about my dad ever again, you hear me, Bennett?” I practically snarled at him. “You gave up that right. You gave up everything when you turned your back on me.”

  Bear began barking frantically and I remembered where we were and that we weren’t alone. I jerked away from Bennett and tried to get control of myself. “Stay the fuck away from me,” I warned quietly as I reached down to settle Bear.

  “Xander…”

  I ignored the plea in his voice and turned my back on him.

  And I did it without regret… just like he’d done to me fifteen years earlier.

  Chapter 2

  Bennett

  I was embarrassed to admit that despite the tension simmering between us, not to mention the agonizing guilt weighing down on my chest, I couldn’t stop staring at his goddamned ass. It had only been a few hours since reuniting, and I was already so tuned in to Xander’s body, I could barely spare a single moment’s thought for anything else. Namely, the kids.

  And I loved these kids. I’d already spent time with many of them in one of the after-school programs my father’s company sponsored, and I knew what a wilderness adventure like this one could do for them. Broaden their horizons, provide them time and space to think, show them the expansive beauty of their world, and give them the opportunity to learn leadership skills. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for most of these guys. And I was lucky enough to be there for it.

  I glanced around the darkening campsite as the boys settled down from the excitement of setting up their tents and sleeping bags. We’d only hiked an hour or so down the trail from the drop-off when Xander had stopped and declared a nearby clearing as our campsite for the night.

  The eight teenage boys in our group were the ones who were old enough to learn more advanced skills like navigation, rock climbing, and river crossings. The younger group had gone with two other volunteers and a guide. They would focus more on the easy stuff like basic hiking and camping. Since I was a city guy myself, I was more nervous about being with the so-called “advanced” group than I cared to admit, but Aiden had reminded me that my rapport with the older kids was an important asset, since they weren’t quick to trust just anyone.

  A boy named Toby came up to sit next to me on the large rock where I’d perched after dinner. The breeze had picked up, and I noticed several kids slipping on warmer clothes. Dark clouds cast black shadows across the inky blue sky, and I was surprised I didn’t hear more animal noises. Owl hoots or bear growls or something.

  Toby handed me a pile full of wide elastic straps and loose plastic pieces. I stared at the collection of items in my palms.

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.

  “Fix it for me,” he said.

  I stared some more. “What’s it supposed to be?”

  “Headlamp. I don’t know how to work it.”

&nbs
p; “And you think I do?” I asked with a raised brow. “You’re talking to the guy whose lights at home are all controlled by his iPhone. I don’t know how to work an actual, physical light source.”

  I turned to face him, moving to sit cross-legged so I could drop the pieces between my legs to keep them from rolling away. Apparently, this was a teaching moment I had to figure out. “Okay, first— parts identification. If it’s a headlamp, we know we need straps to go around the head. Any clue which of these pieces are the straps?” I gave Toby a blank look.

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t fuck with me. You’re not that stupid.” He grabbed the elastic straps and set them aside. That left several plastic pieces and a battery.

  “Now, there should also be some kind of lighting apparatus,” I said in my best dorky voice. “A bulb, a lamp of sorts. An illumination station, if you will.”

  “Jesus, you’re weird,” he muttered, grabbing the light-up portion of the device from the pile along with the battery.

  “Hmm, finally, we need a way of connecting the light dealie to those complex wrappings—”