Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“You’re my twin brother, so I’m going to tell you straight up that you’re acting like an imbecile. You’re dumbstruck over that woman. You’re…you’re…you have your head stuffed your butt so far because you fell into insta-infatuation. You’re offering to blow a wad on that dump of a house just because she has a pretty face and a nice voice. You’ve always been a sucker for strays. You have a soft heart, Atlas. I know you try and hide it. I know you’ve always been a romantic, reading all those books and squirreling away your own poetry, but shit. This is too far. Too. Far.”
“Or not far enough.”
Orion slams on the brakes, and the car skids to a stop that sends gravel flying and dust rising in clouds around us as we nearly skitter right off the road. He turns to me, leaning across so far that he’s in my face, seething. “You gave away your real name first thing! And you’re acting like a ninny! You look like Lennox and Ransom and Alden, all lovesick and sappy. You’re so mushy that you’re a…a…a capital mush bag!”
I shake my head, still in a daze. I don’t mind my brother’s anger one bit. “There’s something about her. She’s alone, alone like we were. All by herself.”
“It’s not like we were, and you know it! She has a family, and they gave her the house. She also has friends in the city. Not. Alone.”
“I need to help her.”
Orion slams his fists against the steering wheel before he grips it and shakes it hard enough to pull the thing clean off. When he sighs, I know he knows that he’s lost this discussion with me. There isn’t any chance of changing my mind. “Good luck when the roof falls in around you. And I’m not talking about the house. I’m talking about Granny.”
“Drop me at home. Can you take the car back and take one for the team? Please, Orion. It’s important. This is important.”
He frowns at me, storm clouds of anger and concern brewing in his gray eyes—eyes the same exact shade as mine.
“Please? I have things to do, people to call, tools to buy, and a plan to put together as to how to talk Granny into seeing this my way.”
“Which is what? That you’ve lost your mind and fallen for someone from the first second you heard their voice?”
All I can do is grin the same sappy way I’ve seen my brothers grin after they fell for their women. For Alden, I think it was instant. He was betrothed to Azalea at birth, and even though they didn’t grow up knowing each other, I think there was a connection there, tying them together, that neither of them could shake. For Ransom, it took a few months. And for Lennox, it took a year. But it happened, and they couldn’t fight it. Now, they’re happier than they ever could have imagined.
I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do believe in connection. I do believe in seeing someone and feeling this…this aura around them, the same kind of aura you recognize in yourself. It’s like sharing a secret that you and that person alone know or giving them a password to your soul and finding out that they already knew it all along.
“Yeah.” I nod at Orion, totally calm even as his face darkens with thunder. “Yeah, I think that’s exactly right.”
CHAPTER 4
Victoria
Bump. Scramble, scramble. Bump.
I come fully awake in the old creaky bed with the mildew-scented mattress and the hard springs that dig into my back. The sun is up, but barely. It’s bleeding watery pinks and oranges through the thin glass of the bedroom window over by the equally ancient but not-so-moldy-smelling dresser where I deposited my clothes.
My bedroom. My dresser. My window. My bed.
Yes, it’s all mine now, the house in all its ramshackle glory, but apparently, I’m not alone. The sound comes again, and I snuggle further into the comforter I brought from home. I brought my own pillows, too, thank goodness. The ones in here were total throwaways. I haven’t been brave enough to attempt hauling the mattress down the stairs and out for an airing. I don’t even know if that’s possible, as the stairway is pretty narrow and rickety. Maybe just opening the big window up here and shoving the mattress closer to it would work.
Scritch, scratch, scritch.
“Oh my god!” I dive under the blankets, shaking and trembling as I listen to the sounds coming from either somewhere in the room with me or right down the hall in the tiny bedroom next to it. Maybe it’s coming from the roof? Inside the ceiling?
“Please be an animal and not a vengeful ghost. Or any kind of ghost. Please be an animal. Please be an animal. But not a bear. Please, not a bear. Or anything with rabies.”