Embraced Faulkner, Carolyn (ereader with dictionary .txt) 📖

Feeling like an intruder, Meg left discreetly through the dining room and headed up to her room to write. Writing always calmed her roiling emotions, and the events of the day had certainly set her nerves on edge. It wasn’t very long before there was a loud rap on her door.

“Yes?”

Barrett stood in the entrance to her room, filling the entire space with his tall, muscular body. His tanned hands were jammed into his jeans pockets. “We’re going to watch a the latest Star Trek movie on video – wanna watch?”

- 36 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Embraced

Star Trek was usually all one needed to say to Meg and she was there, but she felt too out of sorts. “No, thanks. You two go ahead. Dinner won’t be long, and I want to finish up here.”

He looked surprised that she’d turned him down. “You sure?”

Meg nodded, and he left, slowly, hesitantly, as if expecting her to change her mind at any minute. She didn’t. Instead she cranked out several pages of a new romance she was working on, then heard the timer go off in the kitchen and went to rescue dinner.

By then Hayden had arrived, saying David wouldn’t be along because he was working late. Once the food was on the table, Hayden beat Barrett to seating Meagan, pulling out her chair with a flourished bow, while Barrett seated his sister on the thick cushion he had thoughtfully placed on her chair.

“Uh-oh, I’d heard that someone got in trouble today,”

Hayden commented, getting a dig in at his sister, although his butt had been comforted by that very cushion on not just a few occasions during his adolescence, particularly.

Mandy seemed to take the ribbing in stride, especially when Barrett glared at his younger brother and said, “That’s all over now.

Mandy’s learned her lesson.”

Grace was said in a short, sweet fashion, and everyone dug into the food, except Meg, who for some reason was eating like a bird, which didn’t escape the eye of the man at the head of the table. “Are you ok?” he parroted the very same words back at her that she had asked him earlier in the day.

“Fine,

thanks.”

- 37 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Carolyn Faulkner

Then Amanda had to get into the act, too. “Meg, you’re never not hungry.” Suddenly, Hayden’s large paw covered most of Meagan’s forehead and eyes.

“I’m not sick,” Meg said quietly.

“She doesn’t have a fever,” he diagnosed.

Barrett scowled. “That’s not an accurate way to tell!”

“I’m not sick,” she repeated, not that anyone was listening to her.

Hayden grinned wickedly. “There’s only one really accurate way to tell, you know.”

“For the third fucking time, I’m not sick, and even if I was there’s no one in this room who could get me to cooperate with that method of determining if I have a fever or not, Hayden, you pervert.”

The siblings collectively drew in their breath at her outburst, eyes wide, looking expectantly to the head of the table.

Only half of his meal eaten, Barrett put his napkin on the table, got up, and, grabbing Meg’s wrist, gave her no choice in whether or not to follow him. She knew if she decided to really protest, he’d simply lift her into his arms effortlessly and remove her choice entirely. They ended up outside on the glider together, Meg sitting like a lump on one side and Barrett on the opposite end, wanting alternately to hug her or spank her into a better mood, at this point he didn’t much care which one it turned out to be, either.

He took a deep breath of the clean night air and set the glider to rocking gently back and forth. His hand lay palm up

- 38 -

BacksideOfLove.com

Embraced

between them as a silent invitation, which she deliberately ignored for several minutes. But he was patient and simply continued to swing in the cool night. Eventually, like a timid wild creature, her small hand snuck into his and he folded his big fingers over hers loosely. Nothing more than that. He could hear her slow, steady breathing, the occasional clearing of her still somewhat clogged throat. She was relaxing by inches, but not because of anything he was actively doing. The night air, the cricket and frog chorus, and the gentle glide of the swing were her undoing. He let go of her hand and stretched his arm out behind her, and it was only natural that she curl up at his side as if she belonged there. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and began to rub slowly up and down her arm, bringing her that much closer against him.

The screen door squeaked, and Meg tried to move away, but Barrett wasn’t about to let her. It was Hayden. “There are leftovers in the fridge if either of you is still hungry. I think Mandy’s watching the end of that Star Trek without you. I’m gonna head on home.”

Barrett nodded. “Night.”

“Night.”

She was tense again, but he said nothing until her earlier tranquility was restored. Her head on the muscular pillow of his shoulder, she heard his voice more through the rumble in his chest than his mouth. “I realize you have some problems with the way I handle my family, but one thing I can tell you absolutely is that I will not tolerate vulgarity in my home. I don’t use words like that, I don’t let my brothers and sister use words like that, and you have just used your one exception to my swearing rule.”

Generally, Meg didn’t swear much either. Her parents had always subscribed to