Chapter 1
҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉
I could feel his eyes on me from across the room. The heaviness of his gaze might as well have been a hand brushing over my bare shoulders, the way it was making me feel. My heart was fluttering in my chest, a caged bird made wild by my stepbrother’s eyes.
Ever since we’d first sat down together at the farm’s kitchen table as teenagers, listening to our parents give the speech about how they were getting married and we were going to be one big happy family now, I had always been fascinated by his eyes. Jay had these pale green eyes that stood out against his tan skin, bright and intense and always looking.
I could feel them on me now, and when I raised my eyes to double-check, it was like watching the rest of the world shut down. There must have been twenty or more people stuffed into the living room, all of the low-level chatter muddied together into an indistinguishable buzz.
There was the occasional burst of loud laughter, the crinkling of red plastic cups being tossed into an overflowing trashcan. But I couldn’t hear any of it. All I could hear was my own heartbeat thumping against my eardrums.
Jay was standing at the other end of the living room, posted up against the doorway. Everything about his body language seemed to broadcast indifference, from the slump of his shoulders to the way his body was turned a different direction from the cousin he was talking to. But those eyes…those eyes were locked right on me.
Inside the house, there were too many people crammed into too small a living room, and it made an already humid night feel like being trapped in a sauna. But everyone was there for Jay’s birthday. Everyone was there to see their golden boy and get just a little bit of the thrill that came from holding his attention.
Jay was incredibly handsome, with a strong jaw beneath dark stubble. Intense and hardworking, he went at everything he did with passion. It was why every girl in town stopped what they were doing to watch him when he walked into a room. Jay just had that magnetism that drew girls in.
I’d lost count of the number of girlfriends he’d had over the years. When he’d worked through all the pretty girls in our town, he’d started in on the next town over. There was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle when it came to Jay getting what he wanted.
Jay had always been the favorite. I knew I shouldn’t feel such jealousy at that fact, but sometimes it still made my heart clench painfully in my chest. When my father had married Jay’s mother, Caroline, I’d thought things were going to be perfect. We were old enough to be past the awkward stages, and I wouldn’t have to call her ‘mom’ or anything. It’d be nice to have another woman in my life. That’s what I kept telling myself.
But that hadn’t been the case. Caroline and I had never really gotten along. I think it was because she was jealous of the attention that Jay always showed me. He’d been kind to me from the start, always throwing an arm around my shoulder and making sure to include me. In her eyes, I wasn’t worthy of her sweet son.
So I wasn’t the Southern belle debutante daughter she wanted. I had never been all that girly. I did chores around the farm, I pulled my weight. Hell, I’d even helped vaccinate the chickens when one of the farmhands was out sick. But she was a shrew of a woman, always with something nasty to say about me.
Today was no exception. Caroline had started in on me the moment I got through the squeaky screen door and into the house.
‘It’s like having two sons.’ Those were the words that finally pushed me over the edge as Jay’s mother sarcastically saluted me with a drink. I could practically smell the vodka and energy drinks on her breath.
The cold air hit my flaming cheeks, cooling the heated skin with sharp tugs of the night’s
҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉ ҉
I could feel his eyes on me from across the room. The heaviness of his gaze might as well have been a hand brushing over my bare shoulders, the way it was making me feel. My heart was fluttering in my chest, a caged bird made wild by my stepbrother’s eyes.
Ever since we’d first sat down together at the farm’s kitchen table as teenagers, listening to our parents give the speech about how they were getting married and we were going to be one big happy family now, I had always been fascinated by his eyes. Jay had these pale green eyes that stood out against his tan skin, bright and intense and always looking.
I could feel them on me now, and when I raised my eyes to double-check, it was like watching the rest of the world shut down. There must have been twenty or more people stuffed into the living room, all of the low-level chatter muddied together into an indistinguishable buzz.
There was the occasional burst of loud laughter, the crinkling of red plastic cups being tossed into an overflowing trashcan. But I couldn’t hear any of it. All I could hear was my own heartbeat thumping against my eardrums.
Jay was standing at the other end of the living room, posted up against the doorway. Everything about his body language seemed to broadcast indifference, from the slump of his shoulders to the way his body was turned a different direction from the cousin he was talking to. But those eyes…those eyes were locked right on me.
Inside the house, there were too many people crammed into too small a living room, and it made an already humid night feel like being trapped in a sauna. But everyone was there for Jay’s birthday. Everyone was there to see their golden boy and get just a little bit of the thrill that came from holding his attention.
Jay was incredibly handsome, with a strong jaw beneath dark stubble. Intense and hardworking, he went at everything he did with passion. It was why every girl in town stopped what they were doing to watch him when he walked into a room. Jay just had that magnetism that drew girls in.
I’d lost count of the number of girlfriends he’d had over the years. When he’d worked through all the pretty girls in our town, he’d started in on the next town over. There was no such thing as an insurmountable obstacle when it came to Jay getting what he wanted.
Jay had always been the favorite. I knew I shouldn’t feel such jealousy at that fact, but sometimes it still made my heart clench painfully in my chest. When my father had married Jay’s mother, Caroline, I’d thought things were going to be perfect. We were old enough to be past the awkward stages, and I wouldn’t have to call her ‘mom’ or anything. It’d be nice to have another woman in my life. That’s what I kept telling myself.
But that hadn’t been the case. Caroline and I had never really gotten along. I think it was because she was jealous of the attention that Jay always showed me. He’d been kind to me from the start, always throwing an arm around my shoulder and making sure to include me. In her eyes, I wasn’t worthy of her sweet son.
So I wasn’t the Southern belle debutante daughter she wanted. I had never been all that girly. I did chores around the farm, I pulled my weight. Hell, I’d even helped vaccinate the chickens when one of the farmhands was out sick. But she was a shrew of a woman, always with something nasty to say about me.
Today was no exception. Caroline had started in on me the moment I got through the squeaky screen door and into the house.
‘It’s like having two sons.’ Those were the words that finally pushed me over the edge as Jay’s mother sarcastically saluted me with a drink. I could practically smell the vodka and energy drinks on her breath.
The cold air hit my flaming cheeks, cooling the heated skin with sharp tugs of the night’s
Similar Books
