Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) by Stephanie Hoffman McManus Page A

her hand away from the pan of food she
was trying to pull out of the oven. It crashed down on the rack and she held
her arm. I walked up behind her, noticing the way she stiffened as she became
aware of my presence behind her before I ever spoke.
     “Here, I got it.”
I placed my hand on the small of her back and reached around to take the oven
pad from her before she could burn herself again. I gave her
a gentle nudge to the side and then pulled the hot, foil covered pan
from the oven, setting it on top of the stove. Then I took Jax by the hand and
led her over to the sink. If her burn was bad, she needed get something cold on
it.
    “How bad is it?” I asked
her, lifting her arm to examine it. She didn’t say anything, but I could see
the small burn marring the inside of her wrist. It wasn’t bad, but it would
definitely sting for a while. I turned on the cold water and then moved her arm
under it. I could feel her inquisitive eyes on me while I held her hand under
the cold spray. Her stare was intrusive and almost enough to make me squirm
even though it shouldn’t have mattered to me what she saw or what she thought
when she looked at me like that.
    After a minute, I pulled
her hand out to look at it again. The area around the burn wasn’t too red, but
a small blister had already bubbled up. I dabbed it lightly with a dry cloth
and then lightly rubbed my thumb over the smooth skin surrounding it. She was
still watching me closely.
     “Stop staring
Princess.” She looked away and the color spreading over her cheeks matched the
dark pink of her burn. I realized I was still holding her hand and rubbing
circles with my thumb. I quickly released it and she pulled it to her side.
    Just then Chris walked
into the kitchen. “Smells good. Is the food ready?”
Jax quickly shut off the water and finished drying her hand on the towel,
turning her back to me.
    “It’s ready, we just have to wait for my brother and his family to show up. You can make
yourself useful and grab plates to set the table,” she instructed him. I had no
reason to be in there, so I turned and walked out, joining the rest of them in
the living room until the last guests arrived.
    Watching Jax meet her
niece for the first time made it more obvious than ever that we were very
different from one another and wanted completely different things out of life.
It hadn’t taken her two seconds to fall in love with the little girl, and it
didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was the reason Jax’s brother got a pass for whatever had happened in the past. Even I could see that
Jaxyn was desperate for family, so willing to forgive her brother for whatever
his sins were and welcome his wife and kid into her life. From the moment that
little girl flashed her big, dimpled smile and boldly flung her arms around Jax’s legs, she hadn’t been able to quit smiling herself.
She’d scooped her up in her arms, holding her and looking at her like she never
wanted to let her go.
    Someday Jax would have a
kid of her own. She’d get married and start popping out babies to fulfill her
little fantasy dream life and I would be little more than a memory from her
past. That was just fine with me, but I would make sure it wouldn’t be a memory
easily forgotten.
    Throughout the meal, Jax
tried her hardest to pretend I didn’t exist, but every once in a while her eyes
would meet mine over the large table we were all crammed around, and in the
brief moments before she would look away, I could see the struggle in her eyes.
She was fighting this, probably telling herself it was wrong, that she
shouldn’t want me, that I wasn’t good for her. It was all on her face, but she
couldn’t stop looking over at me anymore than I could stop looking at her.
    I watched her with
stolen looks and listened as she got to know her sister in law. She was so
unlike girls I was used to. She got excited about books the way I got excited
about music. We must have listened to her ramble