Forbidden. Tori Carrington

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ another man’s arms?

      She reached to slip the cell phone back into her purse and it vibrated. She looked at the display. Her sister, Rachel.

      Leah idly considered not answering.

      Rachel was a year younger and a whole world happier than she was. In two months she’d be marrying the man of her dreams. A man with a past even darker than Leah’s was, but a heart as big as Ohio. All you had to do was look at Gabe Wellington to see how much he loved Rachel.

      Had Dan ever looked at her that way? She briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember. No, he hadn’t. Maybe. Way back in the beginning.

      “For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to pick up,” her sister said when Leah finally answered just before the call would have rerouted to voice mail.

      I wish I hadn’t. “Class ran over.” Liar.

      “What are you doing for lunch?”

      She glanced at her watch again though she didn’t have to. She knew what time it was every moment of every day, if only because it seemed to drag by. “I have to be at the counselor’s in twenty minutes.”

      “Oh.”

      Leah caught the flat tone of her sister’s voice as she said the simple word. “And that would mean what, exactly?”

      A pause then, “You don’t sound like yourself. What’s going on?”

      Rachel. The smarter of the two sisters who had not only made it through college, but had gone on to law school to become an attorney and a city councilwoman.

      Sometimes Leah hated her.

      But she’d always love her.

      “Nothing. I guess I just didn’t sleep well last night. And Sami read me the riot act this morning for not washing her volleyball shorts.”

      “And you’re going to counseling like that? May be you should cancel and meet me for a margarita.”

      Leah sighed and relaxed slightly into the driver’s seat, wondering if the muddled emotions crowding her chest would ever leave. “I can’t tell you how good that sounds.”

      “So do it then. And meet me at Carmel’s in ten.”

      Leah opened her mouth to refuse but Rachel had already hung up.

      She absently pushed disconnect and stared at the cell for a long moment. She’d never canceled a session before. Surely this one time couldn’t do any harm.

      She called Dan’s office first only to learn he’d already left.

      Maybe she should go. Dan was probably already on his way, if he wasn’t already there. Either way, he would have his cell switched off.

      She dialed the therapist’s office next and told the assistant she couldn’t make it but that she’d be there for their regularly scheduled meeting.

      She disconnected, put the cell back in her bag, then pulled it back out again to switch the receiver off, routing all incoming calls directly to voice mail. The instant she did it, she felt ten pounds lighter, though it did nothing to stop the moths fluttering around in her belly.

      Oh, boy, did she ever need this margarita.

      “GABE WANTS ME TO MOVE into his place after the wedding,” Rachel told her from where she sat across from her at Carmel’s Mexican Restaurant.

      Leah fingered the coarse salt lining on her extra-large margarita glass then licked her finger. She’d never been much of a drinker and knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to drink more than a quarter of the concoction before her, but somehow it made her feel better to sip from a mammoth glass than a smaller one.

      “And the problem is?”

      “The problem is I just bought my own house, had it completely renovated and just moved into it three months ago. I don’t want to move again.” She sipped at her own margarita then crossed her arms on top of the table. “Besides, the thought of living in the mausoleum he calls home gives me the creeps.”

      Leah cracked a halfhearted smile. “It can’t be that bad. The Wellington place is a part of Toledo history.”

      “Then Gabe should turn it into a museum or something.”

      Leah didn’t know much about the Wellington estate beyond the sweeping grounds and the towering castlelike spires. She’d fished for an invitation from her sister once or twice, but it sounded like Rachel spent as little time at the house as possible and was trying to find ways to get out of going to the dark manor instead of inventing reasons to have to be there. “It’s not all that much bigger than where we grew up.”

      “Yes, but our house is different. Even when it was just Dad and us there, it still seemed…I don’t know, like home.”

      Leah cocked her head to the side and considered her pretty sister. “Don’t you think that’s how Gabe feels about his house? Especially since he doesn’t have any family left?”

      Rachel ran her fingers through her short, spiky brown hair and made a face. “God, I knew I’d live to regret you seeing a therapist. You’re even starting to sound like one. The next thing you know you’ll be diagnosing my condition and prescribing me Xanax or something.”

      Rachel glowered at her, making Leah glad that she could forget about her own problems for a precious stretch of time and focus instead on her sister’s. Why was it so much easier to fix other people’s problems than your own? Maybe because the emotion factor didn’t figure into the equation. Maybe because as an outsider your opinion was a little more objective.

      Maybe because you knew that your own problems were easily solved and you were purposely ignoring them for that very reason.

      Rachel narrowed her eyes at her. “Uh-oh. I know that look. What’s going on?”

      Leah blinked. She’d forgotten that Rachel had been the first one to pick up on her affair with J.T. nearly a year and a half ago. And here she was having an escapist drink with the only person who could finger what was going on.

      “Actually,” Rachel continued, “now that I think about it, you’ve been acting strangely for a few days now.”

      Leah cleared her throat. “I have not been acting strangely.”

      “Yes, you have. It’s been taking you forever to answer the phone. Usually you pick up on the first or second ring. And even when I do get you, you sound distracted and absentminded.”

      Leah shrugged, her gaze darting around the restaurant before returning to settle on her sister. “Maybe there is something going on. And maybe there isn’t. I don’t know. I haven’t quite figured it out yet myself.” She stared at her drink. “Would it be all right to say that I’m really not up to talking about it right now?”

      “Is it Dan?”

      Leah wished she were anywhere but there in that one moment.

      No, scratch that. Despite everything, she wouldn’t СКАЧАТЬ