Read Online Fated by Indra Vaughn - Free Book Online

Toby stopped him with a hand on his good wrist before he could step away.
    “Let me. Sit tight, and tell me where I can find everything. There’s no one here but you and me, so you can drop the Lone Ranger act.”
    “That’s not—”
    Toby’s mouth lifted in a half smile, and his eyes softened. “Just let me.”
    “All right, fine.” Hart pointed around the kitchen. “Plates, mugs, coffee machine.”
    As Toby began to rummage around, Hart slid off his barstool anyway. “Do you want some toast?”
    Toby looked over his shoulder as he poured water into the coffeemaker and rolled his eyes. “Yes, sure. Why not? Do you have marmalade?”
    “Just normal strawberry jam, I’m afraid.”
    “I guess I’ll have to make do.”
    It was odd to stand in this kitchen, making breakfast with another man who wasn’t his father. Everything about it was familiar and strange at once. It made him feel young in his skin, like the kid he’d been when he lived here. How often had he stood in this very spot, on a step stool right beside his dad, adding chocolate chips to his banana cake? He couldn’t bake much, wasn’t very good in the kitchen at all really, but that banana cake had been to die for. Any of Hart’s attempts to recreate it later had proved pretty futile.
    As if he could read minds, Toby said, “How old were you when you left Brightly?”
    “Eighteen.” Hart’s side and arm were throbbing by now, and his chest was beginning to break out in a sheen of cold sweat.
    Toby took one look at him. “Go sit down.” He steered Hart back to the barstool and handed him the toast and coffee.
    “I could get used to this.”
    Toby rolled his eyes and ducked his head, but Hart caught the pleased little smile.
    “All right.” Toby took his plate away when they were done and handed him a glass of water with two pills. “Take these.” He unpacked gauze, bandages, cotton, and a small bottle of brown liquid onto a carefully unfolded green piece of paper. Toby snapped on white gloves, took a pair of scissors out of a sealed plastic bag, and began to cut open the wrapping around Hart’s wrist.
    “Tell me if you feel dizzy,” Toby said, and then silence fell as Hart watched him work. He took the first few layers off swiftly, but as he neared the injured skin, he took more care, dripping some of the liquid to soak the gauze where it stuck in the wound. To take his mind off the sharp pain, Hart used Toby’s preoccupation to study him in detail. His dark hair was as meticulously styled as it had been the first time they met. The dark eyelashes to match the hair curled enticingly outward. His nose was straight and strong, the cupid bow beneath it pronounced. There was no sign of any stubble on his cheeks, jaw, or Adam’s apple as it bopped up and down when he swallowed. This was one attractive man, no doubt about it. And, Hart noticed, no mark on the back of his neck. If a cult happened to be behind the suspicious deaths, at least Toby wouldn’t turn out to be their leader or something.
    “Am I hurting you?”
    “Not much,” Hart said, startled to find Toby’s dark eyes trained on him. “Why?”
    “You’re breathing a little faster. We can take this to the couch if you like. You’d be more comfortable if you could lie back.”
    “Uh, no. I’m fine here.” Hart looked down at his arm, bare now, and saw the extent of the injury there for the first time. Toby sat back and waited.
    The back of his hand was only mildly red, the top of his wrist a bit worse than that. “So, you think it’ll scar?”
    “Most likely, especially here.” Toby took hold of Hart’s hand, his thumb pressing into the palm, and turned it over. “I figure you used your arm to protect yourself, and your sleeves were rolled up, so the fleshy part of your forearm took the brunt of it. It won’t be terrible, and with time it will fade, but I do think it will always be there.”
    Hart flexed his fingers, considering again how lucky he’d been.