Read Online Hard: A Military Stepbrother Romance by Lara Swann - Free Book Online Page A

houses down from ours, so we’d grown up pretty much on the same beaches,
doing the same stupid stuff. And although I’m sure her eight-year-old self had
had no clue at the time, the words were a fair premonition, as we’d ended up
working out a lot of the “what would a mother teach us here” stuff together.
    Feeling
at least a little better for unloading my grievances to someone who was
actually supportive, I decided to shift the conversation before it got
dangerous and glanced over at Kaylee again.
    “So,
what are you doing these days? Did you stick with Creative Writing in the end?”
    Kaylee
wrinkled her nose and shrugged.
    “For
a bit, but it wasn’t my thing. I’m on Fine Art now, that seems to suit me
better.”
    I
grinned a little crookedly, trying not to show my amusement, but it was hard.
Kaylee had changed majors twice now, and both times it was the same thing - she
hadn’t found what she was looking for. Heavens knew what that was - but so far
her father hadn’t objected to funding her search. That was Kaylee though -
while I’d moved straight from one goal to the next, Kaylee had always
proclaimed she liked to ‘flit’. Said there wasn’t much point in life if you
couldn’t have a few unexpected diversions along the way. As far as I could
tell, though, her life had only been unexpected diversions.
    “Well,
so long as you’ve still got your Dad in your pocket.”
    I
winked at her, the subject of her ease in getting her way a common joke between
us. This time, however, her brow furrowed again.
    “Yeah,
well, he’s been getting a bit more difficult about that. We’ve had a few
arguments about ‘responsibility’ and ‘growing up’ and such nonsense recently.”
    “Really?”
    I
swung around to look at her - this was new. Kaylee just shrugged, wrinkling her
nose again in distaste.
    “Think
he didn’t approve of Jagger.”
    Ohh,
that.
    I
raised an eyebrow and gave her a sardonic smile.
    “You
mean the one you used his money to bail out of jail?”
    Amusement
laced my voice as she turned to look at me.
    “Yeah,
him. It was only for weed.”
    We
both burst out laughing and I shook my head.
    “You’re
a piece of work sometimes, you know that.”
    She
gave me a graceful shrug and pulled her hair back behind one shoulder,
affecting her best offended attitude.
    “He didn’t
have to be so uptight about it. It wasn’t like it was anything serious.”
    I
just rolled my eyes. As I’d never even tried marijuana, I was pretty sure
Kaylee kept some of her more wild adventures to herself, but hearing her casual
opinions did challenge my beliefs sometimes. It was part of the reason I valued
her as a friend - even if it made that friendship frustrating at times.
    “Nothing
to worry about anyway - I’ll handle it.”
    She
gave that confident smile and rose from the sun-lounger with a grace I envied.
Her tall, long legs and a slender figure only added to the reasons she drew the
eye - so long as someone could put up with her unpredictable behavior. From
what I’d seen of her love life though, that seemed easier to do than holding
her interest. As with academia, Kay ‘flitted’ from man to man. She dove into
the sparkling pool to cool off, her long-legged body elegant and tanned in the
warm summer sun.
    It
had made me jealous once, but Kaylee was too good-spirited and fun to mind.
Plus, she rarely seemed to notice the effect she had - unless she was actively
looking for some fun, anyway.
    I
watched her swim a couple of laps before she came back towards me, hanging from
the edge of the pool and looking up at me with a grin.
    “I
fucking love summer. So what about you, anyway - how’s that foray into
forensics going? Did you tell your Dad yet?”
    This
time it was my turn to wrinkle my nose, disappointment flashing through me
again as I recalled all the things that had gone wrong yesterday.
    “Ah,
I don’t know…”
    Kaylee
saw my expression - and immediately interpreted it