Read Online The Art of My Life by Ann Lee Miller - Free Book Online Page B

was sick of trying to get
Daddy to care about her. The back child support Mom had sued him
for could rot before she’d spend it. Blood money—money that came
from Daddy’s bloodline running through her body, not from his
love.
    She’d already learned the hard way
that Cal was a bad risk, no matter how safe he felt. He’d chosen
Evie over her before. And Evie’s one-act last night proved she was
still in the picture.
    She eased herself out of Cal’s grasp
and sat up, tugging the blanket with her.
    Cal’s jean-clad knee poked out when
she disturbed the covers.
    Dawn warmed the cabin, the stubble on
Cal’s face. His lips slightly parted. Sea-softened, kinky hair
sprawled across his pillow. Warm brown eyes blinked open. He looked
disoriented, then his expression cleared and he lumbered up. “I
must have fallen asleep.” Gravel roughened his voice.
    “ Yeah. It’s
morning.”
    He leaned forward,
hesitated.
    Her pulse sped and her breath
hitched.
    Cal smiled and planted a kiss on her
cheek and the corner of her mouth. A second stretched into
eternity, and the kiss ended. “Thanks for coming. For hearing me
out.”
    Her brain scrambled for something
intelligible to say. “For going psycho.”
    Cal grinned. “Do I look like I’m
complaining?”
    She mumbled something about needing to
wash her face and shut herself into the head.
    Everything changed with that kiss, and
nothing changed. It was a perfect kiss—not steamy or platonic. The
impact felt small, like a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence
or a capital letter at the beginning of the next. But it
wasn’t.
    She rubbed toothpaste on her teeth,
swished water around her mouth, and spit.
    She could resign from the world’s most
boring job at the bank. Other than socking money away, she wasn’t
getting any closer to her goal of owning her own business before
she turned twenty-five. She’d always thought she’d open a gallery,
but the type of business was less important than running
it.
    Aly splashed cold water on her face
and toweled it dry. Goose bumps rose on her bare arms. She grabbed
the sweatshirt that hung on the back of the door and pulled it over
her head, inhaling Cal. She could run his business. She knew she
could.
    Cal sliced pumpernickel toast into
eight triangles dotted with butter. They chased the toast with a
Dr. Pepper they split. No weirdness crept in.
    She huddled in the back of Cal’s
dinghy trying to capture all the ideas for his business pop-corning
into her brain as they neared the dock.
    In the distance Evie climbed out of
her hatch.
    Aly snapped back into sanity and the
sting of reality. Cal and Evie had to be still going out. Things
seemed strained between them yesterday. But she’d swear to it that
Evie was the only one Cal had ever slept with.
    Aly touched her lips. This morning
he’d kissed her . Maybe it was just a thank-you kiss from his
perspective. But it didn’t matter. She’d have to be a masochist to
face Evie or the possibility of seeing Cal and Evie together every
day. No contact with Cal was the least painful option. And the
smartest.
    Like a slo-mo DVD, Aly watched Evie’s
chin navigate toward the parking lot, then angle to where she and
Cal sat in the dinghy. Evie slammed her hatch and marched in their
direction.
    Aly sucked in a shaky breath of
salt-laden air as Cal grabbed hold of the dock. She squinted at him
in the morning sun—needing to spit the words out before Evie
descended on them. “My boss is going to call in your loan no matter
what I say. I-I want to help you, Cal. You have to believe that.
But I can’t. I just can’t.” Her voice broke.
    She couldn’t read his expression with
the sun in her eyes, but she heard him fill and empty his lungs.
“It’s your call, Al.” His voice was heavy, resigned. He held out
his hand to help her up the ladder to the pier and her grip closed
around his thick fingers, the calluses on his palm. She could
almost feel herself rip in two.
    Evie glared down at