Swear (Landry Family 4)

How do you not love that? Especially when she’s the most naturally beautiful girl you’ve ever seen? When just looking at her seems like it fills a hole in your heart that you were born with and can’t plug otherwise.

My mind goes back to Ryan and the feeling in the room I just left. The look on Lincoln’s face and the love that Danielle has in her eyes when she looks at my brother and her son. I’ve only had one person look at me like that, and I sure as hell have only felt that way about one woman.

I grab the wheel and whip a U-turn in the middle of the highway.

Ellie

“AH!” MY HEART LEAPS IN my chest the same time I literally jump at a noise from the back. “Damn it,” I grimace. “Grow up, Ellie.”

I’m such a chicken when it comes to being alone in the dark. Put me in the woods in the middle of the night and I’m fine, but put me in a store on Main Street in Savannah and I’m a big ‘ol baby.

It’s people that scare me. Crazy serial-killers or demented lunatics that sneak into the bathroom when the curtain is closed or are hovering over you while you sleep. It’s also the ridiculously good-looking men with blond hair and the most incredible blue eyes and crooked grins that terrify me. Those that fit the latter description are the most dangerous of them all.

Humming a tune and shaking it off, I pour more paint into a pan and pick up the roller. It spreads evenly on the wall. There’s something calming about the fluidity of the motion.

Violet and I were supposed to take today off. She wanted to spend the weekend getting the last few pieces of her apartment put together. I thought a free day sounded perfect, but the quiet afforded me too much time to think.

I’ve been here for the last ten hours.

The streetlights glow on the other side of the black paper we hung in front of the windows to keep prying eyes out until we’re ready to debut the store. The traffic outside has slowed. Only a random car now and then can be heard roaming down the road.

I roll the brush back through the paint and have it nearly touching the wall when a knock raps against the door. Instantly, my heart lodges in my chest.

The roller splashes in the paint, spattering my shoes with mint green drops, as I scramble to find my phone. The knock comes again, a little louder this time.

“Shit!” Grabbing my device, I stand facing the door. I don’t know what to do. Should I call 9–1-1? Should I start screaming now? After all, no one knows I’m here. That means two things: One, no one should be looking for me, and two, no one will be until tomorrow sometime, in which case my body will be stone cold by then.

I’m dead. A goner. A missing person’s report in the making.

Creeping to the window, I pull back the paper a tiny bit and peek out.

And suck in a breath.

Ford is standing under the light in the front, his hands stuck in the pockets of his khakis. A green polo shirt is stretched across his chest. He looks tired, his posture not quite as perfect as it normally is.

His head tilts to the side and he catches me spying. His shoulders lift and then drop, as if he’s thinking the same thing—he’s not sure why he’s here either.

I attempt to keep my face as sober as possible when inside my traitorous body is doing a round-off back tuck.

I want to be irritated with myself for reacting this way. Frustration is what I should feel, not a blip of excitement.

He moseys towards me, slipping one hand out of his pocket. It’s planted near mine on the other side of the glass. My fingers bend, as if trying to make contact with his. His do the same.

I pull back.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

Forcin

g a swallow, I look him in the eye. “Why?”

He shrugs again, but doesn’t respond. That gives me nothing to work with.

“I’m busy,” I say.

“Painting.”

“How did you know?”