Claiming His Forever

Chapter One

Kimberly

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Jackie says, reaching down and lifting Tinkerbell away from the refrigerator door.

Tinkerbell’s yapping fills our small kitchen.

For such a small little dog – snow-white Chihuahua – she really knows how to work her vocal cords. She whines and extends her claws as my big sister carries her across the room, stopping just in front of me.

“Of course not,” I say, reaching out for the dog. “It’s my day off, sis. Go and shock the art world.”

Jackie rolls her eyes. Even though she’s shorter and far thinner than me, I always see her as the older girl who towers over me. She’s eleven years older than me, the big sister who’s always had my back since our parents died when I was just two years old.

We were put into care together, but the day she turned eighteen and was able to move out, she worked her butt off to get to a position where she could take me in.

I owe her the world.

She smiles shakily, her jet-black hair cut into a bob. She’s wearing denim dungarees and a paint-spattered shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She looks every inch the Bohemian artist.

“I’m hardly going to set the world ablaze,” she says. “It’s just an open viewing.”

“I believe in you,” I tell her.

She reaches over, giving me a playful punch on the arm. Tinkerbell whines and tilts her head, expecting a tickle.

“Sometimes I miss when you were my bratty little sister,” she says.

“Hey, I can still be bratty,” I laugh.

“Like last night, you mean?”

I shoot her mock glare with my eyes.

“You don’t interrupt a lady when she’s on the last page of a book, Jacks. That’s just common sense. You’re lucky a cushion is all you got.”

She chuckles, eyes scanning the kitchen counter. It’s a bit of a mess this morning, with our dinner dishes and our breakfast dishes sprawled out next to the sink. The surfaces could do with a wipe-down, too.

I decide that that’s how I’ll spend my morning, and then I’ll take Tinkerbell for a short walk and settle down for some reading.

“Keys, keys,” Jackie says, searching.

“They’re in the bowl next to the door,” I tell her.

“How did they get there?” she says.

I can’t help but smile. “I put them there last night. I’m tired of you laying waste to the apartment every time you need to leave.”

“Thanks, Kim,” she says, blowing me a kiss as she heads for the door.

I stay where I am, knowing that Tinkerbell’s whining and separation anxiety will only get worse if she sees Jackie walk out the door. She’s making enough noise as it is, catlike purring as Jackie gathers up her painting gear and makes one hell of a racket leaving the apartment.

She might be smaller than me, but my big sister really can make some noise.

“Okay, girl,” I say, placing Tinkerbell down. “Be good and you might get a treat. Huh, want a treat? Just let me see to these dishes and—”

Of course, my cellphone chooses this moment to explode from the counter, vibrating loudly. Tinkerbell explodes at the same time, letting out a series of high-pitched yaps.

I shush her and stand up, glancing at my cellphone.

It’s Alexis, my supervisor at the realtor company I started working for a couple of months ago. I want to let the call go to voicemail, but as the twenty-one year old newbie, I don’t really have enough leeway for that.

Alexis is only a few years older than me at twenty-five, but she’s got one hell of a superiority complex and just loves bossing me around.

My belly goes tight just thinking about speaking to her on my day off.

“Hello?” I say, answering.

“Took you long enough,” Alexis says, in her inquisitive West Coast accent. She sounds like a Valley girl, conspicuously out of place here on the East Coast. “What’s that god-awful racket I can hear?”

“Tinkerbell, hush,” I whisper, placing my hand over the receiver.

She tilts her head up at me for a second, as if trying to comprehend what I’m saying. But then she decides that she’d rather start barking and scratching at the refrigerator instead.

I sigh and walk into the living room, just a few short steps away. The apartment is a series of small boxes, but it’s a hundred times better than living in an orphanage.

I’ll never stop being grateful to Jackie for moving me in here with her.

That’s the reason I bust my ass at this realtor job in the first place. I want to pay Jackie back for all the help she’s given me over the years.

“Hellooooooo?” Alexis calls. “Are you there? Like, I don’t have time for this today, Kimberly.”

“I’m here, sorry,” I say, wincing when the word sorry leaves my mouth.

I hate apologizing to Alexis.

“As you should be,” she says tersely. “Anyway, I need you to handle a showing today. Tina’s pretending to have the flu, the lying bitch, so I’m sending a car to your apartment to pick you up.”