Family Skeletons by Bobbie O'Keefe

Author:Bobbie O'Keefe [O'Keefe, Bobbie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-06-05T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Within a week Sunny was feeling close to normal again—if not exactly looking that way.

On a lazy morning Jonathan rolled onto his back, reached for her hand and squeezed it. There was little energy in his clasp—he’d just spent most of it—but the message was clear. She was special. She was important. She was loved.

And so are you. Her breath caught and for an instant her gaze froze on the ceiling, then mentally she shrugged it off. Nope. Not going anywhere else with that thought right now.

He pulled her into the circle of his arm. As she settled her head on his shoulder, her fingers played with the curled hair on his chest. Not too much hair, just enough. There was also little strength in her fingers. Her hand stilled and her eyes closed.

“Gorgeous view,” he said.

“Umm.” She lifted her head to look through the old-fashioned paned windows then realized that he meant her, not the ocean. The scratches were healing, and the bruising was less prominent, but she still had a ways to go before she’d look normal again. Apparently Technicolor didn’t turn him off.

“Oh, stop it.” She reached for the sheet, feeling both complimented and flustered.

With only the sheet to look at now, he directed his eyes to the window.

“There’s something I’ve been curious about,” he said lazily. “This is the best bedroom in the house and you had your choice of any one of them when you moved in here. Why did you choose that dinky little room in the back corner?”

“It’s closest to the bathroom.”

“Very funny.” Her hand got squeezed again. Then he chuckled. “On second thought, considering that uncomplicated side of yours, that could be the truth.”

She rose onto her elbow, taking the sheet with her, and looked around the room, studying it. “Yes, this is the best room. The master bedroom. It was my parents’.” Quietly, she added, “I might have been conceived in this room.”

At the look on his face, she smiled. “No, I haven’t done any conceiving. We can both guarantee that.”

“That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking about your ties to this place, the people, the history. I still don’t think of you as a Corday. I guess because you didn’t introduce yourself as such in the beginning. I can’t imagine the mixed feelings you must have.”

Mixed feelings? That’s what you call it?

“I guess you could say that.” She shifted to prop her back against the headboard, and then she stared straight ahead. “Feelings and memories. But the memories I’d prefer to forget aren’t of this place and Franklin. What I wish I could forget is much later than that. I was the most mixed-up person I ever want to meet. I fought—not just rebelled, but actually fought—everything and everybody. Roberta, school, society, you name it. Franklin was never in my life, so I couldn’t fight him, which might have been the problem. If I could’ve just once lit into him, beat up on him, told him what I thought of him, maybe I wouldn’t have abused myself and everybody else so much.

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