If I Loved You by Joanne Pence

Author:Joanne Pence
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quail Hill Publishing

Around four o’clock, Carly heard a car on the driveway, followed by Hitch’s barking. She went downstairs and looked out the window by the front door. She was shocked to see her older half-sister, Julia, getting out of an ancient-looking Jeep Wrangler. Carly’s day had just gone from bad to horrendous.

Carly also noticed that Alex’s car wasn’t in the driveway. She guessed she must have fallen asleep over her books and hadn’t heard him leave ... hopefully permanently taking the emaciated Skye with him.

Carly went out the front door just as Julia opened up the back of the Jeep. “Jules! What a surprise! But why are you here?”

Julia was a small woman, much shorter and thinner than Carly, but everything else about her screamed strength, power, and taking no prisoners. Her pale, ash blond hair was pulled back, twisted around and held in place with what appeared to be a wooden skewer. She wore an oversized dark green jacket that looked like it came from an Army-Navy surplus store, jeans, and brown hiking boots.

Julia glanced at Carly with dismay. “Guilt, if you must know. And I don’t like it either.”

Carly didn’t understand. “What do you mean? Guilt? Why?”

Julia yanked hard to pull her duffel bag out from under the piles of miscellaneous junk that filled the back of her Jeep. “As I thought about it, I had to admit I should have told you I was renting out the cabin. Although you always seemed far too busy with your own business to care about me or what I’m up to. So I handled it myself. But it’s your home as well, and so you shouldn’t come up here expecting to be on vacation and end up having to cook and clean for some stranger.” She lifted the strap of the duffel bag onto her shoulder and started up the walk to the cabin. “So I’ll do it.”

Carly was horrified. The one time she tasted Julia’s cooking, it was tasteless goop.

Still, she was amazed that Julia had shown up to help her. Carly never forgot the time she heard Roxanne describing her three girls. “Carly is like the Papa bear—she’s tall and strong, a take-charge Type A person, all practical, logical, and mind over matter. Then there’s Julia who’s a Mama bear—not that she’s motherly, but she always looks out for underdogs, ready to fight to the finish for them. She’s just a tiny thing, but so fiery and scrappy no one wants to tangle with her. Finally, there’s my youngest, my beautiful Mallory. She’s perfect in every way and is going to make some very rich man a beautiful trophy wife to show off to the world.”

She guessed Roxanne was right about Julia’s desire to help.

“Actually, the lodger has expressed to me that he sees my cooking as a benefit,” Carly pointed out, hurrying to keep up with Julia’s fast stride. “And I stay out of his way when he wants to work.”

Julia dropped the duffel bag at the foot of the stairs.

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