Keep You by Lauren Gilley

Author:Lauren Gilley [Gilley, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-11-18T06:00:00+00:00

In his mind’s eye, Tam saw a twelve-year-old Jo standing with her feet apart, her little fingers plucking the string of her brother’s bow, her elbow cocked back, a fierce look of concentration pulling her brows low over her eyes as she prepared to loose. Her hair had been a wild mess around her shoulders, her jeans and sneakers covered in grass stains. The only thing that had existed for her in that moment was the letter U on the bag of mulch they’d been using for target practice. She’d felt like his sister then. She felt like the worst mistake he’d made in his life now.

She was in a lilac dress that clung to the sinews and curves of her body, cinched tight around her tiny waist. Her gold-and-mahogany hair was pulled back at the crown, off her cheeks, her ears, and spilled down her back, catching in the wind. In her fingerless gloves and her riding boots, she could have been a wood elf, a beautiful, deadly archer from some medieval fantasy novel. Both her sea foam eyes were open wide, sparkling, affixed to her target. And around her neck, the light glinted off a sterling silver letter J that he had given her for her eighteenth birthday.

“A slow pull,” their instructor, Finn, cautioned her, and then grunted in approval as she drew her right arm back with graceful calm, drawing the bowstring tight up against her cheek. “Steady now. Deep breath and hold.”

There was a soft twang as Jo’s fingers released and the string snapped back into place. It was a small bow, without too much tension, but the targets were close enough that the arrow was there before they saw it moving. It thunked, quivering, into the yellow, just to the right of the bullseye.

“Aye, there ya go,” Finn said.

Randy clapped. “Atta girl!”

Jo’s cheeks flushed a pretty pink, pleased, as she lowered the bow and turned to regard them. He waited for her eyes to touch his, and when they did, it fed his hope that she hadn’t carved him out of her heart with a butcher knife and left him for dead.

And then that shithead Atkins had to go and ruin everything. “That was great, babe.”

Randy and Jordan made identical grunting sounds at the jackass’s liberal use of “babe.” Tam felt his hands curl into fists and forced them to relax. This was not a high school kid. Atkins could probably bench press Jordan – no sense in starting a fight he couldn’t win. But the righteous fury was there all the same. He was realizing it was a good damn thing he hadn’t had any real interaction with her in the past four years because hearing other men call his girl “babe” was not good for his mental health.

“I wish I could do that.” Lie: Atkins had done nothing but bitch to Mike about the concept of archery.

“Well,” she said with a shrug, “we’ve all had a little practice.” Lie: she could have shot a man dead from horseback like a Navajo and she knew it.

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