Once Bitten Twice Shy by Sommer Marsden

Author:Sommer Marsden
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008168803
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-11-16T17:18:51.240000+00:00

Chapter 16

She damn near dropped the canvases.

‘Whoa! Why so jumpy, sister?’ Carley asked, grabbing a painting that slid perilously fast from August’s grip.

‘You startled me. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.’

‘Looks like you were lost in your own thoughts, to me.’ Carley stood close as August unlocked the door. ‘And limping…,’ she added when she watched August precede her into the house.

A small meow came from the bushes. August leaned the paintings against the wall of the hallway, picked a can of catfood from a pile under a table and pried the lid off.

‘Did you know you have a cat?’ Carley was studying her, but August was intent on not noticing.

‘Yeah. She’s one of the strays from that litter a while back. She’s called Iris,’ she said, smiling at her friend. She put the can on the stoop and went to grab a water bowl.

‘Why don’t you let me?’ Carley said, intercepting her. ‘What happened to you, anyway?’ she called, filling the bowl in the kitchen. She came back out as August watched, and put the bowl of water out for the cat.

‘I fell in a hole.’ August gathered up the paintings and limped to the studio.

‘At a business meeting?’ Carley was right on her heels.

‘No. After the business meeting. I went and took lunch to Jack. I fell in a hole. I didn’t see it.’

‘So you guys have a thing about falling down in front of one another?’

August snorted and raised the blinds to let more light into the studio. Her ankle was thumping like a bad tooth and she bit her lower lip to keep from making a sound of pain. Maybe she should have gone to the doctor. Her insurance was shit so she figured it was better to make sure she really needed to before she put out all that money, only to be told she’d simply turned her ankle. Ice it, elevate it and take it easy was the kind of advice she didn’t need to pay for.

‘Not really, but it looks that way, doesn’t it?’

Carley leaned against the table where August’s sketchpads and photo references were piled. ‘What’s different about you?’

August ducked her head and studied the Blue Flirt painting. She didn’t want to continue it today. She needed something to capture the warring joy and anxiety that were suddenly spinning inside her like those amazing Northern Lights. She pulled her hair back, then, finding a band on the back of her chair, wrapped it in a loose bun while she studied a blank canvas.

‘You’re silent. You won’t look at me. You’re limping. You seem on edge and yet…kinetic.’ Carley put her hand on August’s shoulder. August looked her friend in the face. ‘You can level with me. Is it a sex injury?’

The stupid question delivered so deadpan caught August off-guard and she was caught up in a wave of laughter that bordered on hysterical. She rolled along with it but felt an emotional undercurrent, the urge to cry.

Her latest actions were in some respects an ending.

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