Faked by Karla Sorensen

Author:Karla Sorensen [Sorensen, Karla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dutch Girl Publishing, LLC
Published: 2020-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Claire

When I woke the next morning, I was hot.

And for the second morning in a row, completely disoriented. No blood-red curtains, no sprawling bed. Instead, muted gray light, a wood plank ceiling slanting up over my head, and when I tried to move and felt something warm on my chest, I blinked down.

Green eyes set in a patchwork face stared down at me from where she was lying and looking quite comfortable on top of me.

"Good morning, Agnes," I whispered.

She opened her mouth for a plaintive meow, which made me smile.

Her brown and orange spotted tail twitched behind her, and her ears angled over her pretty face.

"I knew he was exaggerating." Carefully, I lifted my hand and ran it from the top of her head down her back. Agnes shifted into my touch.

"You up, princess?" A voice called from the family room.

"Mm-hmm. A friend joined me in bed sometime last night."

"No shit?" I heard his feet cross the hardwood floor and take careful, quiet steps up to the loft. Bauer's head appeared, dark hair ruffled from sleep, and his jaw even heavier with growth, and he grinned sleepily. "Well, I'll be damned."

Slowly, so, so slowly, Agnes turned her head in Bauer's direction, flattened her ears and hissed.

My laughter was so loud that the cat took off from the bed like a brown and orange cannonball, disappearing behind the dresser tucked into the corner.

He came up a few more steps until his bare chest was visible.

"Of course, you slept without a shirt," I mumbled, turning on my side and tucking the comforter against my chest.

"Are you kidding? I was roasting by the middle of the night. I told you that fire would keep us warm." His eyes traced my face. "Sleep okay?"

I nodded. "I woke up hot too."

Bauer wagged a finger at me. "See, you leave yourself wide open for comments, princess. I'd like it to be noted when I don't take the bait."

At my groan, he laughed, head disappearing back downstairs.

"I'll make coffee," he called out.

From my vantage point upstairs, my view of the outside didn't suffer at all. Scotty's cabin was small, yes, but there was something incredible about rolling over to see the wild expanse of tall, spindly trees, whipping, white wind, and the large, fluffy flakes that relentlessly fell.

What a strange, strange turn of events my life had taken in the course of one week.

It made me think about school as most things did. One of the most fascinating parts of what I was learning was about the consequences of one's actions and how they could affect the people around you.

Children bore the consequences of how the adults in their life spoke to them, treated them, taught them, loved them. Or didn't love them. For each action, there was a reaction. Sometimes it was big, and sometimes it was small.

I agreed to do something for my sister. In the grand scheme of my life, it was a small decision, fueled by feelings that had lingered for a span of time that could only be considered big.

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