The Singing River by R.K. Ryals

Author:R.K. Ryals [Ryals, R.K.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-08-01T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

River

Roman was sitting up on the couch, his head in his hands, when I walked into the living room. Opposite him in the small kitchen, Marley was whistling, his glasses slipping down his nose as he flipped bacon in a skillet at the stove.

“Sleep well?” Roman sneered.

His head lifted, his swollen, red eyes meeting mine evenly. There was judgment in his gaze, but I ignored it, giving him my back as I moved to the kitchen island. Propping my hip against one of the bar stools, I swept my hand through my sleep-tousled hair.

Uncle Marley glanced up from the stove, his knowing eyes studying me before sliding to the bedroom door. There was no censure in his gaze, nothing to suggest he cared one way or another what I’d been doing in that room. My blood heated at the thought of Haven, her messy hair and flushed cheeks, and I shifted uncomfortably.

Marley moved the bacon to the back burner and cleared his throat. “Up for a day on the river?” he asked

Grabbing a thick, white mug from a wooden rack next to the stove, he filled it with steaming black coffee and slid it in my direction.

I gulped down my first swallow, wincing at the heat. “Taking the canoe?”

Marley nodded.

The sound of the bedroom door opening snagged my attention, but I didn’t turn around. There was something about Haven Ambrose that dug its way under my skin. From the first time I’d seen her standing below a strange painting at Frieda’s Dairy Bar to the moment I’d watched her in the rearview mirror as I drove my drug influenced brother home, something about her had bothered me. She’d been constantly occupying my thoughts since she’d stepped out of her mother’s lime green Cadillac and into Marley’s pick-up.

“Good morning, Haven,” Marley said cheerfully. He gestured at the stove. “Bacon?”

She settled next to me at the bar, her T-shirt and cotton shorts from the night before replaced by a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a black racerback tank with a studded cross on the front. Her hair was braided and pulled over one shoulder.

“Just coffee,” she answered. “Can I help you with anything?”

Marley waved his hands, but Haven ignored him, moving into the kitchen to open the fridge. It didn’t take long before she’d commandeered the kitchen, scrambling eggs and laying Styrofoam plates out before pouring herself a cup of coffee and drowning it in half and half. She glanced at the sugar, but didn’t add it to her cup.

“You won’t eat anything?” Marley asked.

Haven’s eyes fell to the plates as Roman finally sauntered into the kitchen, greedily grabbing one before falling against the fridge, his shoulder resting on the stainless steel surface as he wolfed down the food. And yet, Haven didn’t take a plate.

“I don’t eat breakfast,” she murmured.

I knew from her conversation with Roman and with me that she was a recovering bulimic, and from the way she avoided our faces as we ate, it was obvious she still struggled with it.

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