AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Lucy stood in front of the unfamiliar house that she was supposed to call home. The weight of the suitcase in her hand pulled against her shoulder, but that wasn’t the only weight that she was carrying with her. She had a secret—a secret that had brought her to the unfamiliar house with the suitcase in her hand.
She knocked on the door. She wasn’t sure whether that was what she was supposed to do; the house was meant to be her home. The door opened quickly. A Hispanic-looking maid with a warm smile met Lucy’s eye. “Can I help you?” the woman asked in a thick accent.
“I’m Lucy.” She smiled. “Jenna’s daughter,” she added when the maid didn’t seem to recognize her name.
“Oh,” the maid’s smile grew bigger, “this is your first time here, yes?”
“Yes.” Lucy nodded. “I thought I’d come over for a visit,” she explained. She realized that she didn’t really need to explain why she was there to the maid. It was just, she’d been practicing her explanation ever since she’d set off from the college campus. It was ready and waiting to be spewed from the very tip of her tongue to whoever might inquire.
“Lucy?” Lucy’s mom called from somewhere above her. “Is it true? Is it really you?” Her voice was getting closer with every word. Lucy turned when the sound of heels clicking against marble flooring pulled her attention away from the detailed arch work that seemed to be above every doorway.
“Yes, Mom, it’s me.” Lucy rolled her eyes. Her mom was walking down the stairs in the most ridiculous, white, skin-tight dress that Lucy had ever seen. “I thought I’d pop over for a visit.”
“What about college?” Her mom looked concerned in the few places on her face that were still able to show any emotion, because of the Botox she’d begun to use.
“I’m just taking a couple weeks off.” Lucy shrugged. “It’s no big deal. People do it all the time.”
“If you say so, sweetie.” Her mom had already lost interest in the conversation. “You know, I think the boys are home; I bet they’ll be happy to see you again.”
The boys were Lucy’s stepbrothers. She’d acquired them when her mom had married their dad a couple of years back. They were twins and Lucy often had a hard time telling them apart from each other, until they spoke. Not that she’d really spent much time with either of them. She’d only met them in passing at the wedding, and they hadn’t run into each other since then.
“They’re outside by the pool if you want go and say hi,” her mom pushed.
Lucy didn’t want to go say hi. She wanted to go find whichever room in the oversized house was hers. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with people. She’d been through enough. “Actually, I’m kinda beat down from the journey.” She faked a yawn. “Do you think I could catch up with them later?”
“You don’t look very tired.” Her mom eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t you think you’ve been avoiding this family for long enough?” Her hands rose to her hips. Lucy sighed. Her mom was getting into her typical “I’m a mom and what I say goes” fighting stance.
“I’m not avoiding the family, and I haven’t been avoiding the family. I’ve been at college. I think that’s a bit different, Mom.”
“Lucy, you didn’t even come home at Christmas.”
“I had plans.”
“Yes, with your family.” Her mom was getting agitated. “You come home and you spend Christmas with your family. That’s what it’s all about. You don’t stay at college so you can party with people you won’t even know in five years’ time.”
That hit a raw nerve with Lucy. Why did her mom have to be like that? She had come home to spend time with the family, so what was the problem? Christmas had been months ago. Why was she dragging up the past and starting arguments with her? “Alright, whatever,” Lucy sighed in a desperate bid to end the war before it began. “I’ll go and say hi to them.”
“Good girl.” Her mom nodded. Lucy noticed how her mom’s lips twitched slightly at the edges, as though they were trying to move, and she assumed that meant her mom was smiling.
Lucy didn’t need directions to find the pool. She could hear the water being broken and thrown about from inside the house. She followed the happy roars and peels of laughter that were coming from the water, until she found herself standing next to an impressive pool. Lucy took in the palm trees and sparkling water that made the garden look like an oasis.
The twins were in the water. One of them was doing a handstand and the other trying to knock him down. “Hey,” Lucy called out to him.
“Oh, hey.” He smiled and broke off his attempt at sabotage. “It’s Lucy, right?”
“Yeah.” She nodded as she leaned down at the side of the pool. Her glossy blonde hair was dancing dangerously close to the water. “Which one are you?”
He grinned at her. “Josh.” His smile was an all-American, white example of perfection that ended with soft dimples forming on his cheeks. “What are you d
oing over here? I thought you were super busy with college life.” He kicked back in the water and started to float on his back.
“I thought I’d stop by for a visit.” She shrugged casually. “Thought I’d come and see what I was missing.” Her attention was on Josh. She’d totally forgotten about Daniel, who had been doing the handstand. He wasn’t doing a handstand anymore, though. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. It wasn’t until his warm, wet hand slid out of the water and pulled at Lucy’s arm that he came to her attention again. “Hey,” she yelled as she found herself tumbling into the water.
Daniel’s head broke through the surface, laughing. “It’s been a while, my dear.” He half bowed. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”
“You’re such a douche.” Lucy slammed her hands against the water. “Look at my clothes.” She could feel her denim shorts starting to cling and rub against her legs. “Do you know how much these cost?”
“Chill out.” Daniel laughed at her. “I’m sure you can get some more.”
“That’s not the point.” Lucy scowled at him. “Who does that? What if I had my cell on me? What if I hurt myself? It’s just stupidity,” she continued, venting.
“You really need to chill.” Daniel turned to his brother. “This one can’t take a joke.”
“I’m not sure that’s the problem,” Josh said quickly, a smirk on his face. “I think the problem is that your jokes just aren’t funny.” He skimmed his hand across the water and sent a wave of water crashing into Daniel’s face.
Lucy laughed.
“Dude, that’s not cool,” Daniel complained, wiping chlorine-soaked water out of his eyes. “What happened to bros before hoes?”
“Are you calling me a hoe?” Lucy asked quickly, her eyes narrowing at Daniel. The only thing that Lucy found more frustrating than talking to Daniel was how attractive she found him. It wasn’t fair. He was such a jerk. He was the reason that good girls got their hearts broken. Not that Lucy could really consider herself a good girl, but that was a different issue entirely.
“Well,” Daniel drawled out slowly, “those shorts aren’t exactly down to your knees, are they?” He let his eyes spend a teasingly long moment taking in Lucy’s tanned, toned legs.
“Oh, you’re going to regret that.” Lucy grinned as she jumped over and pulled Daniel down into the water. He tried to fight back, but his reactions from the very start had been too slow. His head fell under the water and Lucy took her opportunity to hold it there for a second, before she would let him come back up. “Looks like this ho can take your bro down,” she said, smirking at Josh, when Daniel had come back up to the surface.
“That’s obviously not true.” Daniel shook his head from side to side like a dog. Water sprayed away from him. “You’re a girl. I can’t fight you.”
“Sure, sure.” Lucy smirked at him. “Tell yourself whatever you need to.”
*********
Chapter 2
The chlorine from the pool made Lucy’s hair feel dry. She ran her fingers through it, trying to combat the knots, but she gave up quickly. The feeling of hairs snapping between her fingers was too much to take and she reminded herself to give Daniel hell when she saw him next. “Lucy,” her mom’s voice called through the door. Three knocks followed. “Lucy.”
“Come in,” Lucy called as she pulled on a pair of dry shorts and a vest top. “What’s up?” she asked when she noticed her mom’s face poking through the door.
“I thought you might want to come down for dinner,” her mom said without moving away from the door. “I don’t know whether you’ve made any plans or not, but if you haven’t, then we’ll all be eating downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
“Sure, I could eat.” Lucy nodded. “I’ll be down soon.”
Lucy walked down the stairs that led to the first floor. She wasn’t certain where the family would be eating, but she’d noticed a dining room when she’d gone to the pool earlier that day, so she figured that would be a good place to start looking. She was right. Her mom, stepdad, and brothers were all sitting around a long, light wooden table. “Oh look,” one of the twins said when he spotted Lucy walking into the room. “It’s the princess.” Lucy knew from that comment that it was Daniel.
“You know, you’ve wrecked my hair,” Lucy told him sourly when she’d taken a seat at the table. “I’m going to have to go to the hairdressers to get all of the dead ends cut off now.”
“Oh no,” Daniel over-exaggerated. “However will you move past this?”
“I know a good hairdresser in town, if you want her info?” Josh offered when Lucy didn’t bother replying to his brother.
“Thanks, I guess that would be good.”
“So,” her stepfather’s voice broke through the room. Lucy’s stepfather was a retired judge. He wasn’t the kind of man that you crossed, and he certainly wasn’t a man who could be ignored. “Lucy, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” he asked in a serious way. It struck Lucy as ironic that he’d practically quoted his son.
“I thought I’d take a couple weeks away from college.”
“Why?”
“I needed a break.” Lucy shrugged.
“You needed a break from what?”
“I just needed a break from campus,” Lucy told him. She was starting to feel the pressure that he was putting on her for real answers. She didn’t have real answers.
“Has something happened?”
“No,” she lied quickly. “Like I said, I’m just taking a couple of weeks.”
“So, you’ll be going back in two weeks?”
“Yes,” she lied again. She didn’t want to lie. She had hoped that her evasive answers would throw people away from the truth, but it seemed her stepfather wasn’t as easily manipulated as her mom was.
“Okay then.” He nodded. Lucy could tell that he hadn’t accepted her answers, though. “Well, it’s good to finally have you spend some time here. I was starting to wonder whether you ever would.”
“What can I say,” Lucy said weakly. “I’m a busy girl.”
“So it would seem.”
Lucy thought back over the last month that she’d spent on campus. She’d barely made it to one class. There had been too much to do. It had all seemed so important at the time. The parties she couldn’t miss. There were trips she had to go on. Her friends were her world there. She’d completely lost sight of what college was really about. To her, it had just been about fun.
Lucy looked down at the plate of food that the waiter had just put under her nose. It smelled delicious.
********
Chapter 3
Lucy had gone to the pool prepared with her bathing suit on. The sun was high in the California sky, and the sky was the same blue that you find with tropical oceans. It was gorgeous. The peace and the view over the dusty hills were beautiful, and it made Lucy wonder why it had taken her so long to visit. Her college friends would have loved it. The house would have made a great getaway destination for them all.
“Are you going to waste your entire break by the pool?” Daniel asked as he walked over from the house. Lucy lay on a sun chair enjoying the heat.
Lucy frowned. “This is my first day here.”
“Yeah, but you’re only here for two weeks,” Daniel told her. “That means you’re already going to miss out on a ton of fun crap without wasting days next to the pool on top.”
“Maybe I want to sit by the pool.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who likes a quiet life,” Daniel said as he met Lucy’s eyes.
The sudden intensity of his gaze made her cheeks flush pink. “Well, obviously, you’ve got me wrong.” She smiled sweetly. He hadn’t got her wrong; she lived for adventure. She lived for the feeling in her stomach that she got every time she’d barely escaped death itself. That had to change, though. That’s what had gotten her into the mess that she was in now.
“I hope not,” Daniel told her.
“And why is that?”
>
“Well,” he shrugged, “you’d be boring otherwise.” He didn’t wait for her to say anything else. She watched as he walked over and dove into the pool. “Are you getting in?” he asked, when his head had emerged from the waters.
Lucy nodded. “Maybe later.”
“I see you dressed for the occasion today,” Josh said from behind her, when she’d picked up the book that she’d brought out with her. She’d barely had a chance to read two lines. Although, that was partly due to the fact that her eyes kept slipping back to Daniel and the six pack he had on show.
“Well, I didn’t want to ruin another decent pair of shorts.” She grimaced at the thought of her ruined clothes, which were in the trashcan in her room.
“You have any plans for your visit?” He sat down on the sun bed beside her and laid back. The sun was shining directly at them, and he had to hold his hand above his eyes so that he could see Lucy clearly.
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “I’ve heard there’s a ton of awesome crap to do, though.”
Josh laughed. “You’ve been talking to my brother?”
“Well, he was talking at me.”
“That sounds about right.” Josh laughed. “You know…” He hesitated as his eyes danced across the jeweled bikini top she was wearing. “If you want somebody to show you around, then I’m free?”
“Sure, I guess that could be fun,” she agreed reluctantly. “What do you have in mind?”
“What are you two talking about?” Daniel asked as he walked over to them. He looked anxious to find out what he’d missed. Lucy smirked.
“Your brother has offered to show me all the awesome crap that you were talking about,” she told him. Water was running down from his hair and onto his body. Lucy tried to keep her eyes from trailing the droplets.
