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His frown is skeptical. “Your smile looks like you don't mean it.”
“I know. It’s just how my face is. I promise that all is forgiven. We’ve got a clean slate.”
I hold my hand out for him to shake.
He ignores it, takes a step forward and wraps his arms around my waist. His head comes just to the top of my torso. He rests it there and squeezes me tight.
It’s so sweet and sincere, and the unexpected warmth so welcome, that my embarrassment falls away and I return his embrace automatically, “You know that I came here to punish
you, right?” I ask when he doesn’t let go.
“You could have, I would have deserved it. But you’re helping me instead. Thank you, so much,” he says with his mouth pressed to my belly. I let him hold on for a minute more before I lean back, so I can look him in the eye.
Maybe Stone, just maybe, you deserve this, too.” I give him a wink and walk away.
Alchemy
Stone
“Hey, come in here for a few minutes,” Regan sticks her head through the door of the office she set up for me to work in. I glance at the clock in surprise. I’ve only been working for thirty minutes. But I put my pen down and close my notebook. “Oh, okay…Are you ready for me to start cleaning already?”
She shakes her head and smiles. “Nope. I have a treat for you. Can you take a break?” Surprised, I look up at her and instantly forget what she asked me.
She’s so pretty. I know I shouldn’t even be thinking it, but I can’t help myself. She has the darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. Her lips may not be made to smile wide, but the way her eyes twinkle when she’s happy more than makes up for that.
“Well, can you?” she asks, when I don’t answer. I’ve still got at least an hour’s worth of work to do, but after this afternoon, I would do anything she asked me to.
“Yeah, I can. I just need to finish this equation. I just need a few more minutes?”
“Okay, see ya,” she calls as she disappears down the hall.
I glance at the now repaired back door and smile when I remember the first time I came to this bakery. Thankfully, for me anyway, a faulty lock wasn’t a high priority on anybody’s to - do list in places like Rivers Wilde.
This is a community that behaves the way a family should. And that includes trusting their neighbors to walk past a broken lock and not see it as an invitation.
But since my stepfather died, and my brother Hayes left to live with his aunt in Italy, I’ve been repeatedly reminded that in the eyes of most of the people I’ve called friends since I was three years old, I’m nothing close to family.
My mother is seen as the person who drove the much beloved and respected head of the Rivers Family, to an early grave. The Rivers family is without an official leader even though my Uncle Thomas is acting in his place. He can barely manage his own life, much less an entire empire.
It threw Houston’s philanthropic community into a tailspin and created enough uncertainty to send the Rivers family’s business, Kingdom, stock value into free fall.
Fortunes have been lost or greatly reduced in the last few weeks, and my mother is viewed as the person who knocked over the first domino.
I came back to campus after the funeral and learned the hard way that being her son, too small, and way too smart for my age, was a triple curse.
Life at Blackwell turned into a game of survival. During the day, I had to be on constant alert for pranks and traps my bullies set. I couldn’t focus enough to study. I got a C on the first exam I took after the funeral and it scared the hell out of me.
The school had been hesitant to admit a student as young as me. Despite my test scores and performance on the assessments they gave me, it took funding the library’s endowment and my stepfather’s clout to convince them. With him gone, I'm afraid they’ll kick me out of here so fast, my head will spin.
I can’t afford to let that happen. Not just for my sake. But for my two younger brothers as well. I’m the only responsible person in their lives now. My mother will ruin them, just like she ruins everything else she touches. The sooner I graduate, the sooner I can take care of them. When I walk into the kitchen, she’s sitting at the counter with a plate full of biscuits and two glasses of milk in front of her.
“Come on, sit down. I want you to try these. I created the recipe myself.”
“Okay...” I wasn’t expecting her to feed me, but I’m glad. I’m too busy watching my back to actually eat anything at mealtime.
Most of the kids come back to school with care packages or get them regularly from home. I don’t have anything like that, and I usually go to bed hungry. I sit down and pick up one of the tender, golden biscuit looking things and examine it.
“Looks weird. What is it?”
