A Year of You by A. D. Roland Read Free Book Online

his.
    “Go inside, Mattie,” he said, sounding breathless. “Go, okay?”
    She fled, leaving wet footprints on the hot concrete.
    Justine stood on the lanai, eyes narrowed.  “You made quite a spectacle of yourself a moment ago,” she said, cold eyes glaring holes in Mattie’s skin.
    “Hmm?”
    “You and West. There are eyes all over this house.”
    Mattie smiled. “Oh. We were just playing around.”
    “He’s a paid employee. You don’t need to distract him from his work.”
    “Sorry.”
    Justine kept staring. Mattie couldn’t recall, but she didn’t think the woman had blinked once during the entire conversation. Unnerved, Mattie excused herself and hurried up to her room.
    Emeline burst into the room uninvited. Had she seen her and West in the pool? Apparently not. She flounced down on the bed. “So Grandma says I have to spend time with you and get to know you.”  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re so special. She’s never made me talk to the other ones that showed up.”
    “Maybe it’s because I’m actually your sister.”
    Emeline snorted and laughed. “As if. You’re the seventh person to show up claiming to be Elaine. So what if you’ve got pictures and look just like Grandma did when she was your age.” She heaved a deep, dramatic sigh. “So anyway, you’re going out with me tomorrow night. I’ve already made West take off this afternoon so we can go shopping. Apparently, Ruth Ellen insisted you get an allowance until the DNA stuff gets taken care of and all.”
    Mattie’s heart dropped to her feet. She had money now? Pre-blood test? “Well, that’s cool.”
    “Yeah. We gotta get you out of those Wal-Mart blue light special rags.”

    “K-Mart.”

    “What?”
    “K-Mart has the blue light specials. Wal-Mart has the smiley face rollbacks.”

    Emeline made a face and held her hands up in disgust. “Whatever. Anyway, get ready to go. West is going to be here in, like, an hour.”
She bounced out of the room again. Mattie sighed, grabbed her toiletry bag, and headed for the in-suite bathroom. She needed a shower. She smelled like chlorine, sweat, and sunshine.
    It took a few attempts to get the shower started. When the water was finally flowing, Mattie couldn’t help but get excited. The whole apparatus was something out of a magazine, with a rainfall bar overhead and jets that shot water from the walls. And there was a detachable showerhead…
    Mattie stripped off her wet clothes and stepped under the steaming spray. She flipped her hair back and let the water run down her shoulders while the jets worked at the tension in her back. She lathered her hair and rinsed, added condition, rinsed. As she soaped up, she thought about West’s groping hands, the way he’d not bothered to hide how turned on her was in the pool. His eyes had seen straight through her. She soaped up and ran her hands over her body, imaging what West’s touch would feel like on her bare skin. For a moment, she was extremely jealous of her sister.
    She got out of the shower reluctantly and dried off on the fanciest towel she’d ever used. She shuffled through her meager collection of clothes and slapped the wrinkles out of her best jeans. They would have to do. Emeline came to fetch her and made a face at her outfit. “You seriously need new clothes.
    Mattie glanced down at her plain skinny jeans. “Clothes don’t really mean much to me.”
    “Ugh. Yeah, I can tell.”
    On the way out the front door, Justine gave her an envelope full of crisp new bills. “I don’t think this should happen, but Ruth Ellen insisted.”
    “I didn’t even ask for this,” Mattie replied. “But I’ll be sure to thank Ruth Ellen.”
    She shoved the envelope into her purse. She peeked inside once she was safely alone in the backseat of Em’s baby-blue Navigator. West looked pissed. When she said hi, he gave her a curt nod, his eyes unreadable behind his wraparound sunglasses.
    The envelope weighed