Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) by Alison Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

used his carat all, but had sneaked off into the woods surrounding the property, climbed into the Caffey children’s tree house, and lain together until dawn, planning their future, talking of music, sharing their dreams, becoming one.
    Luna had never had a real boyfriend. She’d flirted, been flirted with, gone out for fast food with groups of both male and female friends, done the same with concerts and movies and swimming trips to Barton Springs. But no boy had ever found a place in her heart the way Oscar had in Sierra’s. No boy except for Angelo, and their relationship, at least during her sophomore year of high school, couldn’t really be called one. They were both full of lust and curiosity and insatiable desperation, too young to know if they were doing anything right.
    It was only later, after he’d graduated and left for Cornell, that they’d talked. Really talked. Epic phone calls she’d paid for with long-distance calling cards, buying several at a time with money her daddy thought he’d given her to spend on new shoes. Hearing Angelo’s voice when she’d picked up the private line in her room, or when he’d picked up from nearly two thousand miles away, had been the best parts of her days.
    Once she’d graduated, started weaving, and had the time and money to meet him halfway for an occasional weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, or Nashville, Tennessee, she’d been desperate for each first glimpse of him, desolate after the last. But boyfriend had never been the right word to encompass what Angelo Caffey had been to her.
    She wanted that feeling again; it had been so long, and she missed it—the giddiness, the intoxication, the thrill. Sierra had felt it for Oscar, and Luna was a complete believer in its existence. She’d witnessed the love shared by her friendsTennessee Keller and Kaylie Flynn. She knew well that time’s joys and hardships had only strengthened the love between her parents.
    She’d seen the look in Mike Caffey’s eyes when he’d gazed upon his lovely Carlita. As young as Luna had been in those days, listening as Sierra’s father played his guitar, watching his face while he’d watched his wife’s, she’d been moved by the couple’s emotional bond, swearing if she reached into the air she could grab the feeling and hold it. It had been that palpable. That defined.
    Even now from beneath Sierra’s window, she could almost hear Mike’s flamenco guitar, though he would never have left it behind. What he had left were memories. As much as Luna had loved watching Sierra’s mother with her needle and thread, doing so was made even better when accompanied by music… whether Mike’s guitar, Isidora’s ukulele, Emilio’s mandolin, or Sierra’s cello.
    Slowing her steps, Luna returned to the present, realizing she wasn’t imagining the guitar at all. The sounds, plaintive and somber, yet full of something harsh, were coming from inside the house. There was only one person who could be making them. And she hadn’t even known he played.
    Quietly, she returned to the back porch. The kitchen door creaked when she pushed it open, but Angelo continued to pluck and strum the strings, to strike the heel of his hand against the wooden body for emphasis—an emphasis she wasn’t sure how to take.
    She found him in his parents’ bedroom, one hip cocked on the edge of the window seat, the guitar on his thigh, the other foot on the floor. His eyes were closed, his head moving as he played, a dip of his chin, and a darkly narrowed frownwhen, judging by the change in the song’s tenor, he must have felt something brutal and sharp.
    What she felt was indescribable as she recognized his pain, the sensation slicing through her like a garrote. Her chest clutched, reaching for air, for blood, for all the things she needed to stay alive. And yet listening to him play, seeing him entranced by the work… It made her swoon. And ache. For him. Because of him…
    A sob caught in her throat, and