Changeling by Kelly Meding Read Free Book Online Page A

twenty years old. She had long black hair and equally long legs that disappeared beneath a short, white skirt. “Hey, Noah, how come I always—” Her almond-shaped eyes landed on me. “Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize you had a customer.”
    Okay, so he was definitely my old schoolmate. Someone I obviously hadn’t made an impression on, since he’d yet to indicate he remembered me.
    Noah eyed the girl’s outfit, from the white stiletto sandals to the low-cut orange tank top barely reining in her breasts. “Are you going out in that?”
    “Sure.” She twirled, the flared skirt riding up a little too high for decency. “Why the hell not?”
    “You look like a hooker.”
    She belted out the perfect flirtatious giggle. “You think I’m going to go out and pick up some strange man to bring home? Be serious.”
    “Just be careful.” He sighed, and I wondered if he’d had this conversation before.
    She blew a kiss and flounced out the front door.
    “Sorry about that,” Noah said.
    I shrugged. “What were you saying?”
    “I was going to suggest I make an appointment to inspect the property. I’ll be able to get a better idea of your needs, see the wiring as it is, and know where things are going to fit. Then I can order what I don’t have in stock, and we can start getting you guys set up.”
    “Sure. What’s good for you?”
    “How about right now?”
    Right now? “Um, can you just leave the shop?”
    “I kind of run it myself, so I make my own hours.”
    “Your brothers don’t help?”
    He stiffened. No longer a businessman, he tensed up like an animal who’d been spotted by a predator. Stupid me.
    “You don’t remember me, do you?” I asked, hoping to put his mind at ease so he didn’t think I was some crazy stalker. “Parker High School?”
    A light came on behind his eyes and he blinked. His lips parted, and I finally saw recognition. He relaxed in the spaceof a breath, going from attack-ready to laid-back with the ease of someone used to putting up a strong front. “I knew you looked familiar, I just couldn’t place you. Darla . . . no, that’s not right. A flower. Dahlia.”
    I grinned. “Yeah, Dahlia Perkins.”
    “We had a lot of classes together in ninth grade, didn’t we? Not so many in tenth.”
    “Yeah, and then I moved.” Mom’s job necessitated the move farther south to Anaheim. It was still years before she realized six of her organs had been eaten up by cancer.
    It occurred to me that if Noah was running a family-owned shop at his age, there had to be tragedy in his recent past. Had his parents died?
    “Yeah, I wondered about that.” He waved one hand to indicate the shop. “My younger brother, Jimmy, helps out when he can, and Aaron, the older one, he . . . isn’t in the city anymore. He likes to travel.” He cleared his throat. “So, do you want me to follow you back to your place?”
    And just like that, we’re off Memory Lane and back on topic. “Sure, I’m a block up in a black SUV.”
    “Give me three minutes to lock up and get my van.”
    I leaned back in the driver’s seat, cool air trickling from the Sport’s vents, trying to catch my breath. Noah Scott. Just thinking his name made my heart race with all of my pent-up loneliness. My relationships were few and far between, the last one ending with acute mental illness. It made sensethat I’d be attracted to a cute, former-friend electrician who looked great in tight denim.
    It didn’t hurt that we had a history. Sort of. Between keeping up with classes and nursing my mother through to the end of her illness, I hadn’t maintained an outside social life. No friends called me on weekends. No guys were lining up to take me out to nice restaurants. My entire dating history for the last year consisted of two awkward dates with Marco and a nonbreakup that nearly destroyed our working relationship. I just hadn’t returned his feelings, and even six weeks later I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all my