Changing Tides (Kill Devil Hills Book 2) by Sarah Darlington Read Free Book Online Page B

routine, taking my time, and then followed up my workout with a long, relaxing shower.
    After I finished and changed clothes, the exhaustion I hadn’t felt earlier hit me like a fucking sledge hammer. Dammit, I needed a bed. I also needed to decide if I still wanted to go to this dinner thing tonight at Mrs. Stone’s house or just skip it. Because I didn’t know what to make of my interest in Ellie and that bugged the hell out of me.
    Last night, once I came to the conclusion that Ben’s estranged sister was in fact the same girl I’d met on the plane, I’d stuck around at Mrs. Stone’s house longer than I should have. I was trying to gather information. I wanted to learn something that would turn me off—an insight into Ellie’s character that could help me drop this borderline unhealthy infatuation I’d developed in less than twenty-four hours for the girl. Dammit, I didn’t even know her and she was under my skin.
    I hated it. And I needed to undo it.
    “You only have one sibling then?” I’d asked Ben, bending over and searching under a third bed for my damn cat. Where was she?
    Ben stood in the doorway, arms crossed, not helping me. “Nah,” he said. “I have three sisters.”
    “Oh. Wow,” I mumbled, standing. “I only have one brother—David—so I can’t even image what having three sisters would be like.”
    “Pretty damn awesome sometimes and pretty damn annoying the rest of the time.”
    He shrugged. I moved for the next guest bedroom and he followed. Mrs. Stone had a lot of space for just one person. Well, two people if you included Ben.
    “Ellie’s the oldest,” Ben continued. “Then me. Then Georgina is next. She’s eleven months younger than me. I was always closest with her. Because of the age thing. And because our birthdays fell perfectly and we were in the same grade at school. Then there’s Rose. She’s nine and more mature than all of us.” He was almost wistful as he spoke…as if the rest of this family was no longer living. Or maybe it had just been a long time since he’d seen them. “Anyway. That’s my family. Oh and Noah. Can’t forget Noah.”
    “Noah?” Ellie had also mentioned the name Noah, a few times actually, and I wanted to know more.
    “Yeah, Ellie kind of adopted him into our family.”
    “How does that happen?”
    Ben smiled. It was the first time I’d seen him smile since I came over to Mrs. Stone’s house. He walked past me into the next bedroom and went straight for something. Bending behind a white ornate dresser, he scooped up my cat into his arms. She easily let him hold her and even purred into his chest like they were best friends. I guess he’d known all along where to find her.
    “Ellie’s like that,” he said as he scratched Holly’s head. “She wears not only her heart on her sleeve, constantly, but also her hopes, her dreams, and everything else right there for the rest of the world to see. She’s easy to love because of it. She’s honest and open. So it’s hard not to be honest and open right back around her. Noah’s the exact opposite though. A robot would show more emotion than I’ve ever seen him show. And when Ellie was in the ninth grade she brought him home for dinner one night—like a lost puppy. Noah never left and I guess I sort of gained a brother that day too.”
    Ben handed Holly to me then walked past me like that was all he wanted to say. I trailed him back into the living room where Mrs. Stone now sat watching TV. He plopped on the couch, staring at the screen. He’d accused this Noah person of being a robot, but whatever he’d revealed to me had upset him somehow. I watched as he completely shut down. As an actor subtle clues were easy for me to notice, and in unspoken words Ben told me just how much he missed his family. Even Noah.
    “I’m going to head home,” I told them. “I’ll see you all at dinner tomorrow.”
    “Bye, honey,” Mrs. Stone said, smiling widely.
    Ben said nothing more. So I