Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2) by Emily March Read Free Book Online

the sports page?”
    He shot her a scowl. “Sports is different.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “It is. Athletic competition is a noble endeavor. However, athletes themselves are no more deserving of adulation than the man who recites dialogue and looks pretty on a movie screen. All the bowing and scraping the public does to celebrities shows how screwed up most people’s priorities are. Actors aren’t heroes. They’re not working to cure cancer or develop alternative fuels or to protect and defend our country. They do what they do to get people to drop ten bucks a pop for a movie ticket.”
    “And just what do you do for entertainment, Mr. Callahan?”
    Ignoring the question, he continued his rant. “And don’t even get me started about celebrities and politics. Why should anyone give a rat’s ass about who Andy Actor thinks we should vote for? Celebrity worship is shallow, stupid nonsense, and you pander to it with your pictures. It’s disgusting.”
    Torie clenched her teeth. She was willing to cut the man some slack because he had, after all, just saved her life, but she’d never been a doormat for any man.
    He fired off a few questions about Helen and her exact whereabouts. The respect in his voice when he spoke of her sister grated on Torie’s nerves, and despite her best intentions, the old childish jealousy rose up inside her.
    Torie loved Helen more than anyone on earth. She truly did. Sometime during their teenage years, she’d come to the conclusion that the reason the egg had split in their mother’s womb was because someone special like Helen was going to need someone to watch over her. That’s why Torie existed.
    For the most part, she was happy with her role. She honestly didn’t begrudge Helen her brilliance. It wasn’t as if cell division had given her twin all the brains. Torie wasn’t stupid. She’d seen up close and personal what a burden superior intelligence could sometimes be, and most of the time, she thought she’d been given the better end of the deal. Pretty much the only time she’d gone green-eyed over the subject was when her father was involved. His favoritism had been a big old bitter pill to swallow for as long as she could remember. Their mother had recognized it, too, and she’d always made sure to counter the effect with a little extra attention for Torie.
    The worst time came following their mother’s death when General Bradshaw turned to Helen to share the grieving and left Torie out in the cold. Her life had teetered on the edge of real trouble for a few years after that. She’d dabbled in drugs, lost her virginity way too soon, and flirted with a life of crime—all the while making sure Helen never came near any of it. She had a few minor brushes with the law, but it wasn’t until she landed in some serious trouble that she finally caught her father’s attention.
    Joyriding in a stolen car hadn’t seemed all that big of a deal at the time to a sixteen-year-old Torie. Truth be told, she’d committed a few worse crimes without being caught. Yet, it was that fateful theft that brought about her first separation from Helen and enrollment in the reform school that gave direction to her life.
    At seventeen, Torie found photography. The rest was history—as printed in Star , National Enquirer, People , and dozens of other tabloids and gossip magazines.
    Now history was repeating itself, so to speak, in that a man frighteningly similar to her father was offering Helen his respect while dissing her. That , Torie thought, chapped her butt .
    “Why do you care, anyway?” she demanded after a long stretch of silence between them.
    He shot her a “You’re crazy” look. “I guess because after all we went through today, I’d just as soon not get shot down for trying to land at a U.S. military facility without clearance.”
    Oh. That must have been what all the radio talk was about. She hadn’t been paying attention while she was brooding. “Not that. My job. What possible