Never Tied Down (The Never Duet #2) by Anie Michaels Read Free Book Online Page A

we’re out here crying.”
       The party was amazing, but I still had things to wrap up, so the next day I drove to Seattle and made an appointment for a property management company to meet me at my house.  I figured I may as well rent it out while I was in LA.  That way, I could earn a little money on it, but still have a place to come back to should the job in LA not work out.  I was determined to no longer be a drain on my friends.
       I pulled up to my house and could almost imagine Marcus running out of the front door, Nancy behind him, yelling my name, excited to have me home.  But instead, what I saw was a house that looked dark inside, a yard that definitely needed to be tended to, and a pile of weekly newspapers spread across the front walkway. 
       I grabbed my bag from the car and started toward the door when I heard someone yelling from across the street.
       “Ma’am?  Ma’am?” 
       I turned and saw a woman running toward me, looking both ways quickly before she crossed the road. 
       “Ma’am, do you live here?”  She looked at me expectantly.  My first reaction was a little rude.  Who else would be coming up to the door with a suitcase?  But then I calmed down and tried to remember that I hadn’t been there in months and even before then, I wasn’t here often.  If Nancy had shown up, I’m sure the neighbor would have recognized her and probably would have even known her name.
       “I own this house.  My name is Kalli Rivers.”  I held my hand out to her, and she smiled when she shook it.
       “Oh, good, an owner.  I thought the house had been abandoned.  Thought, you know, a foreclosure or something.  There used to be people living here, but they cleared out quickly.” 
       My heart lurched at her words.  “You probably mean my brother, Marcus, and his caretaker, Nancy.”
       “Nancy, yes! Oh, I didn’t realize Marcus had a sister.  How is Marcus?”  Her eyes were alight with warmth.  Obviously, she’d met Marcus and thought he was just as delightful as anyone who’d come into contact with him.
       “I’m sorry to tell you he passed away a few months ago.”  The words were never easy to say, but I did notice that when I told her, I didn’t feel like I wanted to crawl into a black cave.  Somehow, telling someone he’d passed had become less difficult.  I wasn’t less sad, it was just, I don’t know, a part of me.  Something I’d learned to deal with as time went on.
       “Oh my, I’m so sorry,” she said as she reached out and took my hand.  Then she used my hand to pull me into a hug.  I stiffened at first, unused to hugging strangers, but then I let her hug me and I leaned into it a little.  Comfort was something I needed to learn to accept from those who offered it.  People didn’t offer comfort for selfish or insincere reasons.  When people wanted to hug you, it was because they thought it would make your pain ease.  So I let her ease my pain.
       “Wait,” she said, pulling away quickly.  “You’re Kalli?”
       “That’s right,” I answered, my brows pulled together in confusion.
       “I have something for you.”  She stepped away from me and hurried back to her house.  I stood between my driveway and my front door, waiting for the woman to return.  I finally saw her open her front door and scurry across the street again, holding something in her hand.
       “These were delivered to your house, but no one ever came to get them.  I hope you don’t mind,” she said, a little out of breath from her jaunt across the street.  “They would sit out there for days, so I’d go and collect them.  I eventually had to throw them away, but I always kept the cards.”  She held out a stack of small envelopes.
       “What are these?”
       “Cards.  They came with the flowers.”
       “Flowers?”
       “Yes.  At least twice a month, sometimes more, flowers would get delivered to your house