The Last Breath by Kimberly Belle Read Free Book Online

tree—except for this feeling of love. Love so large I think my heart might explode. Love so fierce it hurts to breathe.
    “Let go, Gi. You’re suffocating me.” Lexi wriggles her hands in between us and pushes me to arm’s length. The skin around her eyes crinkles in a smile. “And besides, I want to get a good look at you.” She surveys me up and down, her gaze settling on the denim hanging loose from my hips. “Good Lord, you’re a walking advertisement for anorexia.”
    “And you are as gorgeous as ever.” Honey hair that falls perfectly straight down her back, bowed lips curved into a flirtatious smirk, sinuous limbs begging to be draped over the hood of a Corvette. My sister may be a little older now, her designer denim a little tighter, but Sexy Lexi Andrews is still every inch Miss Cherokee High three years in a row.
    She turns and smacks a palm on the bar, demanding the bartender’s attention. “Jake, you handsome devil, have you met my sister Gia yet?”
    If Jake is surprised this is a family reunion, he doesn’t show it. He flicks the towel over a shoulder and extends a long arm over the bar. “Jake Foster. Nice to meet you, Gia.”
    His grip is firm, his hand warm and smooth in mine. “Nice to meet you, too.”
    “Fire up your fry-daddy,” Lexi tells Jake. “We’ve got to get some meat on my sister’s bones, pronto.” She winks at me. “There’s not a soul within fifty miles who’s not put on at least ten pounds since Jake opened this place five years ago. Wait’ll you taste his food. You’ll know why he’s got girls all over town flinging their panties at his front door.”
    Jake gives her an appreciative grin and pours two generous glasses of wine. When he tells us about the special—seared duck breast and oven-roasted kale and sweet potato hash smothered in jus—my mouth waters and I smack my lips. Jake notices, and he gives me a cocky grin.
    “Don’t laugh,” I say. “My last real meal was a watery stew with questionable chunks of what the cook swore was goat. The stray dog population took a hit that day, though, so I don’t think he was being entirely honest.”
    “I don’t know whether to be offended or relieved,” Jake says.
    Lexi snorts. “Try disgusted.”
    He throws back his head and laughs, a deep rumble that vibrates through my bones, and then disappears into the kitchen with a twirl of his towel and our orders.
    As soon as he’s gone, I whirl on my stool to face Lexi, and the words tumble out of my mouth like stock cars at the Bristol Motor Speedway, racing to the finish line. “Did you know that vice principal Sullivan still lives next door—his house is a dump by the way—and is a raging alcoholic?”
    “That’s not exactly a 411, you know. By now that man’s liver is so pickled, you could batter it, fry it and serve it on a platter.”
    “And his family? What happened to them?”
    Lexi sips her wine. “Gone. Hightailed it out of here after what must have been his fourth or fifth DUI.”
    The professor’s words —What do you think he’s hiding from?— skitter through my mind, but I switch gears. Dean Sullivan’s fall from grace, though intriguing, is the least of my worries.
    I move on. “This law professor from Atlanta came by the house earlier, and you wouldn’t believe what he said about Dad.”
    Lexi scowls and plunks down her wineglass, her gaze fishing over my right shoulder. “Why is it that every time somebody gets saved at Light of Deliverance church, they turn into a dowdy old frump? Surely that outfit can’t be what Jesus intended for his fans.”
    I don’t bother checking. My sister is the Carrie Bradshaw of Appalachia, and not many people can live up to her fashion standards. And besides, I know this tactic. By interrupting me with some ridiculous nonsense, Lexi is hoping to distract me from a subject she hasn’t spoken more than a few words about in almost sixteen years: our father.
    “I think they’re called followers,” I