Barefoot Bay: Hold On To Forever (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free PDF

knew it. He leaned back in his chair and grinned. She really was lovely. Not classically beautiful like her sister, but then he’d never been drawn to the obvious. Felicity Reed was interesting. And interesting was never easy. Or boring.
    “Apology accepted on both counts. And…it really doesn’t bother me, talking about my mom. It’s Nicki I was worried about.”
    “So you really have no contact with her at all?” What sort of woman left her husband and two young daughters behind? He was no shrink, but no matter how well adjusted Felicity and Nicki seemed, it had to have taken its toll.
    His expression must have belied his thoughts, because she said, “It’s no biggie. I only have to see the psychiatrist once a week now, as opposed to every other day.”
    When he didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes at him. “That was a joke. We saw enough of her when we were younger. The standard every other weekend and two weeks in the summer. When I turned sixteen, the judge didn’t make me anymore.”
    He wanted to ask why she’d stopped the visits, but something told him she wouldn’t have been honest with him. “And Nicki? Did she continue seeing her?”
    “Until she was eighteen. But we haven’t heard from her for a couple of years and that’s perfectly fine by me.”
    He hated to keep prying but for some reason, he couldn’t let it go. “Where does she live?”
    “Last I heard she was in St. Augustine.” She drained her drink and glanced behind her. “Damn. The bar just closed. I could use another one of these.”
    “I’ll see if he’ll open back up.”
    He went to stand, but Felicity put her hand on his forearm stopping him. “No, it’s okay. Let the poor guy go home.”
    He glanced down at her hand on his skin. It felt warm and soft and small. He didn’t like thinking of her as a teenager estranged from her own mother. “Are you sure?”
    “Positive. Please, don’t feel sorry for me. It’s not like… I mean, your story is the really sad one.” Then her brown eyes went wide, as if she realized what she’d implied. “I mean, having your mother die so young and so needlessly.”
    “I was only fourteen months old. I have absolutely no memory of her.”
    “Which, in itself, is pretty tragic.” She hiccupped.
    He noticed how quickly she’d finished off her drink. Combined with all the champagne they’d had at the villa… “Are you drunk?”
    “Just happy enough to be melancholy.” She fiddled around with the napkin beneath her now empty glass. “Ellen seems terrific.”
    “That she is. She’s the only mom I’ve ever known.”
    “How old were you when she and your dad got married?”
    “I was nine, but they’d been dating a couple of years before that.”
    “So, for the first seven years of your life it was just you and your dad?”
    “You make it sound like something out of a Dickens novel. Sure, he used to work all these long hours at the firm, but sometimes I’d go to the office with him. He’d let me pretend to file stuff. Eventually, I got good enough that I could actually do it. He even let me answer the phone.” He raised his voice a few octaves to sound like a little kid. “Martinez Law Firm, how can we help you sue the pants off someone?”
    She laughed. He liked knowing that it was because of something he’d said. “Abuela lived with us back then. She taught me how to cook and clean. Do stuff around the house.”
    Her smile slowly faded until she was left simply staring at him.
    “What? You think I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth? My dad started the firm with one part-time secretary and a rented two-room office near Calle Ocho in Little Havana. Not the most auspicious of beginnings.”
    “And now you’re the biggest law firm in Miami.”
    “You bet your ass we are. I know you think what we do is shit, and yeah, we got rich off it, but we help a lot of people. And we never represent the big companies. Only the regular Joes off the street.”
    “I don’t