Bound to You Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the landscape. Probably more of a lake than a pond, but everyone had always called it a pond.
    “ You drunk?”
    “ Naw, just mellow,” his brother said. “Getting old…. Angie moved out. Did they tell you?”
    Sam checked his brother, a little worried now. Their grandmother had suffered from dementia. “You told me yourself. Two days ago when I got here and asked where she was. Remember that?”
    “ Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “Guess I do.”
    Jack and Angie had been a couple for five years, had lived together for probably two of those years. She’d become part of the family. Sam didn’t ask, but assumed she’d moved out because Jack wouldn’t get around to marrying her.
    “ Gonna be forty-four in a month.”
    “ No kidding,” Sam said, even though he knew how old his brother was. They were fifteen years apart in age. Jack really was beginning to look old. His hair was graying, as was the hair on his chest. Their dad would turn sixty-seven soon. Their mom had just turned sixty-five. Time seemed to be slipping away from them all.
    Sam’s head was too full already without worrying about how old everyone was becoming. He had far more important things to think about now. “Never mind. I’m headed down to the dock.”
    With a grunt, Jack pushed himself higher in his seat. “Yeah, okay. I need to get up and move around.”
    Sam led the way, not really caring if his brother tagged along. The humidity had gone down with the sun and a nice breeze cooled his skin as it swept across the water. The big, wooden raft rocked tunefully on the slow rolling ripples. He walked to the end of the short pier and stepped down onto the unsteady floor of the raft.
    Jack made it to the end of the pier and sat down to skim his bare feet on the water.
    Sam rocked the raft, having to use all the strength in his legs to set the heavy wood buoy rolling beneath his weight, to his own rhythm. Then, tiring of that, he pushed himself and the raft from the pier post. He rode the arch of the rope around in front of Jack to the other side of the pier. He caught the post and stopped himself.
    “ Hey, you remember a while back, this girl, Jenna Morgan? I used to bring her out here to the pond.”
    Jack stared down at his floating feet then finally seemed to snap out of his daze and looked up. “Not really. You were always bringing girls out here.”
    Sam frowned at his brother. “No, I didn’t. Just one. Tall blonde. You remember.”
    Jack blew out a breath and thought for a moment. “Okay, yeah. The pretty blonde, long legs, shy? Damn-near six feet tall with both feet flat on the ground. She was afraid of me, couldn’t look me in the eye.”
    “ That’s the one.”
    “ What about her?”
    Sam stepped up to the pier and leaned against a post, wondering why his arms were tingling – wondering if he might be on the verge of having a heart attack. “She’s got a kid. Says he’s mine.”
    Jack didn’t seem surprised, or very interested. “So when did this happen?”
    “ Before I left, I guess. I just found out. He’s, I don’t know, two or so. Blond hair, healthy-looking. Likes to sing.”
    “ You used to do that,” Jack said. “Running around singing up a storm even before you could talk good. Mom swore you were gonna make a country singer. Bought you a little toy guitar.”
    Sam had no memory of that, but he’d said the same thing to Jenna. That the boy needed a guitar. “Instead, Mikey turned out to be the musician.”
    “ He just bought a recording studio in Nashville.”
    “ Yeah, I heard.”
    The night fell silent and Sam looked at the raft, remembering the face of a fun, beautiful girl with long blond hair and lips as red and delicious as ripe plums. Legs that stretched on and on. Her face had fallen into his sight so many times over the past few years, and a ball of anger and regret settled in his gut. He deliberately looked away from the raft.
    “ I didn’t have a choice,” he thought aloud. “She was set for