Keeper of the Alphas - Complete Read Online Free PDF Page B

well-intentioned but colorful aunt a wide berth.
    “You look…summery,” Cami teased, trying to lighten the mood. Back in New York, she had a closet organized by the season.
    Sadie made a sweeping motion with her hand. “Winter is just a passing thing, dear.”
    Cami noticed Sadie’s left arm was dormant on the table; a heavy bandage ran up her wrist and under the sleeve of her dress. “What happened to your wrist?” Cami heard herself say before she could stop herself.
    “You know me—I’m just a klutz ,” Sadie said, brushing off the question. “I make poor Jenny crazy, don’t I, Jen?”
    “Whatever,” Jenny muttered, not lifting her eyes from her phone.
    “Are you hungry?” Sadie said, reverting into a mother hen. “We got some muffins and tea for the table.”
    An assortment muffins sat on a platter in the center of the table, each stuffed artfully with chocolate chips, raisins, and a variety of colors. It looked like Sadie had already made a substantial dent in the platter, whereas Jenny still had a half-eaten bran muffin sitting on her plate. Cami was still full from breakfast, but she knew Aunt Sadie didn’t take no for an answer, so she plucked a blueberry muffin off the platter to be polite. “Thanks,” she said and peeled off the wrapping. “Sorry I’m late.”
    “By about seven years,” Jenny came out with. The bitterness in her voice startled Cami—even when Cami was living in Tyburn, the two hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies. Why did she care whether Cami stayed or left?
    “I swear, you look more like your mother the older you get,” Sadie said, pushing forward as though she hadn’t heard her daughter’s remark.
    Though Cami knew Sadie had meant well with the comment, it only caused an angry heat to rise through Cami. A glass of ice water sat on the table in front of her and she sipped it to douse the flames of resentment. “Last I remember, Lynn never took her hair out of a bun.”
    Aunt Sadie laughed—a loud, throaty noise—though her eyes went wet again with nostalgic sadness. “No, she didn’t, not after you were born. As soon as you could wrap your little hand in a fist you were tugging hair. Oh, but when she was young, she used to wear it back in a braid all the time. God, it was so pretty, I was always jealous…” Her voice trembled and tears threatened to fall.
    Jenny huffed in her seat, sounding annoyed with her mother’s outburst.
    “I bet I could do something with your hair,” Cami said, trying to simultaneously lighten the mood and ignore the itch to cut all her hair off so she wouldn’t bear any resemblance to her mother.
    Sadie brightened up substantially. “Oh, yes—you cut hair now, don’t you?”
    Cami gave a small nod and picked apart her muffin. “I work at a hair salon in New York.” Never mind that Seth kept her so busy answering phones, making appointments, restocking supplies, and opening and closing shop that she barely got a chance to get her hands on hair, but Aunt Sadie didn’t have to know that.
    “My gosh !” Sadie exclaimed, as though Cami had just announced winning the Nobel Peace Prize. “That’s wonderful , dear. Your mother would be so proud.”
    There it was again. Her mother . She finally couldn’t avoid the topic. “I have some questions,” Cami said. “About what happened.”
    She saw Sadie go visibly rigid but, to her credit, the older woman offered a broad smile. “Of course, honey. Anything.”
    Cami ripped off a piece of the top of the muffin and popped it in her mouth as she measured her words. “How… exactly …did she die?”
    She could feel Jenny come to attention beside her ( morbid girl ).
    The word die seemed a little too harsh for sweet Sadie, who probably would’ve preferred to dance around the subject with a vanilla-bland phrase like passed away or moved on , and her teeth clenched in her smile. “Hasn’t anyone told you?”
    “Just the bare bones,” Cami said. “Something about a…hiking