Free Behind the Secrets (Behind the Lives #4) by Marita A. Hansen Page A

sexy.”
She cupped her tits. “Cute is a B cup and I’m totally a double-D.”
    He laughed again.
    “Stop laughing at me! I’m bein’ serious.”
    He patted her lap. “Calm down, you’re
the first one to make me laugh in a long time. Take it as a compliment.”
    Her scowl dropped. “Really?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then my job tonight is to make you
laugh more than you ever have before.” All of a sudden, her head snapped
around, her eyes locking onto something. She pointed at the windscreen. “McDonalds!”
Her eyes shot to him. “Can we have some?”
    “Sure,” he said, again thinking she was
acting more like a teenager than a twenty-something. She bounced in her seat,
clapping her hands, proving his point.
    “I wanna Big Mac with no onions,” she
said, “cos onions stink and I wanna kiss you. I also wanna strawberry shake as
well as a sundae; make that strawberry too... Ooh, ooh, ooh, and we hafta get
some fries with loads of tomato sauce, cos I love tomato sauce. Fries
are yuck without it...”
    Saul laughed again, for once forgetting
about work.

 
     
    7
    Beth
    Beth went to turn into her parents’
driveway, but instead planted her foot on the brake as a car roared past her,
doing well over the speed limit. Shaking her head, she eased her foot off the
brake and moved forward, parking behind her mother’s station wagon. She got out
of the car and headed past the old wrecks on the lawn. When her father wasn’t
fixing other people’s cars, he was usually outside, restoring the ones he
bought from the wreckers. Unfortunately of late, he didn’t get much time to work
on them, since he was out almost every weekend searching for her oldest brother,
who had gone missing two months ago. All she could do was pray that Naf was
safe, and that he was just taking time out after his girlfriend betrayed him.
    Willing herself to believe that, she
walked up the steps to the front door of her parents’ brick and tile house. She
opened the door, calling out, “Mum!”
    “She got called into work,” Corey said.
    Beth’s eyes moved to her
seventeen-year-old brother. Corey was sitting on the couch with his feet
resting on a stool; one of them broken and encased in a black moon boot.
    “But her car’s out front,” Beth said.
    “Someone picked her up a couple of hours
ago, cos they needed her to help patch up some dumb-arse prisoners, who thought
it would be fun to bash each other’s brains in. She’s s’posed to be back soon.”
    “I wish she would quit that horrible
job,” Beth said, walking over to Corey. Her mum worked as a prison nurse a few
days a week, along with some on-call work.
    Corey grimaced. “She wouldn’t hafta do
it if Dad kept away from the TAB. He lost four hundred bucks last week betting
on horses. I told him he shouldn’t gamble and he told me to keep my opinions to
myself or get out of his house.”
    “There’s no use in talkin’ to him ’bout
it, you’ll just piss him off even more, plus it’s his money.”
    “It’s Mum’s too, and Mum doesn’t like it
either. I heard them arguing over it. Mum actually yelled at him.”
    Beth raised her eyebrows. “But she never
yells.”
    “Well, she did. Do ya think they’ll get
a divorce?”
    “Why would ja say that?”
    “They’ve been arguing a lot lately.”
    “No, they love each other, plus Mum
always forgives him. She’s a big softie.”
    “True.”
    “I also bet Dad will come grovelling
back with some flowers, like he normally does when he’s in the bad books. Next
thing, they’ll be kissing and cuddling and grossing you out. So, don’t worry.” Beth
sat down next to Corey, giving him a hug and a peck on the cheek.
    Corey shoved her away and wiped his face.
“Yuck, why ja do that for?”
    Beth laughed, her brother adorable. He
was wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie, which was swimming on his skinny body. He
also had on a beanie, which he never took off, due to his hair falling out from
chemotherapy. Luckily, Corey was now