Free A Promise Of Home (A Lake Howling Novel Book 1) by Wendy Vella Page A

the microphone on the night of the reunion,” Macy Reynolds-Delray stated.
    “Not really good at public speaking, Macy. If you need any cars tuned, however, I’m your man. Plus, I’m not feeling too social these days,” Jake located the keys and started towards his pickup; Macy followed, tottering on her heels.
    Macy Reynolds, now Reynolds-Delray, was the girl who had it all in school. The girl that every boy lusted after; she was certainly the person he’d had plenty of uncomfortable nights dreaming about. Homecoming queen…every girl in school wanted to be her friend. Of course, that club had been exclusive. She was still beautiful, but now it was a forced beauty and the eyes beneath those long fake lashes were cold. Carefully pampered, her hair was colored almost white, her breasts looked bigger, which could mean she’d had some work done, but he wasn’t sure. She looked about as real as one of the dolls his sister had loved as child.
    “It’s one night, Jake, at the school you attended.” Even her voice had lost that enthusiastic, if highly annoying, pitch…this one was cold and emotionless.
    “Sorry, Macy, I’m busy.”
    “I hear Branna O’Donnell is back too, and she’s a teacher and writer,” she added, stopping on the curb beside his pickup. I’m going to ask her to do some handouts and advertising for the committee.”
    Why was he surprised that Macy knew this about Branna? Small towns could ferret out even the most closely guarded secret.
    “You do that, Macy. I’m meeting Mom for lunch, so I’ll see you around.” He didn’t look back, just climbed in and fired it up and headed out of town. He had a barn, plenty of loud music, and cars that sounded a whole lot better than running into more of the good folk of Howling. Driving past the end of Branna’s driveway, he pushed his foot down on the accelerator; he wasn’t going anywhere near her again. Something about her flashed warning signals inside his head, and then there was the fact that he couldn’t look at her and not want to strip her naked.
    ***
    Branna was still cursing herself when she pulled Georgie’s hat on and walked outside.
    She’d overreacted to Jake today and that annoyed her, because it meant that all those years she’d worked hard at forgetting, or at least locking all those feelings away, hadn’t worked. Well, they had, but now they weren’t anymore, because of him, Jake McBride. Why did she care what he thought of her? Why had she ever cared? She’d reacted like an emotional fool and then stormed out of the bakery like a child throwing a tantrum. That was not the woman she had become, the one who’d spent years perfecting the imperturbable façade.
    The problem was, she couldn’t get him out of her head. What had changed him into the man she’d seen today?
    Stomping around the back of the house, Branna found the garden and began tugging out weeds with her good hand. Georgie would be pissed if she saw her treasured garden being strangled to death by the bloody things, and even one-handed it was good to be doing something, anything to drive the memory of those cold, angry dark eyes out of her head.
    Jake McBride was hurting, Branna had seen it, but why?
    She’d been working a while when she felt someone watching her; looking over her shoulder, she saw a young boy. Skinny, lots of brown curls, and wide brown eyes.
    “Can I help you?”
    “Penny said I needed to come and say sorry for knocking you over with my bike.”
    Branna got to her feet and arched backward; she was stiff from bending for so long.
    “Well, say it then.”
    “What?”
    “Sorry I knocked you over and hurt your arm and made you bang your head,” Branna said.
    “Yeah, that,” the boy mumbled.
    “It’s not an apology if you don’t actually apologize.”
    His brown eyes studied her for a few seconds.
    “Georgie said you were the difficult type when you wanted to be.”
    “Yeah, well from where I’m standing, you don’t appear very