Free STEPBROTHER: The Bride's Surprise (FMM Menage Stepbrother Romance) (Contemporary Women New Adult & College Menage Short Stories) by N.A. Violet

THE BRIDE’S SURPRISE
     
    She wasn’t going to be able to do it. No, not in a million years!
     
    Livy Castle looked at the bill she held in her hand and she growled. She jumped to her to bare feet, tossing her robe to the hardwood floor, pacing.
     
    The tidings she traipsed back in forth with were hardly glad. Livy was looking at a row of numbers that could have reached the moon and circled it, twice.
     
    Livy sighed. Her mother had been very ill for years now. Their family Donovan Lee Castle had provided the means to help Livy and her mom, Julia stay afloat.
     
    The only news Livy did know were the things Donovan wanted done while his affairs and his will were being sorted; Livy prayed her mom Julia would be able to continue her globulin treatments.
     
    Now granddaddy was gone and Livy didn’t even know if he’d made any arrangements to keep everything going with her mom.
     
    Which didn’t help the dog walking business Livy was trying to grow.
     
    Livy texted five numbers to her friend Poppy Hepburn. Livy asked Poppy if she could walk some of the dogs for clients. Poppy texted, “Yes,” and Livy breathed a sigh a relief.
     
    She looked at the paper again and she shook her head.
     
    How was she supposed to come up with this kind of money in sixty freaking days..?
     
     
    *****
     
    Livy turned to window in her tenth story flat. She looked out over the Bay City and at the Golden Gate. Livy wished she had super-genetic abilities like the X-Men so she could to go over and lift it. Then she’d hold it over the Memorial hospice and drop it on it like a ton of bricks. Only this time it would be steel and girders.
     
    Today was her one day Livy had to try and figure out what she going to do. Livy had wanted the day to be all hers, but the bill collectors and the incessant phone calls to her cell, were about to drive her mad.
     
    Livy picked up her cell phone off her oak square table with a short leg and she dialed the Hospice. She stuck her red toenail-painted foot on the table to stop it from knocking while she waited for someone to answer.
     
    “Hello, this Livy Castle. I’m calling to speak to someone about my mother’s stay?”
     
    “The administration office is closed this week and will reopen next Wednesday—.”
     
    Livy stuck her arm out in front of her as she stared at the phone.
     
    “Really?”
     
    This was all she needed.
     
    Livy stood in her Dream Angels lace trim thong panty and Victoria’s Secret Pink Angel bra holding the letter, reading the ginormous hospice balance.
     
    A flock of robins fly past a spiraling plume of mockingbirds. The mockingbirds sailed to and fro by Livy’s window and she shook her head. She knew she should have been thrilled to see birds so blissfully happy.
     
    The plume of Mockings flew straight at her window.
     
    She held her phone up, and she snapped her phone lens at the feathery creatures, with a “flash”.
     
    The birds spun at light speed sailing high into the sky.
     
    “Don’t you mock me,” Livy said.
     
    Livy went to her hand-painted sienna armoire, to find something to wear. A cream pair of capris and white T and matching wedges and a black belt fit her somber mood.
     
    She held up the ensemble to her breasts, testing her look. “Why can’t I be Magneto, Professor Xavier, or Storm and bend everything to my will?”
     
    Maybe she should have gone for demure. Livy thought it was probably better to dress casual, than try to prove she was queen San Francisco’s weather. Not today, anyway. Livy simply wasn’t feeling like a superhero.
     
    Adding the black leather belt with its silvery buckle to her clothes, she ran to answer the mobile phone. “Yes, this is Livy—.”
     
    Her boy pal Francis Lavoisier screamed into the phone. “Where are you? We’ve got the set with the giraffes, and the chimpanzee, and the photographer. What the H-E double stilettos, did big daddy D do with the client roster, Ms. Liv?
     
    “Oh, no—.” Livy