Reading Between the Lines Read online

  Table of Contents

  Reading Between The Lines (The Rosewoods, #4)

  Kittens Aren't Always Kittens

  Radio Silence

  No One Is Flawless

  Reunion

  Lampshade Fantasies

  So That's Awkward

  The Two Dollar Tour

  Ouch

  Into The Zone

  My Brother, The Side Of Beef

  Mending Fences

  The Bunker

  How Do You Know?

  Hard Parts

  Coffee

  Destination: Stop & Shop

  Break Time

  Watch Where You're Going

  The Parking Lot

  Emergency

  Waiting

  Not Just Some Random Guy

  Corn Dogs

  Second Thoughts

  The Cottage

  Happy Birthday

  Hook, Line and Sinker

  Thanksgiving

  Secrets

  Robert's Dorm Room

  Plans

  Epilogue

  Paging Dr. Freud

  Brooklyn

  “Good morning, Coach,” I said in as neutral a tone as I could. Which was a miracle since he was standing there looking fresh and amazing in his tight riding breeches and polo shirt that showed off his arms in a very distracting sort of way. Speaking of arms, one of them was flexed and at the end of it was a coffee, the smell of it making my mouth water as much as the person carrying it.

  Realizing I needed to not look at his arms, I lifted my eyes to his.

  He had a polite smile pasted on his face, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes, but it dissolved as he looked at me.

  “What?” I asked defensively.

  His brow furrowed. “You okay? You’ve got circles under your eyes; you look like you’re getting sick.”

  “Just tired,” I said. “And thanks.”

  “Late night?” he asked casually, but his intense eyes on mine told me there was nothing casual about his question.

  Reading Between The Lines

  The Rosewoods, Book 4

  By

  Katrina Abbott

  Over The Cliff Publishing, 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.

  READING BETWEEN THE LINES

  First edition. July 28, 2014

  Copyright © 2014 Katrina Abbott

  Written by Katrina Abbott

  ISBN-13: 978-1499226447

  ISBN-10:1499226446

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Steven,

  Let’s go out for corn dogs, k?

  Kittens Aren't Always Kittens

  “Coming down. c u in 5.”

  I texted Jared back a smilie face and put my phone back down on the table.

  “He on his way down?” Dave asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  And then there was another long, awkward pause. The ticking of the clock on the wall was deafening against the silence that crackled between us, ticking off moments that felt like eons.

  It had been almost a week since the masquerade ball, and things had seemed okay between Dave and I, although I guess we hadn’t actually seen each other since the dance. But I hadn’t had any more heart-to-hearts with Emmie and she’d seemed happier than she had been, so I figured all was going well with them.

  So when I’d arrived at Westwood tonight to meet Dave so we could go over our plan for the Thanksgiving food drive, (chauffeured by the dean, because awkward seemed to be the theme of the day) I’d come to the student council room, assuming we had moved past that whole bed thing. I was officially dating Jared now and Dave had seemed cool with that; I mean, he’d practically set us up. So I’d thought we were good.

  I’d thought wrong.

  And now I had less than five minutes to make it right.

  “Dave?”

  He looked up from his phone. He’d been fiddling with it since the moment I’d arrived. At first I thought he was texting, but his expression didn’t change, so I figured he was probably playing a game. It was kind of rude, but there was more to it than just bad manners: he was totally avoiding me.

  “Are we okay?” I asked, putting it all out there with three little words.

  He worked his jaw and looked away.

  “Dave,” I said, starting to feel panicked. “Why is this weird? I thought we were done with this.”

  He looked down at his phone again. But he wasn’t playing his game; he was just staring at it. Avoiding me.

  “You promised me...”

  Finally he looked up and I stopped talking, although I think he might have interrupted me if I hadn’t. “I thought you would have known by now.”

  “Known what?” I asked, taking a breath because my heart had started pounding, waiting for whatever news was coming. It wasn’t going to be good, whatever it was.

  “Emmie broke up with me.”

  “What? When?”

  He shrugged, his eyes back down at his phone. “Probably when you were on your way over here. Like, twenty minutes ago.”

  The gears in my brain started turning as I processed this.

  “Did you know?” he asked casually, as though he was asking me if I knew the sky was blue. “Did she tell you she was going to dump me?” His tone was so...normal...but by the way he was acting, I could tell this was having a profound effect on him. I knew he loved her. Maybe he’d even thought she was the one. I fought the urge to hug him—now was not the time to get close to him physically.

  He looked up at me, still waiting for an answer.

  Did I know she was going to dump him?

  Not today, my brain said as I thought about how she’d had her doubts for some time. I guess deep down I probably knew this was going to happen eventually. But did I know for absolute sure she was going to dump him? And so soon? “No,” I said. “I haven’t seen her since lunchtime, but she didn’t say anything.” At least that much is true, I thought.

  “She said there’s someone else.”

  I recoiled. “Emmie?” I couldn’t imagine it—who could it be? She’d never mentioned anyone and she’d confided in me about Dave, so why wouldn’t she mention someone else? Although, I was hardly one to talk about keeping secrets...

  He shook his head. “No, she thinks there might be someone else for me.”

  My heart stuttered in my chest. What was he saying? What had Emmie said? What did she know? Had he told her about the bed thing? And the most terrifying question of all:

  “Is there?” I whispered.

  He looked up at me, his crystal blue eyes suddenly intent on mine.

  “Maybe.”

  Two heartbeats later, Jared walked into the room. How’s that for perfect timing?

  I barely had time to school my face into a breezy smile, though my thumping heart would have been a dead giveaway to my sudden anxiety if anyone had thought to feel my pulse in that second.

  “Hey,” I said, my voice slightly higher than usual. I hoped he couldn’t see the guilt on my face, though it felt like it may as well have been branded on my forehead.

  “Hey yourself,” he said, dropping into the empty chair beside me and nodding at Dave. “So, what are we planning tonight?”

  Betrayal? I thought, glancing at Dave, but his face was maddeningly blank. How could he drop that bomb on me, knowing Jared was on his way down? Didn’t he have any idea how unsettling that was? Forget unsettling, it was downright cruel.

  “The Thanksgiving food drive,” Dave said.

  Jared nodded. “Can I help?” he asked reaching for my hand under the table, his fingers twining with mine.

  It was only hand-holding, but with Dave i
n the room after what he’d just said, it felt too intimate, like he was scrutinizing every move, every word. And as I looked up and saw him staring between us, where, if he had x-ray vision, he’d see our clasped hands through the table, I felt like I was betraying him. Which was crazy, since I was officially with Jared. Dave’s roommate. The one Dave had practically set me up with while he’d been in a relationship with my roommate.

  It was a bit too incestuous and warped, but just as I was about to beg off and go find the dean to drive me back to Rosewood because it was getting too intense, Dave abruptly pushed back from the table and stood up. “We’re pretty much done here. I’ll see you back at the room,” he said to Jared before he muttered something that sounded like it had my name in it and stormed out.

  “What was that all about?” Jared said, looking from the door to me and then back again.

  At least I had a good answer, even if it was only half of the truth. “Emmie dumped him.”

  His eyes went wide. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming.”

  The breakup wasn’t the part I didn’t see coming. But as I looked at the boy beside me, I hated myself for my adulterous thoughts. We’d barely been dating a week and here I was, thinking about someone else and what it meant that he’d looked into my eyes and implied he was into me. Not to mention that night when he’d found himself in bed with me and instead of leaving when he realized it was me and not Emmie, he’d kissed my neck and made me feel crazy things I’d never felt for any boy before.

  Until that kiss with Brady at the dance which had made me feel those crazy things and more. Which had been even worse, especially since we couldn’t be together.

  But now...

  “What’s wrong?” Jared asked, smoothing his thumb across my fingers, bringing me back to the student council room and the boy who was supposed to be my boyfriend.

  I shook my head. “I’m just thinking. Emmie didn’t tell me she was going to dump him. I’m just surprised she wouldn’t tell me.” I was also very anxious to know what prompted her to say what she did about there being someone else. Just the thought of returning to our dorm room so off-balance made me feel like I’d ingested about eight espressos too many.

  “What can I do?” Jared asked.

  “Huh?”

  He pointed at my notebook. “For the food drive. Let me help.”

  It was the last thing on my mind. “It’s okay, I’m sure Dave and I will get back into it once this isn’t so fresh.”

  Jared shook his head. “It’s no trouble and just think, you can be that much further along at your next meeting.”

  I looked up at him and smiled, suddenly thankful for the distraction. “You’re a nice guy, you know that?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell anyone or I’m going to lose all my street cred.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You hardly have a badass reputation.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Oh really?”

  It might have been intimidating if he hadn’t been smirking.

  “Really. God, Jared, you’re laughing. How were you ever an actor?”

  He put his large palm over his heart. “Oh, that really hurts. Kick me in the Golden Globes, why don’t you?”

  I laughed and it was exactly what I needed to break my mood. “Thank you,” I said, leaning toward him and throwing my arms around his muscular neck. He smelled clean, like fresh laundry, which was so comforting that I pressed my face against his shoulder. His hands pressed into my back and then started moving up slowly, pulling me toward him as the hug started to turn into something else.

  My heart sped up as I thought about kissing him. Other than the one press of our lips together on the dance floor last Friday, we hadn’t kissed. I pulled back from him and looked into his eyes, then up at the clock on the wall to make sure we had enough time before the dean was going to return to take me back to the Rosewood campus.

  Twenty minutes. More than enough time for a little making out. I returned my gaze to Jared’s face; his eyes were droopy and he gave me a lazy smile. An I’d like to kiss you smile, like he’d read my mind.

  He leaned a bit closer.

  I did the same.

  We were a breath away from kissing.

  Then we were kissing, his soft lips pressed against mine. I felt the first brush of his tongue when my phone sounded. He exhaled loudly, “Please ignore that,” he said against my mouth.

  If it had been anyone else, I would have, but, “I can’t; it’s home.”

  He sighed and leaned back so I could dig in my pocket for my cell. I pulled it out and answered. He took my other hand and played with my fingers.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi honey. Just calling to see how you’re doing. Are you okay?”

  “Mom? Yeah, I’m fine.” My stomach rolled at her slightly panicked tone, the one that a casual observer would never notice but that told me volumes about her mental state. My mother never panicked. I was desperate to ask, but waited for what was coming. Was my father dead? Had there been some sort of international security incident?

  “That’s good, honey. Are you doing your homework?”

  “Yes,” I said, pulling my hand from Jared’s so I could concentrate. “I got an A on my English Lit paper.” Which was a lie, but I had to keep talking normally in case she was bugged.

  “That’s good.”

  “How’s Dad?” I asked, holding my breath as I waited for the answer.

  “He’s fine. He’s been busy at the university.” Which meant all was okay with him. I let out my breath.

  “What else?” I asked, still nervous.

  “One of the kittens ran away.”

  My spine went rigid. “What?”

  “We haven’t seen him for three days,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word.

  “Mom...”

  “It’s okay,” she said in a decisive tone, telling me she was mentally pulling herself together. “We have all the neighbors looking. I’m sure he’ll turn up. I have to go, honey. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

  “Okay, Mom. Love to you and Dad.”

  “Bye, honey.”

  I ended the call and stared at the phone, the ticking clock suddenly deafening. I wanted to scream.

  “What’s wrong?” Jared asked softly.

  I looked up at him, having almost forgotten he was there. As I did, the last remnants of his smile disappeared. “You look haunted,” he said. “What happened?”

  “My brother is missing.”

  Radio Silence

  “What?”

  I ignored Jared’s question and pushed my chair back so I could get up. “I have to go. I need to get back to campus.” For what, I had no idea, but I was too mixed up in the head to stay there.

  He stood also and grabbed my hand, stopping me from bolting out of the room. “What do you mean your brother’s missing?”

  I looked up and focused on his face. “My brother. My mom hasn’t heard from him in three days.”

  Jared’s face screwed up into a frown. “How old is he?”

  “Nineteen.”

  Jared’s frown deepened; I could tell he was wondering why we were so worried about someone who was old enough to vote. “And he lives at home?”

  I shook my head. “No, he goes to Yale.”

  Jared blinked several times at this. I suddenly realized how stupid it must have sounded to someone who didn’t know our whole story.

  “So you’re telling me your nineteen year old brother who is at college hasn’t checked in with his mom for a few days and this is a federal issue?”

  You have no idea, I thought. I swallowed. “He’s normally very in touch with my mom. He never goes off the grid.” Because it could be a matter of life and death, I couldn’t say.

  “He’s probably on a bender or in Mexico with a girl or something,” Jared said casually, as though Robert was just any kind of guy and not the son of a target for terrorists. But Jared didn’t know. And I couldn’t tell him, because who my father was needed to
stay a secret, even from my boyfriend, or I’d be painting a target on my back. Or his.

  My father’s job usually wasn’t cause for a great deal of concern—at least for Robert and me—presuming everything was going well. We took precautions to make sure he and I were low exposure and in secure locations. But there was always the potential for stuff to get very real very quickly if there was a terrorist threat or international relations got messed up somehow. If there was a big terrorist cell uncovered in Europe, Dad was often at the center of the operation, so we’d be extra safe—no traveling, new cell phones, maybe even a new school or name change. But that hadn’t happened in several years, so maybe we’d gotten used to our new lives and had forgotten to be careful.

  I swallowed, thinking about what might have happened to my brother and it was a lot worse than waking up with a hangover in Mexico.

  “I have to go,” I said, slipping my hand out of his for the second time. “I’ll text you.”

  He leaned down to kiss me goodbye, but I was already heading out of the student council room. A pang of guilt rolled through my stomach, but I had more important things to worry about.

  Mom hadn’t told me to engage the protocol, so they obviously didn’t think I was at risk, but that could change at any time. I needed to be on alert. I needed to be ready.

  I power-walked down the hall to Dean Peterson’s office and as I went in to get Dean Haywood to take me back to Rosewood, I heard them chatting and laughing, which annoyed me. That they could be having a normal, easy conversation while my brother was missing and could right now be under torture at the hands of terrorists who were using him to get to my father set me even more on edge.

  I had no right to be angry at the dean, especially when I couldn’t even tell her what was really going on, but the sudden stress of my mother’s call had fired up every nerve in my body and I wasn’t feeling my normal easygoing self.

  I knocked and let myself in, not waiting for the invitation to do so. Both deans looked up at me in surprise as I announced, “I need to go back to Rosewood.” And then added a hasty, “Please, Dean Haywood.”

  “Sorry,” I said when they both looked at me wordlessly like I was a spoiled rich brat with no manners. “Family emergency. I...” and then I burst into tears, which I guess sold my story better than any sort of half-truths, because Dean Haywood jumped up and came over to me, muttering something to Westwood’s dean as she put her arm across my shoulders and ushered me out of the office.