Break Me: A Stepbrother Romance Read Free Page B

the fact that he'd broken his leg two weeks ago and was leaning on crutches, his leg in a cast.
    It was just the latest in a long line of disagreements we'd had since he'd broken the leg. My dad had always been strong and capable, and he'd never been laid low before. It wasn't going well. He kept insisting he could do everything he'd done before, even the dangerous things. Like uprooting the garden.
    I swatted away summer mosquitos and put my hands on my hips, wondering what to do. I was twenty-four now, and I'd been living in Terre Mills, Michigan, for two years, ever since I'd dropped out of college to start my own business. My mother had been furious, but my dad had understood—he ran his own business, too. We'd always been alike, me and Dad. Since I was old enough to move out and live on my own, I hadn't really considered living anyplace except Terre Mills, to be close to him.
    Still, that didn't mean he didn't drive me absolutely crazy.
    “At least let me help,” I said.
    “I'll be fine, fine.” He waved a hand at me. He lived alone—the marriage to Brenda had ended years ago, and she was long gone. Even after the divorce, my dad had still been his easygoing, optimistic self. That is, until the accident that broke his leg. Ever since then, there had been something different about him, as if something worried him and brought him down. He'd also been more irritable, but I figured that must be from the pain. “You don't have to hover over me, you know,” he said. “I've cut vines before in my life. Don't you have to be at the shop?”
    I sighed. While I was in college, studying economics—and hating every minute of it—I'd started a sideline buying old furniture from estate sales, refinishing it, and reselling it at a profit. I'd originally started it to make side money, but soon I discovered that I not only liked it, I was really good at it. I could spot pieces that had potential, that were genuine antiques, and that would look a million times better with just a little bit of work. I also had the knack for fixing things up. It had become such a profitable sideline that I'd dumped college and opened my buy-and-sell antique furniture shop in downtown Terre Mills. It wasn't making me a millionaire, but it was making me a living, and it sure as hell beat working in an office for someone else.
    Actually, my life was pretty good. Except for the fact that I was single, and my last boyfriend had been a disaster. Everyone had thought he was perfect, and that I was crazy to break up with him. But I'd rather live alone, and die a dried-up old spinster, than go through what I’d gone through with him ever again.
    “The shop is closed today, Dad,” I said. “It's Sunday.”
    He lowered the shears and looked at me, nearly losing his balance on his crutches. “Sunday? It is?”
    “Yes.” I was used to this—for all my life, my dad had never been able to keep track of what day of the week it was. “Is that important?”
    “Oh, hell.” He let the shears drop to the ground and pulled back his sleeve, looking at his watch. “It's three o'clock!” He started hobbling back through the yard toward the house, nearly falling over more than once as he pressed his foot in its booted cast to the ground.
    “What is it?” I called as I hurried after him. Oh, God, he was going to fall and hit his head, and I'd be helpless to do anything except call 911. I was already worried about him all the time, since I lived in my small apartment downtown and he was alone in this big house. He hadn't let me move in with him to look after him, even for a little while. Nate Friesen was stubbornly proud.
    “I'm going to make some tea,” he muttered to himself as he stumped up the steps to the back door. “Or coffee. I don't know which one he'll want. Oh, hell, I'll just make both. Summer, do we have any coffee?”
    “Dad, please!” I said, wiping sweat from my forehead and following him through the mud room to the kitchen. “Just tell me