Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III Read Free

because of things on mine. Classes and studying had eaten my life whole, especially with taking the absolute maximum of classes allowable at any given time in order to graduate sooner.
    I’d wanted to get down here and now here I was, and I was just so mentally and emotionally exhausted after such a harsh whirlwind of activity to get here, I didn’t know where to start.
    That was okay, apparently, according to the men and women of The Kraken, I would start by being introduced to every last one of them. A cold drink was shoved into one hand and pretty quickly, maybe midway through the introductions, a plate of food was shoved into the other. I sat down around a cold bonfire pit in the sand, back against a fallen piece of driftwood with Hope on one side and Faith on the other. Their men ranged out on the other side of their women. I listened to stories of my sisters and how they’d found their way to Ft. Royal.
    Things grew a bit somber and quiet when they reached the part about finding and rescuing Faith, and I grew more than a little emotional. I looked to my older sister who looked back at me. We were very nearly a mirror of one another except for our eyes. Hers were a brilliant green-blue like the shallow waters just down the beach. Mine were just plain blue, and wet with tears as my throat closed on anything I could possibly say. Frustrating, that. All I had wanted was to drop everything and come down here and say so much and now, now I was here and couldn’t say anything at all. What was there to say? Once again, when things had gone pear shaped, I had been coddled and relegated to the baby’s table.
    Except I wasn’t a baby anymore. I was a twenty-four year old woman with world travel experience and a four year nursing degree under my belt. I looked over at Hope and Faith in turn and had to sigh inwardly. There were some things that would never change when it came to my little family of three… my being ‘the baby’ was likely one of those, no matter how hard I resisted the idiocy of it.

 
    Chapter 2
    Nothing
     
    Only one time before had it happened; that feeling like I’d been punched in the gut, just from looking into a woman’s eyes. The first time it’d been my wife Corrine’s eyes. A strange shade of lavender as she’d beseeched me not to let her die. I scrubbed my face with my hands as I tried to banish the painful image of our first meeting out of my head before images of our last barged their way in.
    Charity’s eyes weren’t lavender like Corrine’s had been, so it wasn’t that. I don’t know what it was about them, other than being a startling, pale, shade of blue. Like shadows on ice, crisp and refreshing under the heat of the baking Florida sun. I’d led her to her sisters, but as soon as I was able to, I put a little distance between us, but my gaze hadn’t exactly been sidelined from watching her.
    Lightning dropped down next to me and knocked his shoulder into mine. “What ‘cha looking at?” he asked and I tore my gaze away from Faith-lite.
    “Not a damn thing,” I grated.
    “Bullshit,” he said grinning, “She’s single, according to Hope. You finally going to give it up and try something new?”
    “Hadn’t planned on it and still don’t; I’m married.”
    “ Were married,” Radar said, dropping his ass into the sand on my other side. “At some point, man, you gotta give up carrying the torch for Corrine. She’s gone, and it’s been something like three years. You can’t punish yourself for somethin’ you didn’t do for forever.”
    “What do you fuckin’ know about it?” I demanded, and shoved some food in my face, chewing automatically.
    “I know Corrine’d be pissed lookin’ at you livin’ like this, day in and day out. Hell, you aren’t even living, you’re just down here grinding it out. That ain’t no way to be, my brother. That ain’t no way to be.”
    “What would you fuckin’ know about it?” I demanded again, and it sounded petulant,