Finally Finding Faith (The Reed Brothers) Read Free

without her, so what good was it for him to sleep at home?  I came to stay with them when they brought her home. I don’t know if I’m a help or a hindrance.  But I feel better being here, until I do something stupid like fall asleep.
    The man coughs into his fist. I must have been wandering. Gran ddad says I do that a lot. It’s one of the reasons why I’m good at fixing clocks. It’s slow, methodical work and it takes my mind off the rest of the world.
    “Didn’t mean to fall into you,” I say. Heat creeps up my cheeks.
    He’s handsome. Startlingly so. He has brown hair and deep, chocolate brown eyes. His face is shadowed by beard stubble, and he doesn’t smile. Why doesn’t he smile?
    He reaches down to adjust his pant leg and I see the length of metal that comes out of his shoe. I look up to his face and he’s watching me carefully. Is that why he doesn’t smile? I stick out my hand, for lack of anything better to do. “I’m Faith,” I say. He takes my hand in his and gives it a gentle squeeze, his eyes meeting mine , and I might even see a little spark in his dark gaze. But it burns out as quickly as it arrived.
    “Daniel,” he says. “Everything all right upstairs?” He looks toward the closed doorway.
    “Nan tried to get up and fell.” I shake my head. Nan’s head is still solid, but her body won’t cooperate and she just doesn’t fully grasp her limitations yet. “Pete’s upstairs charming her back into bed.” I laugh. That man has a way with people.
    “The Reeds,” he says. “They seem pretty nice.”
    I roll my eyes. “All five of them in one room can be a little overwhelming.” I had a crush on Pete for a little while, but then he met Reagan, and they are so freaking perfect for one another that I quickly discarded that notion.
    “There are five of them?” he asks. He scratches his head. “I think I only met two.”
    I start to count on my fingers. “Paul, Matt, Logan, Sam and Pete, in order of age. Sam and Pete are twins, although Sam swears he’s eight minutes older.”
    I walk over to where Granddad started on Daniel’s watch. “Is this yours?” I ask, as I pick up my glasses and sit down on the stool. I bend Granddad’s light toward the watch. I look into it, and, although I’ve never worked on one of these, I might be able to fix it.
    “I t was my grandfather’s.”
    I look up at him. “What happened to it?”
    He looks everywhere but at me. “There was an explosion. In Afghanistan.”
    “Was that where you were injured?” I ask, but my mind is already on the inner workings of the clock.
    “Yeah,” he says and he blows out a breath.
    “So your watch hasn’t worked since the blast?” I ask. I’m trying to figure out what could be the matter. Because the gears turn when I manually work them.
    “Nothing has worked for me since the blast,” he says. His voice is suddenly heavy and I look up.
    “What do you mean?”
    “The clock,” he goes on to clarify, but I’m pretty sure he just meant life. “It hasn’t worked since.”
    “Mm hmm,” I hum. I start to remove the gears and pieces and lay them on the table in front of me.
    “Are you sure you should be doing that?” he asks. He walks close to me and pulls up a stool. He’s fidgety, and he makes me a little nervous now that he’s close to me. But Granddad and Pete are right upstairs.
    I look up at him. “You do want it fixed, right?” I ask.
    He nods. “More than anything.” He heaves a sigh. “I feel like time stood still that day, and it never started back up.”
    I nod. But I can’t look at him. He’s telling me more than he wants to, and I’m afraid he’ll stop if he realizes how closely I’m listening. “Did you lose any friends?” I keep working on the watch, removing the parts piece by piece.
    “I lost all my men.” His voice gets thick and he coughs to clear his throat. “Everyone. I lost everyone and everything.”
    “Where’s your family?” I ask.
    I feel the warm