For the Longest Time Read Free

the house again,” her mother said. “I’d thought I might keep one anyway.” Sam relaxed a little. One crisis averted, at least.
    â€œReally? You’re moving back?” Jake asked. He sounded strangely interested. It was annoying.
    â€œSort of. For the time being,” Sam hedged. If he wanted more concrete information, he could just stick with whatever rumors were sure to come down the pike. It was what he’d done before. Why should that have changed?
    â€œGreat,” he said, and his easy smile included those damned dimples. She could almost believe he was sincere. That, Sam knew, would be a mistake. Everyone said that people changed, but in her experience, they didn’t change that much. And even if Jake had, she had better things to do than find out.
    Like mope around her mother’s house in her pajamaseating queso out of the jar, for instance. With a spoon. Awesome.
    When the silence dragged out, Sam finally realized why Jake was looking at her so expectantly. Sadly, it had nothing to do with wanting extra information about her scintillating life plans.
    â€œYou still want the kitten,” she said flatly.
    Jake scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked almost apologetic. “Uh, well . . . yeah. Provided you’d like it to stay alive, I think this would be a good thing.”
    Sam sighed heavily, looked down at the green eyes that were full of silent, obvious pleading, and began the arduous process of unhooking its claws from her shirt. It mewed and reattached itself almost immediately. She pursed her lips, looked at the kitten, then up at Jake. She might as well go all in on not caring what he thought.
    â€œA little help?”
    In the end it took all three of them to detach what Jake determined, with a quick look, was her brand-new male kitten from her now holey T-shirt. Sam hated seeing him put in the carrier with his siblings, already worried that she wouldn’t see him again. His piteous yowling, however, seemed to be a good sign, at least according to Jake.
    â€œYou’re going to have your hands full,” he told her as he loaded the carrier into the passenger seat of his truck. “I can already tell he’s not going to give you any peace.”
    Sam just laughed. “I could use the distraction,” she replied before she could think better of it. But even when she did, it hardly mattered. She wasn’t a stupid sixteen-year-old anymore. Her life was her own, and she didn’t have to share it with anyone but whom she chose. And Jake Smith was long off her list.
    Still, the look he gave her was speculative in a way that left her feeling off balance just before he walked away.
    â€œI’ll give you a call,” he said.
    â€œWhen you get a better idea of how he’s doing?” Sam asked.
    â€œSure. That, too,” Jake said, and flashed his gorgeous, infuriating grin before turning to walk around to the other side of the truck, giving Sam an excellent view of an ass that had lingered in her memory far longer than should have been allowed.
    â€œLet me know how it goes, Jake,” her mother called. “I’ll pay for whatever they need. I won’t have them going in the shelter.”
    â€œNo, ma’am,” Jake called back. “Don’t worry. I will.”
    Sam stepped back as he started the engine and backed out, turned, and headed off down the driveway with the gravel crunching beneath his tires. She stared after him, wondering what the hell had just happened. She’d definitely adopted a scrawny kitten. And she was pretty sure Jake Smith had just threatened to call her for reasons entirely unrelated to said kitten. Which made no sense, since she was still the same girl he’d ignored throughout school, with one notable exception, until he’d graduated and left her, along with her broken heart, in the dust.
    Her mother’s arm slid around her waist.
    â€œSorry about that, honey.