Summer Wishes (Desire #1.5) Read Free

“If you really want to stay and risk losing what we have, I’ll respect that, but if you’re ready to go out there, find Jacob and forge our own destiny…”  He squeezed her hands.  “Come with me,” he whispered.
    He touched her heart like no other guy possibly could.  Smiling, she brought his hands to her lips and gently kissed his fingers, then released him to turn away.
    Her heart wanted to follow him to the ends of the earth, but…
    Floating, as in a dream, she wandered through the home she’d known and love all her life, Matt close behind her.
    The kitchen where so many family meals had taken place, loud, chaotic and loving.
    The small and singular bathroom she’d so often had to wait for as her brother primped and preen for his date with Melanie.
    Her bedroom. Small, but tidy, she’d hated having to share it with Jade. It had been a huge damper as she’d entered adolescence. She loved her sister dearly, but sharing her room with a seven year old wasn’t her idea of teen bliss.
    But that had all changed when Jacob left and Jade was permitted to take his room.
    Jocelyn had never told anyone how she missed cuddling whenever Jade had had a troubling nightmare, how she missed the stuffed animals strewn everywhere, and how she missed reading with her.
    Finally she leaned on the doorjamb of her parents’ bedroom.
    “I’d miss them so much.”
    “I know.” He came up close behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into him. “I’ve lived in the same safe little cocoon as you have, remember?  Of course I’m scared and of course I’ll miss my family, but my future is with you. I’ve seen what a bad Life’s Plan can do to a person.  I don’t want to sit by and let that happen to me.”
    He turned her around, pressed her to the wall and kissed her.
    His kiss had lost its innocence and the sweetness gave way to hunger.
    “I won’t let it happen to me,” he repeated between heated kisses.
    It was so easy to lose herself in his embrace.  His lips were soft, warm and she never wanted the kiss to end.
    In the distance, the vague and foggy sound of the front door opening and closing knocked at her consciousness, but Matt’s kiss ensured the sound remain far away and unimportant.
    Only when Jocelyn heard the clearing of a throat did she pull away and turn to the intrusion. Too stunned to say anything, she stared at the face she’d not seen for so long.
    Finding his voice, Matt said, “Melanie?”

 
    Chapter 3
     
     
    A ghost could not have left them gaping more.
    Always a beauty, tall, thin with enviable long shiny thick brown hair, it had been easy to see how Melanie had won the heart of Jocelyn’s brother.  Jocelyn remembered her as the most fashionable girl in school, a girly girl who’d always loved make up, pretty dresses and beautiful elegant shoes.
    Looking at her now, no one would know all this.
    Her enviable tresses had been shorn off; the short pixie cut emphasizing her natural delicate beauty and emphasizing her huge waif-like eyes. Her usually healthy thin frame now bordered on skeletal. In dark unflattering jeans and a plain white blouse, she was far from the fashion plate everyone had copied their style from. Even her shoes, worn through leather boots with soft soles, hinted at the new life she’d found outside Arcadia.
    “Melanie,” Jocelyn said, the name a croak in her throat. “What are you doing here?  Where’s Ja…”
    With speed and agility that contradicted her fragile appearance, Melanie hurried to silence Jocelyn with a hand to her lips.  Bringing her free hand to her own mouth, she silently beseeched Matthew to remain quiet as well.
    Her eyes, wide with knowledge and fear, shot to the window. The trio entered Jocelyn’s room and quietly padded to the edge of the window. The sheer curtains offered an obscured view of several figures outside.
    “Committee members?” Jocelyn stared at the figures in disbelief.
    “In the Ruby District?”