Survivor (The Soul Mates Series Book 1) Read Free

exactly, but put on a pot of joe and I’ll be through for a mug shortly.”
    I did as he asked and got down to business, laying out the contents of the business folder from Dusty.  In the art of keeping up appearances I pulled out all the regular tools that a book keeper would use and made them look... busy.  I didn’t need them, I could do this stuff with my hands tied behind my back.  Every day I had to push down the sick feeling I got from working with numbers, I felt like I was betraying myself getting involved in businesses and books again.  I had wanted Cara to do something different, have a different job for her new chance at life, but it just didn’t make sense and numbers still did.  I loved the mathematical intelligence that numbers enabled, there was a right and wrong answer, simple as that and until I was forced to make the right answers wrong, in an effort to deceive people, I’d carry on.  I had to reason and convince myself often, that my need for self-preservation made total sense and I had to make this work. 
    It had found me, I didn’t go looking for it. 
    It meant I didn’t have to interview at some gas station or diner to make ends meet and after living with servants all my life, it was a wonder I could feed myself now, let alone wait tables and deliver service with a smile for others.  I was doing something that was ingrained within every fibre of my being, it came natural to me and by taking that chance I got the opportunity to focus on the things I needed to do to stay alive and in one piece.
    An hour or so later I’d worked through the stack of receipts and was filing them in a completed order so I could start the next batch.  I’d remembered to go back and make spurious pencil marks or additions on the ledgers to hide my gift, as Sam appeared.  I placed my pencil down exactly, in the correct place for it and stood up to get him a cup of coffee.  “What do you need me to do?”
    “I’m gonna go away for a while.  I’ll be slowing down things here for a while, so I wanted to talk to you about you handling your book keeping customers yourself.”
    Panic swept through me instantly.  I’d come to rely on him and I’d learned to think of our friendship fondly, like a life line.  I was terrified about having to deal with more people in town, I may have managed their books, but that was as close as I wanted it to get.  Brief pleasantries at the supermarket checkout were different than handing over books and receipts and collecting my wages.  As my brain sped up to process all of this at once, I began to hear a strange knocking sound.
    “Hey, hey! Calm down, stay with me.  Stay here with me and breathe,” soothed Sam as he tried to release the grip my hand had on the coffee pot, I was in danger of injuring myself if I carried on violently shaking it.  “Let it go Cara, put the pot down before it smashes and you burn your damn self.”
    Coming to my senses, I did as he asked and then slumped over to the chair at the old desk I used.  “I’m a private person too Cara and I don’t like to pry, but I need to know what about my simple fuckin’ statement freaked you to your core.”
    “It... it’s nothing.  I was just thinking how much I’d miss you and that I should probably take a break from the book work, you know, give it up for a while too.”
    “Now don’t go gettin’ hasty, the folks in town have come to rely on your mad number skills.”
    “What? No!  I don’t have mad number skills!” I protested, they couldn’t find that out about me, ever.  No one here could know that.
    “And you’re off on one again, I meant there’s people that can’t afford a decent book keeper any more than they can afford the IRS to come and chase them for not doing their damn books in the first place.”
    At the mention of the IRS my vision began to swim, any government body, especially the IRS would kill to get their hands on me, almost as much as my family would.
    “Jesus