From
Half My Blood
Copyright © 2015 by Lauren Gilley
“You want me to take him back?” Leah asked.
Ava
was about to say no – she loved the warm baby-smell coming off the top of his
head, the brush of the black downy hair on his scalp. But then the doorbell
rang.
“Yeah,
that’d be good.” She handed Remy to Leah and got to her feet.
“Your
boob’s still hanging out,” Leah said, helpfully.
“Thanks.”
She
did up the front of her shirt, pushed loose strands of hair back over her ears,
and went to see who was at the door. Probably not the neighbors, she reflected,
given the looks they’d been shooting her biker moving crew the day before. She
hoped it wasn’t them, anyway; she was in tattered old cutoffs, barefoot, the
gator tattoo on her left foot dark and noticeable.
She
looked through the window first, and saw a tall, tan, dark-headed man on her
front porch. Very tall. Almost Mercy tall. The sleeves were cut out of his
shirt, and she could see the ridges of veins beneath his golden skin, long ropy
forearms and heavy biceps. He had big hands, and he wore his jeans very tight,
just loose enough at the bottoms to go over the tops of old Timberland work boots.
Her
stomach lurched, like it was her belly full of milk and not Remy’s. The first
stirrings of dread raised the fine hairs on her arms, set her pulse to pounding
in her ears. Whoever this man was, the way he carried himself was too familiar.
He
turned and saw her through the window, waved, flashed her a smile. Tilted his
head toward the door, asking her to open it.
That
smile.
“Oh,
God,” she whispered.
Her
hands were shaking as she turned the deadbolt and opened the door a fraction,
wedging herself into the opening the same way she’d seen her mother do, a
physical barrier. This is my house, and I’m the queen, and you’ll come in
only if I want you to. She had to tip her head back to meet the man’s gaze,
something she was well-accustomed to.
Their
faces weren’t identical; there were subtle differences. This man’s jaw was a
little wider, his forehead broader, his brows more heavily slanted. His eyes
were dark, but so were lots of people’s. And though the hair was that same
silken black, he wore it clipped short; much more respectable.
It
was the nose that was irrefutable proof. Smiling dark eyes looked down the
length of a narrow, autocratic nose. She recognized it from the faded photos.
From the daily sight of the same noise on her beloved’s face. There was a man
standing on her doorstep with Louis Lécuyer’s nose, and his name sure as hell
wasn’t Felix.
Mercy’s
half-brother.
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