Leah's Song

by Daphne James Huff

  Leah’s Song

  Mountain Creek Drive: Book Two

  Daphne James Huff

  Copyright © 2018 by Daphne James Huff

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  ***

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Thanks for reading!

  Acknowledgments

  About Daphne James Huff

  Also by Daphne James Huff

  Want More?

  ***

  ***

  Welcome to Mountain Creek Drive, a new series written by the YA Inklings.

  The YA Inklings is a collaboration of three YA/NA authors who write romances for the young and young at heart.

  Sign up here to find out when it releases and to get a free monthly newsletter full of great YA/NA suggestions that will keep your heart fluttering.

  For all those still searching for their voice

  Chapter One

  I was pretty sure that my brother was stealing from the neighbors.

  I was babysitting for Mrs. Stevenson down the street, and her baby Emily was napping. Through the window above the sink, I saw my younger brother, Luke, sneaking through their manicured backyard glancing over his shoulder every other second. He was headed for the shed and, while I didn’t see exactly what he did in there, he came out with a lumpy shape under his shirt.

  I sighed and turned away from the window. It wasn’t my job to worry about him, but he seemed to be taking the whole “youngest sibling can get away with everything” role a bit too seriously. With our parents so focused on our older sister, Jenn, and her obsession with getting a soccer scholarship, we two younger siblings were pretty much left to our own devices. I tried my best to do well and stay out of trouble, but it didn’t seem to matter. Luke had noticed the futility of my efforts and had decided to go in the complete opposite direction.

  It’s not that he was a bad kid. At least, not really. We’d been kind of close, up until a few years ago, despite me being two years older than him and only one younger than Jenn. Whenever we were bored at her soccer matches, before we were old enough to opt out of them and stay home, I’d invent little games for us to play. Who could add up the numbers on the players’ jerseys the fastest. Or we’d count how many times the coach said “atta girl.”

  Once he started middle school though, he’d gotten all new friends and stopped wanting to hang out with his boring older sister. And I guess I was kind of boring to a 14-year-old boy. I was spending my summer babysitting and driving Jenn around to her different soccer practices and events. Not exactly the most fun-filled summer. What teenage boy wouldn’t rather spend their time out by the old playground lighting things on fire? At least, I hoped that’s what they did there.

  I heard the doorbell ring, shaking me out of my gloomy reflections on my less than thrilling summer vacation. I hurried over before it rang again. If they woke up the baby, I could say goodbye to my quiet afternoon of rereading Pride and Prejudice and hello to a cranky baby. It would be worse for Mrs. Stevenson, too, and she had enough going on right now. Like selling her house.

  The doorbell was probably the realtor she’d told me to expect. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do other than stay out of their way and remind them to take off their shoes. She was very protective of her white carpets. I couldn’t be sure but I wondered if the whole reason they were moving was because it was cheaper than replacing them all now that they had a baby. It had been a little stressful lately keeping Emily on her play mat and off the carpets.

  All thoughts of my brother, Mrs. Stevenson, and Emily the messy baby flew out of my head the second I opened the door. An absolute to die for, insanely cute boy was standing there. Dark green eyes stared at me from under a set of thick lashes; the first of countless stunning features on his near-perfect face. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  “Hello, you must be the babysitter,” said the realtor loudly. She had on a bright red jacket and matching lipstick. She held out her hand in greeting. Red nails of course. I was momentarily more stunned by the overwhelming effect than by the boy standing to her left.

  “Yes, and the baby is sleeping, so please keep it down,” I said, taking her hand and finding my voice at last. I put on a welcoming smile, directing it mainly towards the boy. “And, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Stevenson asked that you take off your shoes.”

  They all came in, dutifully leaving their shoes in the entryway, and padded along the carpeted hallway in their socks.

  “I think you remember the kitchen is back here.” The red realtor led the parents into the depths of the house not lowering her voice in the least. I glared after her but stayed in the entrance, now face-to-face with the boy and having no idea what to say. I had never been this close to someone so attractive before. There was no one at school that even came close to his level of Adonis-like perfection

  “Hi,” he said after an unbearably painful awkward minute or so. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts, and his green Hollister t-shirt matched his eyes perfectly.

  I smiled in response, my heart beating a bit faster than usual under his intense gaze. He was tall. Not basketball player tall, but good-sized tall. His shoulders were broad but not swimmer broad. I tried not to drool over his muscled arms and calves. They weren’t the tight and wiry muscles of a wrestler.

  I’d overheard my sister talking more than once to her friends about the pros and cons of guys based on the sport they played. No surprise that she favored the so-called “perfect symmetry” of the soccer guy’s body. I personally found them too skinny. This guy would definitely not be her type. He was tall, and broad, and gorgeous. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a football player. What else could he be?

  “Don’t you want to see the house?” I said finally, cringing at my lack of creativity in my one chance at a first impression. Which I had probably blown anyway, with all the ogling I had been doing.

  He shook his head. He looked around, his eyes bored and not meeting mine. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the ogling.

  “They’ve been to tons of houses this summer,” he said while wandering into the living room. He ran a hand through his dark hair. It wasn’t gelled like so many guys were doing these days. I liked it. “It doesn’t really matter what I think, but I wanted to get some hours logged for my driver’s license.”

  I thought back to the most recent issue of Teen Magazine and their tips for talking to boys. Find something you have in common.

  “Yeah, fifty doesn’t sound like a lot, but it took me forever to do it,” I replied, pleased with my light and airy tone.

  “You already have yours?” He looked impressed.

  “I got my permit the second I turned fifteen,” I said. Jenn hadn’t even wanted to do it until I had shown interest. Then she’d insisted she take the test a day before me, just so that she could say she had it first. She had been the first to lose it, too.

  I didn’t tell him all of th
is though. I didn’t need Teen Magazine to know to keep all the random thoughts in my head to myself.

  “I should be done before we move,” he said. “They promised me a car if I could do it on my first try.”

  He smiled. He had a great smile. It was like his whole body smiled. My heart gave a little jump in my chest. How was he even real?

  He asked if he could sit on the couch and I nodded. I stood awkwardly at the entrance to the room, leaning against the doorframe, with my arms held at an odd angle behind my back. In the countless articles my best friend Lilly and I had read over the years, there was never anything about how to stand, I now realized in a panic. It seemed like kind of an important thing to mention. I would write them a letter.

  “Where are you guys moving from?” I asked, hoping the more he talked, the less he’d notice my awkwardness.

  “Closer to Denver,” he said, his eyes roaming everywhere except mine. I wondered how this house compared to all the others he’d seen. It was extremely tidy. Mrs. Stevenson had spent hours making sure it looked great so it would sell quickly. They wanted to get out by the end of summer. But this was not the kind of conversation that a guy like him would find interesting. I searched desperately for another topic as the boy sighed and slumped on the couch.

  Lilly would know what to say. She was just a few houses away. I could try to sneak away and call her to see if she could “surprise me” while babysitting for some reason…

  Just then, the baby monitor on the coffee table started wailing.

  “Oops, I gotta go,” I said, springing out of my awkward stance in the doorway and turning away quickly. “It was nice to meet you!”

  If he replied, I didn’t hear him as I ran upstairs. I was mostly relieved that I didn’t have to think of something interesting or funny to say. But I was definitely a little sad that I didn’t get more time to at least try. I hesitated for a second at the top of the stairs, realizing that I was leaving a stranger unsupervised in Mrs. Stevenson’s spotless house. But he seemed trustworthy enough, and a crying baby seemed more urgent than the possibility he might pocket one of her collectible salt and pepper shakers.

  I opened the door to Emily’s room to see her standing up in her crib, clutching her blanket and sobbing her eyes out. She held out her arms to me, and I picked her up with an exaggerated “oof” that usually made her laugh. No luck this time.

  “Ohhh, sweetie pie, did you have a nightmare?” I said in my most soothing voice. She sniffed and nodded. “Well, let’s sing our ‘No More Monsters’ song, okay?”

  She nodded again, her tears starting to dry. I sang the silly song I’d made up for her weeks ago when she’d started worrying that the monsters in her books were hiding in her closet.

  Three rounds of “No More Monsters” and two of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” later, the realtor popped her head in to let me know they were heading out. I reminded her to turn off any lights they may have turned on while visiting and focused my attention back to Emily. It would be amazing if the boy moved in but I’d miss babysitting for her.

  However, in the three seconds I had my head turned towards the door, she had managed to spill the entire contents of her toy box on the floor. I quickly shifted gears, and the initial thought I’d had to call Lilly and gush was replaced with the panic of needing to clean it all up before her mother got home.

  On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t miss her quite that much.

  Chapter Two

  It was the beginning of August, and I was driving my sister to a pre-season soccer meeting at school. The air conditioning in my car wasn’t working, and we were hot and cranky.

  “When do you get your license back again?” I asked for the hundredth time that summer. She had lost it the last week of school after one too many speeding tickets. The police loved to camp out in front of the high school. All it took was going 5 or 10 miles above a few times, and it was gone. I had always been lucky and avoided the speed traps.

  Yeah, lucky me, I thought. And now I have to drive her everywhere, since our parents are at work.

  She rolled her eyes and let out a loud sigh but didn’t answer me.

  “You can’t get one of your teammates to take you?” I tried instead. “Or Libby or Erin?”

  “Like you’re so busy this summer?” she spat back. I bit back a catty reply. I knew she was just nervous. This was the meeting when they voted on the captain and, while it was pretty much a given that she’d get it, she was biting her nails like she was a freshman about to play her first match.

  “There’s Lilly’s cookout tonight,” I said, trying not to pout. “Everyone from the Drive will be there.”

  “All the juniors,” she said, rolling her eyes again. This time, I did pout after I’d stuck my tongue out at her. “And no one calls it the Drive anymore.”

  “You guys started it!” I cried.

  “Well, we stopped,” she said while pulling her curly brown hair tighter into its bun. She stared out the window that reflected back her perfectly made-up face. Since last year, she’d gone from total tomboy to glam girl. She’d gotten her lifetime crush, Ryan Davidson, to go out with her last year without changing anything. But that breakup had been really hard on her, and she’d been trying to make him jealous ever since. She was like a combination of Sporty and Posh Spice with a bit of Baby thrown in for good measure. “Go find someone else to copy this year. I’ll have too much to do.”

  I drove for a few minutes in silence, stung by her brush-off. I knew she was hurting, I got it, but did she really have to be so mean? We hadn’t been, like, best friends or anything growing up, but this summer she was really being a pain.

  “I don’t always copy you,” I said finally in a small voice. “I don’t play sports.” Not that I’d have the time between chauffeuring her around and helping Luke with his homework so he doesn’t flunk out.

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “You were in my closet again. I can’t find my Casio watch.”

  “What?!” I cried, nearly missing a stop sign, and screeching to a halt just in time. Our heads jerked forward.

  “Careful!” she said. “Please do not kill me before I know if I’m captain or not.”

  “Of course you’ll be captain,” I said while pushing the gas gingerly to avoid any more unpleasant jerks. “And I did not take your watch.” It was some fancy sports watch she used when she worked out.

  “Then who did? Luke?”

  I bit my tongue again, thinking about what I’d seen while babysitting for Mrs. Stevenson the previous month. I had forgotten about it in my daydreams about the cute guy, but this made me realize how absent Luke had been all summer. Was he really just hanging out at the old playground goofing off?

  Not my problem, I reminded myself.

  “Maybe mom just put stuff away in a different place,” I suggested, pulling into the school parking lot. “You could maybe try doing your own laundry. Then you’d know where everything was.” I’d been doing my own laundry since I was nine. Somehow, Jenn and Luke never did. My mom said it was because Jenn had to focus on her schoolwork and soccer, and that I complained too much about the way she folded. If she didn’t do Luke’s, he probably would have ruined the machine with all the chains attached to his baggy black cargo pants.

  “Whatever,” she said, opening the door and grabbing her gym bag beneath her feet. “Just don’t go in my room anymore.”

  She slammed the door.

  She hadn’t even said thank you.

  I felt a prickle of tears in the corners of my eyes. I took a deep breath to calm down before heading out of the parking lot. I decided to swing by the bookstore while waiting for her practice to be over instead of heading home to an empty house. It would cheer me up a little.

  As school approached, there was plenty of summer fun left to be had on the Drive, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal that I’d missed the cookout because of driving Jenn around. I mean, I was still kind of pissed, of course, even though she had finally said
thank you on the way home. Getting voted captain made her a little cheerier. There was another cookout two nights later where I caught up with all the juicy details of what had happened at the previous one.

  “Carter Sanderson walked Kristy Miller home,” my best friend, Lilly, was telling me. We had become best friends by circumstance when her family had moved in 10 years ago: I lived down the street, was the same age, and had the Polly Pockets she didn’t so we had nearly the complete collection. Despite her straight blonde hair being the total opposite of my brown curls, the teachers confused us and our names so much they just stuck us next to each other and paired us up for every project so they could just say “Leah-ly” and know we’d know they were talking to us.

  “Do you think they…” I waggled my eyebrows. We were sitting on her deck in the most comfortable chairs watching the guys play horseshoes. A group of girls stood nearby observing them. Lilly’s parents had already done their duty round to make sure we weren’t sneaking in alcohol and had retreated to the living room to leave us to our own devices.

  “Ew, no,” she said with a laugh. “He’s so insanely zitty her kisses would slide right off his greasy face.”

  I snorted, a bunch of diet coke shooting up my nose.

  “Everyone in our class is just so blah,” she said with a sigh while looking around at everyone in the yard. It was huge, with a deck, a grill, and a hot tub. Everyone just naturally congregated here on summer evenings when it wasn’t raining. Even though it was nice to hang out with a crowd, I liked those rainy nights best when it was just Lilly and me in front of whatever movie we’d grabbed at Blockbuster.