by Sarah Biglow
Evolutionary Romance
The Complete Trilogy
Sarah Biglow
Contents
Emotional Connection
1. Spencer
2. Marisol
3. Spencer
4. Marisol
5. Spencer
6. Marisol
7. Spencer
8. Marisol
9. Spencer
10. Marisol
11. Spencer
12. Marisol
13. Spencer
14. Marisol
15. Spencer
16. Marisol
17. Spencer
18. Marisol
19. Spencer
Epilogue
Physical Attraction
1. Declan
2. Henry
3. Declan
4. Henry
5. Declan
6. Henry
7. Declan
8. Henry
9. Declan
10. Henry
11. Declan
12. Henry
13. Declan
14. Henry
15. Declan
16. Henry
Magnetic Chemistry
1. Tina
2. Reese
3. Tina
4. Reese
5. Tina
6. Reese
7. Tina
8. Reese
9. Tina
10. Reese
11. Tina
12. Reese
13. Tina
14. Reese
15. Tina
16. Reese
17. Tina
18. Reese
Epilogue
Also By This Author
About the Author
Emotional Connection Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Biglow.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
If you enjoy this book, please consider leaving a review.
For information contact; www.sarah-biglow.com
Copyediter: Nicole Davis
Interior Formatting: Under Wraps Publishing Services
Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Design
Published by Sarah Biglow February 2019
ISBN 978-1-5136-3759-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Chapter One
Spencer
I knew I’d blown my chance at a second date about thirty seconds before my head exploded with a little girl’s shrill screams. I sat in a cozy little booth at the back of Everston, Virginia’s only decent Italian restaurant—maybe I’m biased because my parents own the place—on my first date with Silvia Brennan. I’d tried to hide my surprise when she agreed to the date in the first place. I didn’t have the greatest track record when it came to romance.
My reputation as a nerd tended to scare away girls, too. They didn’t want to have an in-depth discussion on the lack of continuity in the X-Men cinematic universe and sometimes, that’s all that was on my brain. There was one girl out there who understood me, though.
Can Silvia tell I’d rather be talking to her?
Silvia tossed aside her menu before our waiter even had time to fill our water glasses. “You know what Spencer … I can see you aren’t interested in being here, so why don’t we save ourselves the trouble, okay?” She scooted out of the booth and slung her purse over her forearm.
Yep, she can tell.
“Silvia, wait.” I scrambled after her. “I am interested.” The words sounded hollow as they fell out of my mouth.
I didn’t not like Silvia. She was attractive and smart. But she wasn’t the girl I was convinced was my soulmate: Latina_Black_Widow. ‘LBW’ as I’d dubbed her, and I had an online relationship stretching back to sophomore year. Well, more of a friendship I prayed one day would turn romantic. We’d shared most of our deepest secrets with each other. However, there was still one I couldn’t bring myself to share.
I tried to ignore the awkward stares of the other diners as I followed her out to the street. She rounded on me, her fire engine red hair whipping over one shoulder.
“Save it. I should have listened to Tina. She told me this was a bad idea.”
I cringed at the mention of Tina Boudreau. Since freshman year, Tina had made it her personal mission to sabotage every relationship I didn’t screw up on my own. I knew she liked me, not that she’d admit it out loud. Her meddling in my personal life put a damper on any reciprocal feelings.
“Can I at least walk you home?” I offered in a feeble gentlemanly gesture.
She waved her phone at me. “I’m calling an Uber on my mom’s card.”
I wanted to stay there and make sure she got into her ride safely, but my head exploded in pain as a little girl somewhere screamed in terror. Did I forget to mention I’m a telepath? Yeah, great puberty surprise. Not only do you get stinky and extra hairy, but bonus, you get to hear every thought around you, too! Have fun learning to control that while you ride the emotional rollercoaster of teenagedom. So now I moonlight as a superhero on nights and weekends, using my powers for good against the powers of… Okay, you know the spiel by now. Sometimes when I think about those first days when my powers manifested, my stomach still somersaults in anxiety. Professor X made it look so easy.
I’d gotten better at masking the sudden jolts to my synapses since my powers manifested, so I didn’t think Silvia noticed. My phone blared some stupid tune Tina had programmed to alert me to the need to haul ass to make a daring rescue. She, like me, had been inexplicably blessed with powers. The magnetic, EMP kind when she was in a bad mood.
Silvia was nose-deep in her Facebook feed as I darted around the side of the restaurant and hopped the chain-link fence at the back of the dead end alley. I snapped up a nylon backpack I’d hidden behind the loose bricks on the adjoining wall along the way. I skimmed the GPS coordinates on my phone before heading off in a southeastern direction. I slid the Bluetooth ear piece on as I turned the first corner.
“You better be on your way, Psi Guy,” Tina’s voice crackled over the line. I didn’t need to be able to read her mind to know she hated my codename. It made me smirk.
“You planned this didn’t you,” I accused her, letting the girl’s cries pull me like a divining rod.
“Right. Because I’m going to put some kid in danger just to ruin your date,” Tina scoffed.
“If you two are done bickering like an old married couple, I’m doing all the work here. Again,” a deep baritone voice barked over the line.
I took a sharp right three streets down, the shrieks getting louder, and not only in my head. I checked the GPS one last time as I skirted someone’s overflowing trash can and reached into my bag to pull out a ski mask. We couldn’t all look cool like the heroes in the comics. I’d tried to lobby for less thug-wear, but it’s a losing battle. So, I looked like a bespectacled bank robber.
I rounded the corner onto the street where the GPS said the girl would be, to find your typical kidnapper windowless van sitting on four flat tires. A guy with a broken arm—I could see the bones twisting and poking through the skin at odd angles from here—sat unconscious by a parking meter. Actually, let me rephrase. The parking meter was wrapped around his torso like a carnival ride safety bar. At least he was still breathing.
The intended vi
ctim, who couldn’t have been more than seven, was still shrieking her head off as a big, burly masked guy tried to calm her down. Meet my partner in crime-prevention, and the owner of the dulcet baritone: Declan O’Bannon. Like Tina and I, he’d gotten super powers. He’s the brawn to my brains, with hands as hard as steel and super strength to match. I’d seen more than my fair share of classmates hauled off to the hospital after getting in fights with him. The girl backpedaled as Declan inched toward her.
Time for the less scary approach. I could already hear sirens wailing in the distance.
“Cops will be on you guys in two minutes,” Tina said.
Her uncle, Nick Boudreau, was a police officer and somehow—she never shared the details—let us operate without getting in trouble with the law. It had been Tina’s idea to work as a team. I’d jumped at the chance to help people and put my powers to good use. It was the closest I was going to get to being an X-Man.
It didn’t mean we liked to stick around when the cops showed up. I could at least calm the little girl down. I skimmed her thoughts, pulling her name out amidst the fear. I pushed my mask up so she could see my face.
“Jessie,” I said in a soft, nonthreatening tone.
Her head snapped around to look at me. Her posture relaxed a fraction of an inch. “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
I crept closer to her, my hands held where she could see them. “Would you believe me if I said I could read your thoughts?”
“That’s not real.”
“Scout’s honor. My friend over there isn’t going to hurt you.” I pointed at Declan while the sirens grew louder. “That’s the police. They’re going to take care of you.”
She reached out and gripped my hand. “I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. I’ll stay with you until they come.” I glanced over my shoulder at the kidnapper. He was starting to come around. “They’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you ever again.”
“We need to go,” Declan said.
“You go. I’ll stay with her.”
He let out an audible huff of irritation. “Put the damn mask on,” he ordered and took off at a jog.
I pulled the fabric down over my nose but left my mouth exposed as the squad car pulled up. Officer Boudreau climbed out of the passenger side, hand over his holster and our gazes met. According to Tina, she’d told him one of us was strong and the other could read minds. He’d never seen our faces, but it wasn’t hard to guess which one I was.
Can you hear me?
I nodded slightly in his direction.
“Let go of the girl and lay down on the ground,” his partner shouted from the driver side, his weapon drawn.
My heart hammered in my throat, but I did as he instructed. I put my hands behind my head as the other officer moved Jessie to safety. Another car squealed to a stop and more uniformed officers climbed out.
“I’ve got this one,” Officer Boudreau said and stepped over to me.
His fellow officers focused on freeing the kidnapper from Declan’s makeshift bonds as Officer Boudreau dragged me to my feet.
“I’m going to cuff you. Once they’re gone, you’re free to go. Oh, give Tina a message for me,” he whispered in my ear as he tightened the cuffs around my wrists.
“Y-yes, sir?”
“Tell her that if she tries to hack the department database again, I’m going to tell her mother what you’ve been up to. No more covering up. You got it?”
“You get all that, EMP?” I asked, making sure to use Tina’s codename.
“Okay, fine.”
“She understands.”
“You take her back to the station. I’ll handle this one myself,” Officer Boudreau called to his partner.
Once the cars were out of sight, he uncuffed me and headed off. Declan appeared as soon as Officer Boudreau was gone.
“Thanks for the support, Choke Hold,” I muttered. He’d insisted his codename be wrestling-related.
“You handled it fine. But I am getting tired of doing all the real work in this partnership.”
“You weren’t the one who nearly got arrested! Anyways, did you need to break that guy’s arm?”
“He’s lucky I didn’t rip it off,” he pulled the ear piece out of his ear and I did the same. His expression softened for a moment, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry your date got interrupted.”
I shrugged. “It was kind of over already.” Stuffing my mask back into the bag, I slung it over my shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”
I ducked down a side-street, taking a shortcut back to the restaurant, when my phone vibrated in my pocket. A new message from LBW awaited. God, how I wished I could share the elation of another successful rescue with her. But my secret identity was the one thing I hadn’t been able to share with her.
Latina_Black_Widow: Hey X, wanted you to be the first to know the news. Papi moved us to Everston. Can’t believe he did it this close to graduation. He says it’s a fresh start for both of us.
I let her message sink in. My dream girl was moving to my hometown. I fired off a message to reassure her.
Next_Gen_Prof_X: That’s great news! I know the timing sucks, but it’s what we’ve been talking about for years, right? Meeting up never would have worked before. But now, we can finally put faces to usernames.
It was only a matter of time until our virtual relationship stepped into the real world. My excitement became tempered out by a nagging thought: If I hadn’t shared the truth of my powers with her yet, would she ever be able to accept the real me?
Chapter Two
Marisol
Despite what Papi said, this place wasn’t home. This wasn’t the room I’d known my entire life. The walls didn’t bear the marks of my childhood. But, somehow, I could still feel the ghost of my mother behind every door. She’d died a long time ago and my memories had faded, but this house felt like she’d lived in it.
I took my time unpacking the clothes and other boxes the moving men had placed in the bedroom I’d claimed as my own. If I didn’t really unpack then this move wouldn’t be real. There was still a chance Papi would come running in and tell me the company was wrong, they’d meant to offer the position of Overnight Security Manager to someone else, and we could go home.
“I know you’re mad at me. I’m sorry, but I had to take this job,” he said from the doorway.
I wanted to ignore him. I wanted to let my anger fester deep in my chest, but his regret at having upended my life washed over me, and I felt horrible for being mad in the first place. “I know.”
“And it is a fresh start, mija.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. “Right. A fresh start.”
“I’m sure you’ll find your place here, Marisol. You’ll make friends.”
His optimism didn’t rub off on me. With only two weeks left of senior year, I highly doubted anyone would pay attention to the new girl, especially when I was finishing out the rest of the school year with online classes.
“I need to unpack,” I said and gestured to the untouched boxes.
“You should get out and explore town. I saw that the library is looking for help after school.”
“Is that a not so subtle hint you think I should get a job?”
“Just give it a try.”
“Okay,” I muttered hoping he’d leave me alone.
I felt his presence still filling the doorway until I reached into a nearby box. He retreated down the hallway and I eased my door shut. I knew I didn’t have a choice in whether I sought a job at the library, but that didn’t mean I needed to do it right now. I curled up on the bed—the one thing I’d completely set up—and scrolled through my private messages. I had a new message from the one person in this world who was excited I now resided in Everston, Virginia: Next_Gen_Prof_X. We’d happened upon each other in a Marvel fan chatroom and quickly moved things private. He’d never come out and said as much, but I suspected my online friend had feelings for me.
I’d trusted him with some of
my darkest experiences. He was the first person I’d told about my ex-boyfriend, Jason. But he was a friend. A confidant. I wasn’t sure I wanted another boyfriend. So, his excitement about being able to meet in person now scared me.
I scrolled back through our message history, stopping at the first time we’d gotten deep.
Latina_Black_Widow: I did something today and I can’t explain why.
Next_Gen_Prof_X: Something good? You know you can tell me. Anything we share is private just you and me.
Latina_Black_Widow: No, it was bad. God, I don’t know why I said yes. Jason asked me to wait for him in the car. He said he needed to meet some people. I knew it seemed sketchy, but I just did it anyway.
Next_Gen_Prof_X: Did he commit a crime or something?
Latina_Black_Widow: I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure he had a gun. It was like, I knew he would be happy if I helped him out and I just had to make him happy. It sounds so stupid saying it now. I don’t know what to do.
Next_Gen_Prof_X: If he had a gun, you need to tell the police! He isn’t safe to be around. I know you like this guy and I’m going to come off sounding like a complete jealous asshole, but he is putting you in danger. He’s not thinking about you. He’s only in it for himself.