He thought for a second, then messaged her again.
JRJ: What I wouldn’t give to see your real smile.
She didn’t respond. Maybe he was coming on too strong. He’d been exchanging private messages with Summer for two months now, and any time he got too personal, she’d disappear for hours or even a full two days. But he couldn’t help wanting to get to know her better.
She wouldn’t give him her last name. That was fine—he didn’t want to pry for personal details that made her uncomfortable. But what did she look like? Her profile on SocialBook was a faraway shot of her standing by the lake he’d grown up next to. She was wearing jeans and a pink sweatshirt, and a big floppy hat that shadowed her face.
He hated that fucking hat. He wanted to see her eyes, see her smile.
His phone had gone black while he waited. Maybe she wouldn’t respond. He cursed his impatience—he should stop saying things about wanting to meet her, wanting to know more about her.
Suddenly, a notice had his phone buzzing again.
Hayley turned around in the front seat and hissed at him. “I swear I’m gonna take that phone and chuck it out the window.”
He curled his arms around the phone protectively, because he believed her. She’d done it before, somewhere in Louisiana or Florida—he couldn’t remember the exact state, just that there had been swamps and alligators. At least Will had made her buy him a new phone.
Jackson was twenty-five, Hayley twenty-one. And Will, at twenty-nine, was pretty much parenting them. It was messed up. Jackson wanted out. He wanted to stop running from place to place, and find a territory, and settle down again.
Sighing, he pulled up the message app again. Then he laughed. In response to his message about wanting to see her real smile, she’d sent him an image. There was a smile there, all right—the smile of a yawning elephant seal.
JRJ: Hilarious.
SMG: I know, right?
He stared at the message screen for a minute. They were so close to his family’s territory—or they would be, as they went up through Oregon toward Washington. Maybe he could stop by the Dark Pines territory. See Summer in Huntwood, if she’d agree to that. Visit Paris Lake again, the lake where their parents had taken them every weekend in the summer for picnics and swimming.
JRJ: Hey, Summer, do you know anyone by the last name of Clausen in the area?
SMG: I don’t know anyone personally. Are you trying to get in touch with an old friend?
Something like that. He wrote back, Just want to know if they’re still around anymore. My family knew theirs pretty well.
Until the Clausens had decimated the Jaynes family, tearing the Dark Pines Pride apart forever.
SMG: You want me to ask around? I talk to a lot of different people each day.
JRJ: That’s the closest you’ve ever come to telling me what you do.
SMG: Yep. Vague for a reason, buster. Doesn’t matter how many puppy dog eyes you send me.
JRJ: A man has to live in hope.
She sent another smiling emoji, then her “online” status changed to “offline.”
And that was the end of that. He went into the account of the Licorice Fiddles and responded to comments, then posted a clip of them performing. He responded to a couple of bloggers who wanted to get interviews with the band, and then he brainstormed some posts for the next week, gathering clips and quotes to use across all of their social media accounts.
Every few minutes, he went back to SocialBook to look at the photo Summer had sent him. A smiling elephant seal. Maybe she actually did look like an elephant seal, to some extent. Would that bother him?
Not really, he decided. As long as she had the personality she presented in their SocialBook messages, he still wanted to meet her.
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About the Author
Keira Blackwood
Keyboard ninja, late-blooming bibliophile, proud geek, animal lover, eternal optimist, visual artist.
Keira Blackwood writes steamy paranormal romance full of suspense, action, and a dash of humor. No cheating. No cliffhangers. Always a happily-ever-after ending.
www.keirablackwood.com
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About the Author
Liza Street
Liza likes her heroes packing muscles and her heroines packing agency. She got her start in romance by sneak-reading her grandma’s paperbacks. Now she divides her time between freelance editing and hot shifters with fierce and savage hearts.
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Dragon Shattered_A Reverse Harem Dragon Fantasy Romance Page 21