Focused
Page 22
Me climbing over the barrier and into his waiting arms. Him, sweaty and disheveled and dirty, lifting me into a tight embrace on the chaotic post-game field. And he smiled.
Not a sad smile.
Noah Griffin smiled like he’d just won.
His grandma, our host for the week, told me she’d watched every episode three times. She kept every article that mentioned us and made sure to show me each and every one.
“You ready, son?” Noah’s dad asked from the kitchen.
Noah nodded, dropping a soft kiss on my lips as he stood from the couch. “We’ll be back for dinner.”
“Okay.” I grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged him back down for another kiss. “Have fun fixing fences.”
He rolled his eyes. His grandma and I laughed.
Noah left the cabin first, and I smiled as I caught the embarrassed blush on his dad’s face when he left the kitchen. It had taken a bit for him to get used to having me around and seeing the easy affection that Noah and I shared.
As I spent more time with his dad, it was so clear to see how Noah fell into the patterns that he had. Slowly but surely, his dad was relaxing around me. My goal was one week every summer that Noah, his dad, and I came to South Dakota together. Eventually, I’d break him into the Tuesday family dinners. He just didn’t know it yet.
And that was why Grandma Griffin proclaimed that I was her new favorite person in the entire world.
She rubbed my shoulder as she passed behind the couch. “Need anything while I’m up, sweetheart?”
I smiled up at her. “I’m good, thanks. I have some work to do for Rick while they’re out there unless you need my help with anything.”
“No, no, one set of hands is all I need to do some weeding.”
“I’ll come out when I’m done,” I told her. “It won’t take me too long.”
She set her wide-brimmed hat on her head and paused before she walked out front. “Actually,” she said, tugging her gardening gloves on, “I know how you can help.”
I glanced over. “Yeah?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “A great-grandchild would be lovely.”
As she walked outside, I was still laughing because she found so many ways to remind Noah and me that she needed a baby to spoil.
The door swung back open, and my smile softened when Noah strode back into the cabin.
“Forget something?” I asked.
He snatched his water bottle from the counter. “It’s hotter than hell out there.”
“I’ll take another kiss while you’re here.”
He was already sweaty, one of my very favorite looks on the man I loved so much. When he came around the couch to cage me in with his arms and take my mouth in a deep, searing kiss, I felt that desperate urge rush through me, just like it always did.
Honestly, it was a miracle I wasn’t pregnant with how often he took me to bed.
Noah had proven that frequent sex did not hurt his performance on the field in any way. Mr. Defensive Player of the Year had proven it well, too.
I licked my lips when he pulled back. “And your dad would notice if you didn’t come back outside right away, right?”
Noah hummed. “Yes.”
I trailed my finger along the edge of his jaw. “Okay. I can wait until tonight.”
His eyes searched my face and landed unerringly on my mouth. “Can you?”
My heart started pounding wildly, and my toes curled up. “Yes?”
“I can’t,” he stated.
My lips spread in a slow smile. “No?”
As usual, my big man was quick to make his decision. “Nope.”
And he scooped me up, both hands under my ass. My legs wound around his waist as he straightened, turning us toward our bedroom.
I loved the bed in that cabin. It was my second favorite bed in the world.
“Noah?” I said breathlessly as he sucked along the edge of my throat.
He growled something unintelligible into my skin.
I gripped the sides of his face so I knew he was paying attention to me.
“Wha?” he said. He already had that dazed look in his eye that he got when my clothes started disappearing.
“Make sure to lock the door,” I said. “I don’t want any interruptions for what I’m about to do to you.”
He grinned. His hands tightened on my body as he walked us into the bedroom, his foot delivering a swift kick to the door.
No matter how our love story started, as long as it brought us right here, it was perfect.
* * *
Claire
Searching the internet for glimpses of your mother brought about strange emotional reactions. Unless you’d experienced those reactions, it was hard to put them into words. Occasionally, we’d get a postcard from her with an updated address, or a caption-less picture would show up on the usually quiet Facebook account she still had access to. Those tiny snippets were the only way my sisters and I knew where Brooke was currently spending her days.
My heart and my head warred mightily when I studied the last few pictures she’d posted. I wasn’t furious at the thought of her; it was hard to be when we had such a happy life in her absence. But I didn’t feel nothing either. Sometimes I wanted to punch her. Sometimes I wanted to hug her. Most of all, I wanted to sit across from Brooke Ashley Huntington-Ward and pick apart her brain. That was the most desperate feeling of all of them, fighting for first place in my head. I wanted to understand why, and it drove me abso-friggin-lutely batshit crazy that I might never have that understanding.
As I scrolled through, counting five pictures posted in the last three years, my twin sister’s phone lit up on the desk next to me where it was charging. My eyes cut to the screen, a force of habit because it was often a group text from one of our other sisters or Paige.
It wasn’t from any of them, though. What appeared was a text from Finn, my twin sister Lia’s best friend, and like I’d trained my body to do it, my heart sped up at the sight of his stupid name.
Finn: Lia, PLEASE, I’ll owe you a million favors if you help me out.
“I’ll help you,” I mumbled miserably. It didn’t even matter what he needed help with. I’d do it. I’d do it without a million favors. If I closed my eyes, I could picture every detail of his face. The way his smile was a little lopsided. The width of his shoulders that seemed to expand every year. The shy exterior that hid a personality that was so, so funny and dry and sarcastic. But I didn’t close my eyes because picturing my twin sister’s best friend was another thing that made my head and heart war mightily. And every single time, my head won.
Leave him alone.
It would be too weird.
He doesn’t even look at you that way.
Those were all the things I told myself when my crush on Finn flared out of control. And it had helped for years.
“Text from Finn,” I yelled.
“What does he want?” Lia called from our kitchen, right around the corner from my bedroom.
I swallowed heavily as I read the text again. “Help. He’ll owe you a million favors.”
Lia groaned. “He could offer two million, and I still wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“What does he need your help with?”
“Some fancy-pants dinner and award ceremony. He needs a plus one, and since he refuses to find himself a date, his mom practically demanded that I go with. I think she actually put my name on the guest list because she assumed I wouldn’t say no.”
My heart clenched with unwelcome jealousy. “It’s just dinner. Why not go?”
“I can’t. I have something that night, and moving it isn’t an option. He just thinks I’m being stubborn.”
I rolled my eyes. Lia was physically incapable of admitting when she was being stubborn, which was about ninety-two percent of her existence.
The sound of her footsteps approached my doorway, quick and loud. “Wait,” she said.
I spun my chair to face her. “What?”
/> A devious smile spread over her face.
“No,” I said instantly. Twin telepathy, y’all. It was a real thing.
“Oh, yes.” She rubbed her hands together. “We haven’t done a twin swap in years, Claire. Come on, won’t it be fun?”
While my head tried desperately to wrap around the idea of pretending to be my sister for the first time since high school, it was a faint whisper compared to what my heart was doing.
That particular organ buried in my chest was roaring and thrashing, screaming at me to do this one thing that would grant me my greatest unfulfilled wish.
Time with Finn.
“He’ll know,” I argued weakly.
Lia blew a raspberry through her lips. “Nah, he won’t. You know how to be me, Claire. It’s one dinner. Then I’m off the hook, and his mom gets off his back.”
One dinner with Finn. One night to soak up his attention instead of playing the third wheel to the clearly non-romantic friendship between him and my sister. They’d never even hinted that they wanted to cross that line, which was the only reason I was even considering this insanity. Because for one night, I wanted to know what it felt like to have his eyes on me. To wear a pretty dress and spend the evening by his side.
“One dinner,” I said again.
She bounced excitedly in the doorway. “You’ll do it? Seriously?”
I took a deep breath and held it, muting every argument that sprang into my head. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
FAKED (Ward Family series book 2) is coming Summer 2020! Pre-order your copy HERE!
* * *
Need more broody Logan, fiery Paige, and the ward sisters? Grab your copy of The Marriage Effect HERE.
* * *
See where the Washington Wolves began in The Bombshell Effect. Grab your copy HERE.
Acknowledgments
This fall was a complete and utter BLUR of writing and travel, and I’m so incredibly thankful that my little tribe of people (friends and family) understood what that meant for me.
It was long stretches of writing, blinders on, and ignoring texts for days. It was to-do lists with no wiggle room and pretty much no socializing for three months. On nights and weekends, it was spending time with my family, and putting my phone away.
Being a writer is strange. It’s a job that most people don’t really understand, and that’s okay. Where I’m SO FORTUNATE is that the people in my life who don’t understand it still love me and respect me when I have to ignore them.
So, here’s that list:
To my husband. WE OFFICIALLY SURVIVED our first stretch of both of us working from home. YAY! Thank you for respecting every crazy boundary I put on my own ‘office space’, both mental and physical. You didn’t so much as blink when I looked you in the eye and said, “If you need ANYTHING FROM ME, it can wait until after I get the boys from school. So, please, for the love, do not interrupt me for the next seven hours unless you are bleeding.” I love you.
To my kids, because I think you’re really awesome and funny and smart and kind.
To Fiona Cole and Kathryn Andrews, for every opinion on this book, whether I wanted to hear it or not. You make my books better, and I love you both.
To Najla Qamber Designs and Regina Wamba for a STUNNING COVER that I’m obsessed with.
To Jenny Sims for the editing.
To Michelle Abascal Monroy for her help keeping me sane during my last release, and my amazing ARC team and reader group!
To Enticing Journey for their promo help.
TO AMY DAWS for the light flare idea on the cover. She wanted me to dedicate this book to her because of how amazing it turned out, but I felt like if I caved to her demands, her ego would spin out of control.
Other books by Karla Sorensen
Washington Wolves
The Bombshell Effect (Luke and Allie’s story)
The Ex Effect (Matthew and Ava’s story)
The Marriage Effect (Logan and Paige’s story)
The Ward Family Series
Focused
The Three Little Words Series
By Your Side
Light Me Up
Tell Them Lies
The Bachelors of the Ridge Series
Dylan
Garrett
Cole
Michael
Tristan
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About the Author
Karla Sorensen has been an avid reader her entire life, preferring stories with a happily-ever-after over just about any other kind. And considering she has an entire line item in her budget for books, she realized it might just be cheaper to write her own stories. She still keeps her toes in the world of health care marketing, where she made her living pre-babies. Now she stays home, writing and mommy-ing full time (this translates to almost every day being a ‘pajama day’ at the Sorensen household…don’t judge). She lives in West Michigan with her husband, two exceptionally adorable sons, and big, shaggy rescue dog.
Photo credit: Perrywinkle Photography
Find Karla online:
karlasorensen.com
karla@karlasorensen.com
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