Page 7 of Make Her Mine
Clayton looked at us and nodded. “We’ve got some changes to make around here and around town, too, if we want to be amiable.” We walked out of the giant shower room and back into the hall.
“Oh, shit,” came a soft curse uttered by a feminine voice.
We all turned to see Ella running back down the hallway away from us. “Hey, wait up,” I called out.
But she kept on running as if she’d seen a ghost. “You going to chase after her, Brandon?” Clayton asked.
“What for?” I turned to walk in the other direction.
Dyllan bumped his shoulder to mine. “’Cause she seems to have a crush on you.”
“You’re wrong.” I headed for the next door, but Clayton stepped in front of me. “What?”
“She’s acting that way ’cause you got her stimulated. Aren’t you going to get her settled down?” Clayton’s dark brow raised. “That might be fun.”
“I like my women a bit more refined. And not quite so mouthy.” I pushed open the next door to find a room covered in sketches. A chair by the window had a table next to it, and a pad of paper and colored pencils sat on top of it. “You don’t suppose this is why Ella was up here? You don’t suppose this isherstuff?” I ran my fingers over a picture of a cardinal that hung on the wall. The red feathers looked almost real. “She’s gifted.”
“You don’t know this is hers, Brandon.” Dyllan pointed at the initials on the bottom of the paper that were written so tiny I could barely make them out. “What does this mean?”
“I think it’s the signature, or rather, the initials of whoever drew this.” Squinting, I tried to make them out. “I do believe it’s an E and an F. As in Ella Finley.”
“Or you’d like to believe that, anyway,” Clayton said. “I see two Es.”
Dyllan picked up the case of colored pencils as he looked out the window. “Oh yeah, this is hers alright. I can tell.”
He held the case he’d picked up to his forehead as if using his mind to see who it belonged to.
“So, you’re doing your old fake psychic thing, Dyllan.” I took the thing away from him to find Ella written on the case in black Sharpie.
Who are you, Ella Finley?
Chapter Four
Ella
I had plans of going to my secret room to draw when I saw the new landlords coming out of the enormous shower on the second floor. They had their clothes on, thankfully. I felt Brandon’s blue eyes burning into my back as I fled, his deep voice calling out to me kindled something in my body.
Returning to my family’s section of the mansion, I headed to my bedroom to lay down and chill after finishing work for the day. Passing through the living room, my older sister, Darleen, was smiling at me. “I heard you met the guys, Ella.”
“What?” I stopped, putting my hand on my hip. “What did they tell you, Darleen? I want to hear every single word.”
“Theydidn’t say much.” She lay back on the couch, her dark hair splaying out on the armrest as she grinned like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. “Brandon is the one who talked about you. Get this; he thinks you could be an angel.You.”
My heart sped up, my body heated. “He said what?” my voice came out a bit on the high side.
Darleen sat up quickly, one long finger pointing at me. “Youlikehim.”
“Hell, no.” I switched my weight to the other foot and moved my hand to the other hip. “Why’d he say I could be an angel, Darleen?”
“I said I was one.” She lay back down. “They’re all studs, huh?”
I nodded, only because I couldn’t help it. “But so what, who cares? Brandon is old. He’s thirty if he’s a day.”
“He’s twenty-seven,” she alerted. “Clayton is twenty-five, and Dyllan is twenty-two. I’ve done my research. Dyllan is more your speed, I think. Leave Brandon to me since he’s just a year older than me. It makes the most sense, don’t you think?”
“Um, no.” Something was happening to me that had never happened before. I was getting mad for no reason. “You better ask Mom and Dad if you can go out with any of them before you get into trouble. They may not want us to mix business with pleasure.”
“What would you know about pleasure, baby sis?” Darleen sat up again, laughing. “Ella, you never even held hands with a boy, much less locked lips with one. What do you know about pleasure?”
