Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

coolly distant—to her. It was her they weren’t talking to. They were introspective. They didn’t seem inclined toward idle conversation at all, but were definitely going out of their way to avoid talking to her—to avoid her period.

As soon as she noticed that, she began to wonder why. Try though she might, however, she couldn’t think of anything she’d said or done that would explain the way they were behaving. It wasn’t anger, exactly, but she was definitely getting the cold shoulder.

The discovery diverted her almost completely from the wait for the verdict in the trial. She’d been looking forward to a conviction because her father needed to be removed from society where he could cause no more harm. She’d also been looking forward to it, though, because she’d been certain that that was all that stood between her and what she’d realized she desperately wanted—the romantic relationship the lawyer had accused her of.

She lusted over them. She had from the first and she would’ve been willing to settle for being their lover if she hadn’t begun to feel like they wanted more than that.

Once that seed had taken root, she couldn’t ignore or dismiss it and after a very little while of considering it she hadn’t wanted to.

It was what she wanted. She was positive. She still thought it was scary living in the sea. She still worried that a relationship and children would severely restrict her goals as a scientist. She still wasn’t used to their customs. She still harbored a lot of doubts about managing to function in a household so different from anything she’d ever known, let alone being able to provide them with what they needed and expected from her, but she knew she wanted to try. She knew what she felt was more than desire for four very attractive men. She respected and admired them for who and what they were and because she did, she’d begun to care for them too much to allow any obstacle, real or imagined, to stand between her and what she wanted.

She just didn’t know how to handle the one she’d run smack in to that seemed to have sprung up out of nowhere. She was angry and afraid and the outcome was too important to her to blunder blindly through the maze.

Were they waiting for her to ask them, she wondered? Were they angry because she hadn’t made the first move and suggested they stay together?

That didn’t seem to fit in with their customs, but then again nothing about her situation did. She hadn’t decided to come. She hadn’t chosen to announce her intentions by placing herself on the marriage market.

Should she do that, she wondered? The idea unnerved the hell out of her, though.

She knew if she did that, that anyone who had no woman and was interested could bid.

What if nobody did? Wouldn’t that be the most humiliating thing imaginable?

What if a lot of men did, but the ones she wanted didn’t?

She didn’t have to take anyone only because they’d bid, but it was almost as disturbing to think of having to turn them away as it was to think nobody might offer.

She couldn’t do that. She thought she would get used to most of their customs in time—just not that one.

Should she risk rejection and total humiliation and inform them that she’d decided they suited her and she wanted to play house permanently? Pitch a screaming fit and demand to know why everybody was suddenly acting like she was a leper when they’d been behaving before as if they were just waiting the chance to jump her?

Had she been completely wrong about everything? Concluded all the things she had because it was what she wanted, not anything they’d hinted at?

Caleb had hinted at it, though, hadn’t he? What else could he have meant? She’d been so certain that it was only their anxiety about the trial that was holding them back and, as soon as it was over, things would change.

Well, they had and it wasn’t even over yet, just not the way she’d expected or hoped!

If they’d just give her a hint of what was bothering them, damn it, she might have some chance of working through it! She couldn’t seem to work up the nerve to bring the situation to a head, though, to demand what she’d been tried and convicted of. She was too afraid she wouldn’t be able to talk her way through it and she’d lose. Even when an opportunity finally fell in her lap, it took all she could do to seize it.

She’d been heading toward the bathroom for a shower when she met up with Simon in the hall outside coming from the shower. It was one of those disconcerting moments when one meets up with a person one can’t seem to get past. They ‘waltzed’ matching each other move for move as they approached until they deadlocked in the middle of the hall and stared at each other with a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment.

Simon had already begun to step aside to let her pass when it hit her that they were completely alone in that part of the house, that she could at least reduce the discomfort level—hers—by trying to work things out one on one. She had, in fact, taken a step to block his retreat before she’d completely made up her mind that she wanted to.

His expression was so unwelcoming when she grasped his robe that she almost lost her nerve altogether. “Why?” she managed to ask when he glanced from her hand to her face.

Something flickered in his eyes. “Why?”

He looked so completely unapproachable then that she did lose her nerve.