An Unexpected Love by Amber Riel (dar e dil novel online reading .TXT) 📕

          Cassie followed him up the stairs. “Do you think that it would be okay with Laura if I used one of her stuff animals to cuddle with?”

          “Why do you need a stuff animal? You could cuddle with me,” Brandon joked.

          “I don’t think so… and besides like I said yesterday; bad idea. Oh yeah. And that kiss from last night made things worst….”

          Brandon raised his eyebrows. He could tell that by the way Cassie spoke that she had felt something too. It was funny because now he believed that Cassie was falling for him too. “Well then, you can cuddle with Buck. I bet you would rather him than me anyways.”

          Cassie smiled. “Good idea.”

Brandon fixed the couch so he could be comfortable. He smiled. He couldn’t Cassie out of his mind. Then another thought popped into his head. He couldn’t like her. He kidnapped her to keep her from ratting him out. What was he going to do? Maybe he should just turn himself in but he didn’t want to lose Cassie. Nothing made sense to him at all. Maybe Cassie didn’t want to lose him either. He could tell by the look in her eyes; the way she looked at him was almost like she was telling him that she liked him but didn’t want to admit it. After all the man was a criminal after what he had done. For all he knew she was just another statistic for Stockholm syndrome where she believes she’s falling in love with her captor but in reality once he’s out of her life she’ll realize that it was nothing.

The next morning Brandon opened his eyes and yawned. He sat up on the couch and went to pick up the remote but Cassie came out of nowhere and grabbed it first. “Good you’re up,” Cassie said with a smile. She stood right in front of him.

“Where did you come from?” he asked, looking up at Cassie with tired eyes.

“The kitchen… do you realize what time it is?”

“No. I just woke up, and frankly, I don’t care. I’m still tired. All I care about is a nice hot cup of coffee. Okay?”

“Okay.” Cassie continued to smile. She had to admit that Brandon looked pretty cute with bed head hair.

His hair was messy but it looked good on him. “Now do I have to get up and make the coffee myself?”

“No. it’s being made as we speak. I like coffee too so I know how you feel.”

“Okay.” Brandon noticed the time on the cable box when Cassie moved away. It was 12:50. “Cassie,” he said, stopping Cassie from leaving the room, “usually I’m wide awake and you’re still sleeping. Why is it the other way around today?”

“Oh. Buck had to go out this morning and he made a little girlfriend too.”

“He was picking up babes without me?” Brandon asked, jokingly.

Cassie smiled and shook her head. She began leaving the room again but stopped. She turned to face Brandon. “Oh… and, Brandon, you look good with your hair messy. You should keep it like that sometimes.” Then she left the room.

Brandon smiled at the compliment. “Oh… so she likes my hair messy,” he told himself.

Laura walked into the room. “Uncle Brandon, you need to get something to wake you up.”

Brandon raised an eyebrow. “You know, Laura, you’re really bossy. I know that your parents aren’t raising you to be that way.”

“I know but I want to see you and Cassie get married… and I mean as soon as possible… like today, it’s perfect.”

Brandon’s eyes grew wide. He was surprised at what his six year old niece was asking.

“Come on, Uncle Brandon. You two are meant for each other. You two are good for one another. You two would fit together like a puzzle piece.”

“You’re only six… you shouldn’t be telling me that….”

“Oh but you two are like characters in a fairy tale.”

Cassie almost took another step to walk into the living room but stopped. She could hear everything that was being said. She held the hot cup of coffee in her hand and would take a sip every now and then.

“You and Cassie belong together,” Laura continued. “You have to believe me, Uncle Brandon.”

Brandon laughed. “You’re six. What do you know about relationships? Just because you read about fairy tale characters falling in love doesn’t mean that happens to everyone. I mean yes, I’ve only knew Cassie for a week and we were together for a week but I’m falling in love with her,” he admitted to the child and himself, unaware of the fact that Cassie was in the hallway and she was listening.

Cassie felt herself blush. It was weird. She didn’t know if she should continue listening or just slowly back away.

“I can’t ask her to marry me yet… it’s too soon. Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure that when and if we were to get married that Cassie would let you be our flower girl. Okay, Laura?”

Laura smiled. “Okay, Uncle Brandon.”

Cassie walked in and pretended that she had no clue what they had been talking about. “Brandon, the coffee’s done.”

“Okay.” Brandon stood up and stretched.

“And I would have made yours but I didn’t know how you like your coffee,” Cassie told him.

“Okay.” Brandon left the room, leaving the two girls alone.

Three months had flown by and Brandon wanted to do something nice for Cassie. He also wanted to tell her that he was in love with her but didn’t know how. He had to try and get information from her without being too obvious. He had found a few side jobs to work and make money. Every day when he arrived home from work he was glad to know that she was going to be there. The only thing was that he didn’t want to bring her anywhere, knowing that people could recognize her as the missing girl from the news.

          He was also still debating with himself if it would be the right move to turn himself in or not. He walked into the house after a long day from work. “Cassie, I’m home!” he called. Then out of nowhere, Buck had tackled him, licking his face.

          Cassie walked into the hallway from the kitchen. She couldn’t help but laugh. “He was waiting for you to get back.”

          Brandon turned his face and pushed Buck back. His right eye closed whilst the dog licked his cheek and he tried to keep his mouth closed too. “Help,” he managed to get out at the right moment. “Cassie… help.”

          Cassie tried to stop laughing but she couldn’t hold it in. “Buck, do you want something to eat?” she asked.

          Buck stopped and looked at Cassie then hurried toward the kitchen. Cassie walked over to Brandon and helped him up. “Thank you,” he told her.

          “No problem.”

          “So what’s for dinner?”

          “I don’t know.”

          “You don’t know?”

          “Well, you do know that three months ago you kidnapped a girl who doesn’t know how to cook? Right?”

          Brandon smiled. “I’m joking but what do you want? I’ll teach you.”

          “Okay… a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

          “What?”

          Cassie laughed. “I’m joking. Do you know how to make chicken alfredo?”

          “Yeah, is that what you want?”

          “Yeah.”

          “Okay.” Brandon grabbed Cassie’s arm. “Follow me.” He dragged Cassie into the kitchen. Buck was in the process of eating his dog food. The dog had food in his mouth and he lifted up his head to see Brandon and Cassie then went back to eating. “Okay. I make my alfredo out of the box, just so you know, I don’t make it from scratch.”

          “Okay. That’s how my mom makes hers.”

          “Okay.” Brandon walked over to the cabinet and pulled out a jar of alfredo and handed it to Cassie then he grabbed the box of noodles. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer door to get the strips of chicken. He placed the chicken and box of noodles onto of the counter. Cassie set the jar next to the box whilst Brandon pulled out a medium sized pot and filled it with water. “This is the only thing that I’m going to do,” he told her.

          “What?”

          “Yeah… you’re going to cook.”

          “But… I can’t cook… I could….”

          “Don’t worry, I’m going to be here and I’m going to help you out. Okay?”

          “Okay.”

          Brandon turned off the water and carried the pot over to the stove. He placed the pot down then he set the stove on high. “Okay. We wait until the water starts boiling then you dump the noodles in.”

          “Okay.” Cassie didn’t want to stand in silence so she started thinking of conversation starters. “So what did you do at work today?”

          “Well, let’s see-” Brandon took a moment to think. “Oh, I and my buddy Zeke were painting one of the walls at this club where he kicked the thing of paint and the paint got all over my pants and shoes.”

          Cassie looked down at his shoes and the bottom of his pants. She covered her mouth to hide the laughter after noticing the black paint on Brandon’s blue jeans and white shoes. “Oh my gosh.”

          “Oh go ahead and laugh.” Brandon smiled. “I’ll purposely make you ruin the alfredo.”

          “I’m sorry.” Cassie looked up at him and tried to stop laughing. “It’s funny.”

          “Oh that funny… huh?” he asked, glancing over to the pot.

          “Yeah.”

          “Is it going to be funny when you go to put noodles into an empty pot?”

          “What?”

          “Look.”

          Cassie turned around to see that the water was boiling a little too fast. She turned around and grabbed the box. She ripped open the lid and grabbed the bag of noodles. She opened the bag and poured the noodles into the pot.

          “Here.” Brandon handed her a cooking spoon to stir the noodles. “There’s a cooking glove in the right drawer next to the stove.”

          Cassie held the spoon in her right hand and she opened the drawer and pulled out the oven mitten. “Thanks.”

          “No problem.”

          Cassie placed the spoon inside of the pot and held the handle of the pot and tried to stir but she kept jerking her hand away from the heat.

          Brandon rolled his eyes and shook his head slight with a smile.

          Once Cassie had her hand on the spoon, Brandon held onto her hand with his right hand and he placed