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

          Brandon had to think of a lie and fast.  He didn’t need them to know about Cassie.  “Well, tonight’s not good for me because…. My house is a complete mess….”

          “And Uncle Brandon,” Chris replied as he cut Brandon off, “probably has work in the morning anyways.”

          “Well actually,” Brandon said as he turned toward Chris, “they gave me a week off.”

          “Oh they did?”

          “Yea….”  Brandon was digging a deeper hole for himself by adding more lies and he began to feel worse and worse with each lie.  “A permanent vacation,” he whispered to himself.

          “Well, I’m going to go get the car,” Chris said as he began to leave.  “Meet me at the front.”  He vanished out of the glass doors.

          Cassie worked her way over toward the door and tried to open it.  She started trying to reach for the knob when the door opened.

          “What are you trying to do?” Brandon asked as he walked into the room.

          Cassie turned to face him.  “Trying to get out.”

          Brandon laughed.  “I don’t think so.”

          Cassie eyed her idiot of a kidnapper.  “You’re nothing but a jerk.”  She had more to say but decided that it would boost his ego and let the words escape from her mind.

          Chris pulled out of the drive way and Jessica was in the passenger seat while Laura sat in the back.

          “I think that your brother’s hiding something,” Jessica spoke with concern in her voice.  “He was acting kind of funny when Laura asked if she could stay the night….”

          “He’s probably just stressed.  We’re all stressed…. With work and everything,” Chris replied, shrugging off the odd behavior Brandon had shown earlier.

          “Yea you’re probably right…. But still I don’t have anything against him; I’m just kind of concerned.”

          “Don’t worry, honey.”

          “Sit back on the bed,” Brandon told Cassie.

          “No…. I have to go to the restroom and I need both of my hands free and you are not going to try anything freaky on me, mister.”  Cassie eyed Brandon.  “Oh yea…. Your guard dog by the way…. Needs to go out as well.”

          “Okay.  Fine.”  Brandon held up his hands.  He looked at Buck and the dog barked as if to say, ‘Ladies first.’  “Then follow me.”

          “Okay.”

          Cassie followed Brandon to the bathroom.  Brandon stopped in front of the doorway.  He pulled out his pocket knife to cut the tape off.  “Do what you have to do….” Then his mind jumped to another thought he needed to know but didn’t want to know and the question he had to ask was uncomfortable for him.  “Are you…. Is it…. Um…. Do I have to?”

          Cassie kind of smiled at the man’s embarrassment and she figured he knew what he trying to ask.  His embarrassment made him kind of cute and more attractive to her in a way.  “No.  That time for me is done for this month so you don’t have to worry.”

          Brandon held up the knife, feeling the relief flow through his body.  “Turn around.”

          “What are you going to do with that knife?” Cassie asked, kind of worried.

          Brandon raised an eyebrow.  He couldn’t believe Cassie wouldn’t trust him, holding a knife.  “I’m going to cut your hands off,” he spoke with sarcasm.

          Cassie dropped her mouth.

          “Don’t worry; I’m just going to cut the tape off.”  Brandon cut off the tape and he watched as Cassie walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

          “You better not have a hidden video camera in here somewhere!” Cassie called from the bathroom.

          Brandon laughed.  “Don’t worry.”  He decided to add a little joke.  “I only do that with the shower.”

          “What?!”

          “Just joking.”  Brandon needed to go get more tape.  “Buck, watch the door don’t let her escape.”  He headed toward his room.

          A few minutes later, Cassie walked out of the bathroom.  She didn’t realize that Brandon was heading out of his room with extra tape, while she started to head toward the stairs.  “I don’t think so,” Brandon said as he grabbed Cassie’s left arm and pulled her closer toward him.

          “Crap.”

          Brandon looked at Cassie and a thought popped into his head.  “This girl is so beautiful.”  His blue eyes locked with Cassie’s dark brown eyes.  “You wouldn’t happen to have a boyfriend, would you?” he asked.

          Cassie looked at Brandon with a funny expression.  Confusion filled her eyes, trying to figure out why he had even asked that.  “No…. Why?  Why do you care?”

          Brandon thought about his question and was relieved at her reply but also surprised at himself for asking.  The words had slipped out of his mouth, uncontrollably.  “No reason…. I don’t know why I even asked…. Just forget that I said anything…. Okay.”  He taped Cassie’s hands behind her back for the second time.

          “Okay?”  Cassie asked, extremely confused.  “What’s for lunch?”

          Brandon had to think about what he had in his refrigerator.  He hadn’t gone shopping so there wasn’t really any food.  “There’s left over Chinese food from last night.”

          “Okay.”

          Brandon led Cassie back toward Laura’s room and he left her in the room.  “I’ll be back.  I have to bring Buck out.”

          “Okay.”  Cassie walked over to the bed and sat down.  She couldn’t do anything and if she could there wasn’t much for her to do anyway.  She just continued thinking about the question Brandon had asked and wanted to know why he had even asked.

          “Why did I ask her that?” Brandon asked himself.  “I am such an idiot.  I kidnapped her.  I shouldn’t care if she has a boyfriend or not.  What kidnapper does that?”

          Buck ran up toward the door.  He was ready to head back into the house while his owner stood on the porch, confused.  He barked to let Brandon know he was finished.

          Brandon snapped back to reality.  “Oh.  You’re ready to go in?”

          Buck barked again as if to say, ‘Yea, I’m just waiting on you.’

          “Okay.”  Brandon walked over to the sliding glass door and opened it.

          The dog ran inside before the door was closed.

          Brandon carried a tray of Chinese food to Laura’s room.  Cassie sat on the bed, staring out of the window.  Part of her wanted to be outside but the other part was glad that she wasn’t.

          “I brought you food.”  Brandon entered the room and sat next to her.  “You want to be outside, don’t you?”

          Cassie looked at him and sighed.  “Yea…. I would probably be outside if you didn’t kidnap me.”

          “I’m sorry…. I really wasn’t planning on kidnapping or killing anyone.  That’s just how it turned out.”  He decided to change the subject because he didn’t want Cassie to know the truth.  “So what did you do for your senior year?”

          “Well, they took most of our senior privileges away and that just made us mad…. How did you know that I graduated anyways?”

          “My friend Zeke told me…. They were talking about it on the news and they mentioned about how you had graduated the night before.”

          “Oh.”  Cassie never considered that the news would mention anything about her graduation.  She had figured that the most information about her would be the basic information: her name, weight, and age.

          “So did you go to the prom?”

          “Yea but I and my best friend Jennie were just about the only two girls without date…. Our best friend Melinda and her boyfriend, also one of our best friends, Lloyd was there.”

          “Oh.”

          “Did you go to your prom?”

          “Yea,” Brandon replied.  He hadn’t sounded too enthused.  “The girl that I liked asked me if I would go with her.  I told her that I would…. I found out later that she just asked me out to make her ex jealous and that she didn’t really want to be seen with me.  I was embarrassed.  I left after that.”

          Cassie couldn’t believe that someone would do something that horrible and despicable to Brandon.  He was attractive and besides the fact she had witnessed him murder someone she was starting to see the sweet person he was and that his heart was in the right place.  “That’s terrible,” she said as she turned her attention away from him.  “I wouldn’t have done that to someone,” she began as she turned her attention back toward him, “even you.”

          Brandon raised an eyebrow.  There was something in her voice which told him that she might have been started to fall for him.  A grin grew on his face at the thought.

          Cassie quickly looked away.  She knew she just boosted his ego and she wished she hadn’t said anything.  “I mean,” she said, changing what she had said before, “I wouldn’t want a guy to do that to me so I wouldn’t do that to him.”

          Brandon didn’t say anything but he had rather not to make things worse for her.

          It was Cassie’s turn to change the subject.  “You’ve mentioned that your niece is in and out of the hospital…. Why is that?”

          Brandon’s grin vanished as he looked away from Cassie.  The hurt was evident and he bothered him to talk to people about it but he figured that Cassie would find out sooner or later anyways.  “Well,” he paused to swallow, “she has leukemia.”

          “Oh.  That’s so sad,” Cassie replied.

“She was diagnosed with it a couple of years ago.  This year could be her last year….”

          Cassie saw the hurt as she watched Brandon and wished she hadn’t asked.  “I’m sorry…. I wouldn’t have asked….”

          “No.  It’s not your fault.  It’s no bodies fault.  My sister in law is a stay at home mother and I help my brother with paying the bills.  At least, until I got laid off from my job that’s why I---” He stopped himself from finishing the rest of his sentence.  He didn’t want Cassie to know why he made the horrible mistake.  He continued to look away from her.  “Never mind…. You don’t need to know that.”

          An hour later, Brandon stood up and headed toward the door.  He stopped and turned toward Cassie.  “Oh yea…. Tomorrow, I’m going to bring you to another room because my niece is going to stay the night and