Ties that Bind (Sunshine & Shadow Book 3) by Alie Williamson

when they entered the lodge for breakfast. She snuck upstairs
without being seen and changed her shirt. Running a brush through the tangled
nest of hair on top of her head proved to be too difficult, so she pulled it
back into a ponytail and decided to call it good enough.
         “Good morning!” her dad shouted from the kitchen
as she slid into her seat at the dining table. He wore an apron.
         “Dad…what are you doing?” April said, pouring
herself some coffee. Kip was setting the table and for some reason, she was
finding it hard to meet his eyes.
         “I’m cooking! Your mom wants to sleep in as its
Sunday, and I offered to make breakfast for everyone.”
         “I don’t think mom is sleeping in because it’s
Sunday…” April said, laughing. “Did she have a good night last night?”
         Her dad stuck his head around the kitchen door.
“Never you mind, missy. No matter how old you get, we are still your parents
and it’s very important that we look like superheroes in your eyes…” He carried
trays of food into the dining room and set them on the table. “…And superheroes
don’t get hangovers. Right?”
         April nodded, picking up a piece of bacon and
popping it in her mouth. “Right.”
         “Right,” Kip repeated, sitting down next to April,
bumping her foot with his. He smiled at her and she returned it quickly and
looked away. She felt a strange wave of awkwardness wash over her.
         Kip, who had been her platonic friend for years,
had seen her naked last night. Things would never be the same again.
         That day they were hanging the Christmas lights
on the porch and fences lining the driveway. April loved Christmas. The whole
ranch seemed to brush the snow off its wintered sleeves and pitch in to make
the holidays seem alive. The lights were multicolored and in the evening -
which, during the winter, began at 4:30 in the afternoon - reflected in the
snow. It looked like someone had had a paint fight on a white canvas.
         They hung the lights carefully, making sure each
one worked, until April’s mom came downstairs, wrapped in a housecoat.
         “Mom, you look fantastic,” April said, laughing
at her mom’s bedraggled appearance.
         “Sure,” her mom said. “I feel like a million bucks.”
         “There’s coffee in the kitchen,” Kip said. He bit
his lip to hide his laughter as April’s mom turned around.
         She saw his concealed smile and held up her
finger. “Not a word. I am still your boss, and you need to think of me as the
proper, put-together woman I am. You need to respect me.” She nodded to
herself.
         “I do respect you!” Kip dropped the lights onto
the porch and put his arm around her, turning her towards the kitchen. “I just
didn’t know you were such a party animal, ma’am. I really need to teach you how
to drink responsibly.”
         April laughed to herself as they disappeared
inside the lodge. She finished hanging her strand of lights and set to work on
Kip’s discarded pile. Wrapping them carefully around the railing, she felt
someone fold their arms around her waist.
         “What are you doing?” she said, continuing her
task, but enjoying the warmth.
         “What? No-one’s out here,” Kip said.
         “For now.” She turned around in Kip’s arms and,
reaching up on her tip-toes, kissed him quickly. “But that could change at any
moment, and then you’d have a gun pointed at you. Is that what you want?”
         Kip shook his head, lowering his arms. “No,
ma’am.”
         “So what are you going to do?”
         “Take you into the barn?” he said, putting a
question mark at the end.
         April wiggled her finger.
         “Sneak you into my cabin?” he guessed again.
         She put her hands on her hips, feigning
annoyance.
         Kip looked at the ground, pretending to pout.
“Finish my chores,