Lois Greiman - [Hope Springs 02] by Home Fires

patient voice of a pregnant eighteen-year-old. “You think I stole it.”
    “Yes. I do.”
    “Have you seen my hair?” Emily Kane’s dreadlocks were her trademark . . . nearly as well known (but not as dreaded) as her stellar sarcasm . . . or her patient tone.
    “Listen, you may have Roberts fooled into thinking you’re some kind of blessed saint, but I know you’re nothing but a—”
    “Good morning!” Casie sped down the final steps and lurched into the kitchen before open warfare was declared.
    The girls turned to her in a second, both talking at once.
    “She took my curling iron.”
    “Why would I take her stupid . . .” Emily paused, brows rising as her attention settled on Casie. “What happened to you?”
    Casie raised her fingers to her face and darted her gaze from one girl to the other. Sophie was scowling. Emily was grinning. It wasn’t until that moment that Casie realized her lips felt bruised, her face flushed. “Nothing. Nothing happened to me. Why?” She tried to calm her tone and her expression and wondered if they knew she’d spent the night restless and conflicted. Wondered if they knew she’d never found the strength to turn Dickenson down. That it had been Colt himself who had called a stop to . . . whatever it was they had started.
    Emily’s grin hitched up a notch. “What time did Mr. Dickenson leave?”
    “Mr. . . .”
    “He looked good, huh? A little skinny maybe, but cowboy yummy.”
    “I . . .” Casie’s mind went momentarily numb, then snapped into action. “I’m sorry, Sophie.” She turned with robotic precision toward the younger girl. “I was the one who used your curling iron.”
    “You?”
    “Yeah, I . . .” She laughed, hoping rather manically they wouldn’t think she had gussied up for Dickey Dickenson, the bane of her existence. “I just wanted to look decent for the festival. You know. Not that my hair is the curling type. Either one of them.” She chuckled rustily at her own joke and dismissively flipped her hair behind her shoulder. It was thin, fine, and the unexciting color of caramel, but she had to admit that it almost looked decent when curled and shellacked into submission.
    “It looks sexy,” Em said. “What did Mr. Dickenson say?”
    “I . . .” She remembered him saying she looked good enough to eat. Remembered the heat in his eyes, the strength in his hands as he slid them up her—
    “Where?” Sophie said.
    “What?” She yanked her attention back to the conversation at hand, feeling oddly immature in this house of teenage estrogen.
    Sophie looked disgruntled and maybe a little disgusted. “Where’d you put my curling iron?”
    “Oh. I left it in the bathroom.”
    “I looked in the bathroom.”
    “I’m pretty sure it’s still—” she began, but Emily had never been above interrupting her at any given moment.
    “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have him sated and ecstatic in your bedroom upstairs, huh?”
    Casie zipped a reprimanding scowl at the older girl. “Emily!”
    “What?” She looked honestly affronted. “Geez, Case, you don’t have to live like a nun just because we’re here. We know about sex. Least I do.” She made a wry face and caressed her belly, which seemed to have expanded overnight. “You’ve heard of sex, too, haven’t you, Soph?”
    Sophie rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I have a few possessions of my own in this house. A couple pair of jeans . . . a curling iron. Maybe a—”
    “Holy cats!” Emily said. She and Casie had had long, grueling discussions regarding acceptable expletives. Holy cats had become her favorite, with holy shorts coming in a close second. Casie refused to consider what her unacceptable favorites were. “Will you just go look in the bathroom already?”
    “The bathroom’s the size of a turtle’s egg. You think I wouldn’t have seen it if it was—”
    “In the drawer,” Casie said, remembering suddenly. “I’m sorry. I