Stone Cold Charade (A Stone Family Novel) by Kathleen Royce Page B

life.
    Every time Ty went on a date, she would
spend the night crying her heart out. Soon the two couldn’t be in the same room
with each other without World War III ensuing. The fighting quickly put a
strain on her friendship with Jenny. It just became easier to distance herself
from her too, that way Jenny didn’t have to choose between her best friend and
her brother.
    Alex threw herself into her music that
summer. Always good with melodies and able to hold her voice in perfect tune to
the song, a true gift she inherited from her mother along with composing. With
time on her hands, she spent the summer glued to the piano writing songs.
    By the time fall rolled around, along
with the holiday break, her grandparents finally had to step in. Informing her
grandfather that the two had barely said three words to each other in months,
her grandmother ordered him to speak with Ty. How that went, Alex never knew.
She would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation! She
did know that her grandfather didn’t fire Ty, but nothing changed in his
attitude. He just distanced himself even more from that point on. Her senior
year she barely saw him, until the night of a friend's party.
    Alex’s friend Kim and her older brother
were throwing a party at their house to celebrate Kim’s graduation from high
school. Alex was in the same graduating class, and Ty was close to Kim’s
brother so he was invited too.
    Walking into the house, she saw Ty with
a group of friends from his high school days. He was clad in a cowboy dress
shirt complete with denim jeans and looking every bit the cowboy even without
his hat. Alex lifted her chin defiantly, returning his stare as he looked
daggers at her on her arrival. He was the first to break eye contact as he
turned back to one of his companions.
    She noticed the bulky brown furniture
that usually sat in the living room had been pushed back along the walls to
accommodate a dance floor filled with couples. She glanced around the room
trying to locate Amanda, wondering why she wasn’t glued to Ty. She noticed a
classmate, Dane, striding toward her over the polished hard wood floors and
gave up the search. Returning his greeting and accepting his invitation to
dance because she had always thought Dane was sweet.
    The house was lively with classmates
celebrating, blowing off steam from the long year. Alex gave herself over to
the beat of the music blasting from the state of the art sound system. Refusing
to think about Ty, she laughed up at Dane enjoying herself for the first time
in months as he twirled her around the room.
    Ty observed Alex’s every move with cold,
hungry eyes. He had suspected she would be attending the party. He had seen to
it that he would also be there to make sure she stayed out of mischief. He had
always watched over her, and he would see to it that he kept protecting her,
even if he had no right to.
    Even though she was playing down her
looks again tonight, it didn’t stop him from watching her. Her hair hanging
around her face, unruly as always, and not a trace of makeup made Alex look as
she always did, plain. Dressed in a knee-high skirt and matching blouse in a
depressing shade of tan, she finished off her drab attire with a pair of
sandals. Even dressing so dully didn’t alter his desire for her. It burned in
his gut stronger than ever.
    Even though he had intentionally acted
as if he didn’t care for her in any way this past year, he knew differently. He
was forced to face the reality that she was growing up. His desire for her had
felt as if a ton of bricks had landed on his head, but it was her innocence
that stopped him from pursuing her. Alex’s feelings for him also played a role
in reinforcing that she was off limits. Being called on the carpet once about
the time he spent alone with her was enough. Her grandfather brought the point
home to him quite painfully by docking his pay, claiming he was worried about
his granddaughter's