Page 3 of An Unexpected Home

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By the time she woke up, it was well after ten. At first, she couldn’t believe that she’d slept so long, but considering that she hadn’t had more than three hours of sleep in a row since the trial had started, she wasn’t surprised.

Not sure if Carly and Melanie were home yet, she quickly changed and made her way to find the bathroom.

The house was quiet when she opened her bedroom door and she didn’t hear any noise. She found the bathroom right across the hall and made quick work of peeing and brushing her teeth.

Heading downstairs, she still heard nothing. But sitting on the kitchen counter next to a pot of hot coffee she found a note.

Leah,

I’ve left for the day and to my knowledge, Carly and Melanie should be back this morning.

Brandon.

Oh and Max, Carly’s dog is outside.

Blunt and to the point Carly thought.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee in a mug that was sitting on the counter, she contemplated the note. He wasn’t chatty, that was for sure. But could she blame him? It’s not like they knew each other. Sure he’d smiled at her and she’d practically melted on the spot, but that was her issue; not his. And that probably only happened because she hadn’t had sex in fucking forever.

God she missed sex.

Hot, sweaty, curl your toes sex.

And yeah, technically she’d never had that kind of sex before, but a girl could dream.

So really she missed boring, missionary, roll over and leave when you’re done sex.

And that was just sad. Sad that at twenty-eight there had been no passion in her life.

But she was going to change that. Not only was she starting over with a new job and a new place to live, but she was also determined to get back to a better version of who she had been before her world had been turned upside down.

She wanted to go big or go home.

Or at least in theory because this was her home now and she had nowhere else to go and no money to even get there if she did.

Taking her coffee out to the front porch, she saw a dog lounging at the bottom of the steps.

“You must be, Max?” she said and he lifted his head and looked up at her but didn’t get up to come greet her.

“My kind of dog,” she said and sat down on the swing that was there.

She sipped her coffee enjoying the cool morning and the breeze she was sure came from the lake when she heard a car pulling up.

When the car stopped, Carly jumped out.

“I can’t believe you made it!” She ran up the rest of the drive, stepped over Max and threw her arms around Leah for a hug.

Carly had always been a hugger. Even on the first day of college when they’d just met, she hugged Leah like six times.

“Hey Carls,” Leah said and hugged her back. It felt so good to have a friend who didn’t care at all that her family was a bunch of criminals.

“You don’t know how excited I am,” Carly said, stepping back to take her in. “You need to eat.”

Leah was aware that she’d lost weight during the trial and she hated it because it made her look frail. “I know, I’m working on it.”

“How was the drive?” Carly asked as they both sat down on the swing.

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