Tamara Sneed - At First Sight

Charlie sighed then said, “Grandpa Max is not punishing you, and although I can’t speak for Fate, I also doubt that she’s punishing you.”

Quinn stared at Charlie and asked, in a hoarse voice, “Then why would he sentence me to two weeks in this hellhole?”

“It’s his childhood home, Quinn. He was born and raised in this town. The town is named after him, after us. Maybe Grandpa Max wanted us to see where he came from, what we come from. He didn’t always live in a mansion in Beverly Hills, and maybe he wanted us to know that.”

“Couldn’t he just have said that then?” Quinn protested, nearly screeching. “I, personally, don’t need the up-close-and-personal history lesson.”

The torn screen door opened with a creak that echoed across the yard. Their oldest sister, Kendra, stepped onto the porch. The disgusted expression on her flawlessly made-up face told Charlie everything she needed to know. The inside of the house matched the abandoned and neglected exterior.

The screen door flapped closed behind Kendra and promptly one side of the lightweight wire crashed to the floor. Quinn flinched in surprise, while Charlie laughed at Kendra’s expression. She wiped her hands on an immaculately tailored dark skirt and looked over her two younger sisters with the mask of calm disdained boredom that she had perfected in junior high school.

She coolly eyed Quinn then said, “I heard your complaining all the way in the house, Quinn. Feel free to leave at any time. No one will stop you.”

Charlie groaned and raked both hands through her chin-length hair. It seemed to have doubled in size from the heat and stress of the past few hours since the sisters had left Los Angeles and driven four hours into California’s heartland to Sibleyville, population fifteen thousand. Quinn and Kendra had been at each other’s throats for the entire four-hour drive. Actually, Quinn and Kendra had been at each other’s throats since birth.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” Quinn shot back, with narrowed eyes. She tossed her long hair over her shoulder in a move worthy of Sephora and said, “Of course, if I left then you wouldn’t get any of the money. Remember that part of Grandpa’s will, Kendra, the part where the three of us have to remain in this house together for two weeks or else all three of us lose our inheritance. Do you still want me to leave?”

Charlie pleaded, “You guys, come on. It’s been a long day—”

“Why did you even agree to this, Quinn?” Kendra demanded, ignoring Charlie’s plea for peace. “You’re a big actress, if one could consider what you do acting—”

“You’re just jealous,” Quinn shot back. “You’ve always been jealous.”

“Of what?” Kendra asked, with an amused laugh.

Kendra’s smile would have been gorgeous if Charlie had thought for one second that she was sincere. Kendra was a few inches shorter than Quinn, but still taller than most women. Instead of being tall and thin like Quinn, or short and curvy like Charlie, Kendra was like a gazelle: lean muscles, athletic grace and awesome power. She was mocha-chocolate, with bone-straight midnight-black hair that she wore in a straight bob to her shoulders. Her razor-sharp bangs would never dream of not hanging how Kendra wanted them to.

“That I have a life. Friends. Lovers. People like me, they want to take a picture with me. Who wants to be around you, except old men because you make them rich?”

Kendra’s remained calm as she said, in a bored tone, “People don’t want a picture of you. They want a picture of your breasts. Those two things are more famous than you are.”

Charlie inwardly groaned as Quinn’s mouth dropped open in shock. She really should intervene, before the two women came to blows, but Charlie had learned long ago to stay out of their way when they started an argument. It had been almost two years since Charlie had been in the same room with both of her sisters, and Charlie wished it could have been another two years.

But, their grandfather—the man who had raised them after their parents’ death—had died, and decreed in his will that his three granddaughters spend two weeks in his childhood home as a condition to inheriting an undisclosed sum of money that could possibly number in the millions. Max Sibley had built Sibley Corporation from the ground up in his twenties and had been worth over millions of dollars at his death. Kendra had estimated that they should each receive over ten million dollars a piece after taxes.

“Just go away, Kendra,” Quinn ordered, pointing her finger towards the road.

Kendra rolled her eyes then said, “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. For some reason, the old man thought it would be a riot to throw the three of us together in this dump. If we don’t survive, then we’ll never see a penny of our inheritance and all of the Sibley millions will go to some charitable organization that probably wants to save the whales or grasshoppers or something. I have my own money—a lot of my own money, but I will rot in hell before I allow the Sibley millions to be wasted like that.”

“At least we agree on something,” Quinn said, begrudgingly, while crossing her arms over her ample breasts.

“So, for the next two weeks, I intend to pretend that you don’t exist and that I’m living in the lap of luxury on a small, deserted, primitive island,” Kendra continued as if Quinn had never spoken. “I suggest you do the same.”

“I don’t need or want your suggestions,” Quinn said, with a snort.

“Will you two stop it!” Charlie exploded. Both women turned to her with identical expressions of shock and a little guilt.

As usual, they had forgotten that there was a third Sibley sister.

“I’ve listened to you two argue and complain since six o’clock this morning, and I’m sick of it,” Charlie screamed, as tears of frustration, fatigue and chocolate deprivation filled her eyes. “I don’t know why Grandpa Max did this, but he did and we’re stuck here for the next two weeks. So, maybe we should try to use this time as an opportunity to get to know each other again. We are sisters. And with Grandpa Max dead, the three of us are it. There aren’t any more Sibleys. I don’t know about you two, but that scares me.”

Her sisters’ expressions grew guarded, and Charlie knew it wasn’t because she was waving the white flag. It was because she was close to crying, and the Sibley sisters did not cry, especially in front of each other.

In a characteristically un-Charlie Sibley move, she screeched in frustration and kicked the Jaguar’s rear tire.

She screamed in surprise as the heel on one of her shoes snapped, and she fell to the dirt in a heap of swirling dust. Both her sisters appeared frozen in place. Neither made a move to assist her. Not that Charlie had expected them to. She cursed, more from her annoyance with them than pain, even though her right foot was beginning to throb.

“That hurt,” Charlie muttered.

“Remind me never to make you angry,” drawled a deep, amused voice.

Charlie prayed that the owner of the voice did not look as gorgeous as he sounded. Judging from Quinn’s and Kendra’s slack-jawed expressions however, her prayers were not to be answered. She looked over her shoulder. And gulped.

Her gaze traveled from the dirt-covered genuine cowboy boots to the worn, well-fitted jeans that emphasized long, muscular legs. She gulped again at the slight bulge in his pants at the zipper then at the white T-shirt that settled over his flat stomach and emphasized finely muscled cinnamon-colored arms.

He wore a cowboy hat. A large charcoal-gray cowboy hat that shadowed the sharp lines and angles of his face. He had full lips, a strong nose and piercing brown eyes that were focused intently on her. His profile had probably been chiseled on a African coin.