Read Breene, K F - Jessica Brodie Diaries 01 for Free Online

Up close,
further away, down the block--anywhere! I hadn't seen this much parking since I
showed up to school on a holiday without knowing it.
    Spoiled, I chose one near the door.
Why not, right? I didn't need to walk if I didn't want to. Or fight for any
spaces. Luxury!
    Halfway to the entrance I realized
I forgot my list. I stopped dead and tilted my head up, trying and to remember
when I’d last had it… Wait, I should have it... Somewhere…
    Lifting my bag away from my
shoulder with one strap, I dove to the bottom, fishing out a small, crinkled
list. As I rummaged, feeling like the bag was swallowing my arm, I heard a deep
male baritone say, “Ma’am.”
    One, not being familiar with that
phrase, and two, wondering if someone was talking to me, which was very
un-L.A., and hence, very strange for me, I gave a quick questioning glance in
the speaker’s direction. I met a plaid chest. Obviously a little closer than I
thought.
    I still had my hand stuck at the
bottom of my over-sized, over-filled handbag, walking lop-sided with no real perspective
on where I was in relation to the door, when I looked up and met two deep blue
eyes in the most breathtakingly, ruggedly handsome face I had ever seen. Watch
out Marlboro man, you ain’t got nothin’ on this cowboy!
    His blue eyes caught my focus and
drew me, holding me prisoner in to a place where time did not exist. As I fell
in, lost, I felt many things happen at once. My skin erupted in goose pimples
as a shiver crawled down my back. My head went light, giving me the distinct
feeling I was floating. Thank goodness, because my legs wobbled, not sure if I
had control over my knees anymore. Topping it off, a suddenly warm, wet
sensation pooled in my groin that craved sudden and fervid contact.
    I think I muttered something. I
really think I heard my voice, but I was too consumed with his eyes, and the
burning taking over my body, to be sure. I think I kept walking, but when you
lose the feeling in your legs, it's anybody's guess.
    Suddenly, blue turned white as I
lost the connection of his eyes. Light swirled around me, spinning, vertigo
taking over. I hit the ground at a tumble, rolling to a stop, then flinching as
a mess of dog food rolled on top of me, crushing me to the floor.
    Why me?
    I opened my eyes to two things. One
was florescent rectangles hanging from a white ceiling. A small black orb
dotted the white periodically; monitoring devices. I'd landed flat on my back
on the floor. Perfect.
    The next was concerned brown
peepers, leaning over the mountain of mess I'd made. He ignored the rivulets of
dried food trickling down the pile like a small stream, splashing around me
like drops from a waterfall.
    Seriously, why me?
    “C’mon now, darlin. Up ya
git," Brown Peepers said, digging my arms out of a ripped bag with the
fervor of youth. He couldn't have been more than twenty.
    “C’mon now. You had yourself a
nasty fall. Here y’are.” He took some of the bags of dog food off me, giving a
portly forty-something-year-old woman with hair styled in a large, red beehive
room to help me to my feet.
    My stomach tightened up as I stood
in the wake of a natural disaster. Fifty pound bags of dog food littered the
ground in a messy heap. Next to the door lay an overturned shelving unit with a
picture of a dog and a smiling woman, spewing more dog food over the ground.
Leaning against the mess was a red bubble-gum machine, a breath away from
crashing to the floor and breaking.
    Hurricane Jessica.
    “I’m so sorry! I’m really sorry!” I
gushed. “I don’t know what my problem is!”
    I braced myself for the rant. For
the store owner to barge out, yelling about the mess. Threatening me with a
counter-suit if I even dared thought of a lawyer. He chase me out of the store,
my backside a welcome sight in the wake of the mess. I would then go to the
next grocery store where I wouldn’t be branded a disturber of the peace. Until
I did something else stupid.
    Only problem