Read Ever Bound for Free Online Page A

voice.
    Clenching my teeth under a fake smile, I nodded. “Good morning, Drew. I just thought it would be in Annabeth’s best interest to have a chaperone. Have you ever heard her Daddy’s hunting stories? He is a great marksman.”
    Annabeth’s jaw dropped. With an icy tone and clenched teeth, she said, “Your assistance is kind but very unnecessary.”
    “You heard the lady. I’m sure her father hardly assigned you, a lowly farmhand, the job of chaperoning.” Drew offered Annabeth his arm. He tugged her along.
    Annabeth glanced back at me, and where I thought there’d be a triumphant smile, a frown blemished her normally rosy complexion. She quickly jerked her head around. She pulled her arm from Drew’s and straightened her long, yellow skirts.
    With some distance between us, I kept Drew’s hands in my sights all the way to the schoolhouse.
    The whole school day long, I watched Annabeth and Drew so closely I got little else done. When the bell tolled from the steeple, I left a few steps behind them. I trailed them out the doors of the schoolhouse.
    “Colby,” Mrs. Peachtree called after me. “May I speak with you?”
    Annabeth and Drew had already made a good distance down the lane.
    “Yes, ma’am, but I need to hurry.”
    “Without Grace here today, it’s the perfect time to speak with you. I know you and she were good friends in the past and that as of late, something has happened to trouble her. Her marks are suffering, and she is nearly always causing a ruckus in the classroom. I just don’t understand. She’s such a bright girl. I couldn’t help but notice your distance lately, and wonder if it could have anything to do with the way she’s acting out?” She stared at me through spectacles.
    “To be honest, we were never that close. When she started acting strange at the plantation, I’m sad to say, I severed all ties with her myself. There’s really nothing I can do to help I don’t think.”
    “That’s unfortunate. But if you felt led to do so, I can’t advise you differently. I just wish there was a way you could talk to her and work things out so at least she can focus again. She’s headed down the wrong path. I’m afraid it’s going to be a dark one if things don’t soon change.” Mrs. Peachtree dipped her head.
    “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise anything. May I please be excused now?” I looked out the window. “I have some things to look after.”
    Mrs. Peachtree raised a brow. “It really is dangerous to be caught between two sisters, Colby. Be careful. A woman’s heart is a deep, dark place when she feels she’s been slighted.”
    “Oh, no. I’m just protecting her is all.” Even as I said it, I believed it about as far as Mrs. Peachtree could throw me.
    She smiled and pressed down her simple skirts. “Be excused. And be careful. Oh, to be young again.”
    I hurried out the door and down the lonely tree-covered lane.
    Was Mrs. Peachtree right? Had I allowed myself to have feelings for someone who was even more impossible to be with than Grace?
    Annabeth’s father would never allow a lowly farmhand to be with the only hope his family name had at survival.
    Sure, I’d used it in joking as a way to get Grace’s hands off me for years, but I’d never really considered how true the concept was.
    At my turn-off, an archway of greenery bordered the property. Around the corner of the last fence post, I collided with Annabeth.
    “Are you spying on me again?” She shoved away from me.
    “Spying? What? No, you aren’t so important that I spend all day worrying over your whereabouts, Miss Rollins. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have lessons.” The thought of her being over there in the woods with that horse’s ass made me want to rip his—
    I rushed past her, but something stopped me a few steps away. “You and that boy are going to end up in trouble. If you can’t do your courting in front of a chaperone, then you don’t need to do it at