Read Jarod's Heart (King Brothers Stories #2) for Free Online

accompany any overnight guests. Her townhouse wasn’t huge, but it was hers and she loved it.
    She stripped out of her work clothes, noting that the white silk blouse would need to be dropped off at the cleaners. She put on some fleece yoga pants and a long-sleeved thermal top. She reached into her drawer and grabbed the fluffiest pair of spa socks she owned. Once she had her feet properly ensconced, she padded back downstairs to the kitchen.
    As was her normal routine, she opened the freezer and withdrew a low-calorie frozen dinner. She pealed back the plastic wrap on one corner to make a vent, placed the cardboard tray in the microwave, and hit the number six on the panel. Her dinner would be ready in six minutes.
    She jumped when the phone rang.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey, it’s me,” Julie said on the other end. “Just making sure you made it home safe. It’s really nasty out there.”
    “I skated into the garage about ten minutes ago. Weren’t you out at Jason’s job site with Cafe Armstrong today?”
    Lauren was referring to her friend’s business. Julie was an amazing chef, but she’d purchased her small food truck in order to earn enough money to survive when her parents had died, and she’d been granted legal guardianship over Charlie, her little brother.
    “Yes, but Jason made me drive it back to the estate right after lunch. He wouldn’t even let me clean up first. He insisted on following me all the way home, too.” Lauren could hear the happy exasperation in Julie’s voice before she asked, “Isn’t that sweet?”
    Lauren giggled, “Yes, it is, honey. Jason is the best thing that’s happened to you.”
    “He really, really is.” Julie’s pause was in reverence, Lauren knew. Her friend had had a tough five years on her own raising her amazing brother, but ever since Julie had let Jason into her life, she was smiling and happy again. “How was everything today?”
    Lauren launched into the day’s events, beginning with the stupid flat tire that had made her late for work and soaked her to the bone.
    “After Jarod found the little boy, he called me on my cell phone,” she explained.
    Julie gasped, “So the vow of silence is broken?”
    Lauren laughed, “Yes! And quit laughing, you traitor!”
    She paused, thinking about how despondent Jarod had sounded. “I’ve never heard him so upset, at least not since Miranda skipped out on him.”
    “Why?”
    “I guess the home was in pretty bad shape, and it was obvious to Jarod that the kid had been neglected for a long time.”
    “What happened to the parents?” Julie growled.
    Since Julie had stepped up to take care of her brother at a young age, it was incomprehensible to her that some people neglected their own children.
    Lauren understood her feelings all too well.
    “The usual. Both Avery and Luanne are in jail, and the little boy is in foster care.” Lauren shook her head at the stupidity of it. Some people didn’t deserve children. “I’m so glad you were able to keep Charlie. I can’t imagine how he would’ve turned out if he’d gone into the system.”
    “Or how I would’ve turned out if I’d lost my brother and my parents at the same time.”
    “Good point,” Lauren agreed.
    “The best thing that came out of that situation was how close Charlie became to Jason and Josh. Heck, even Jarod helped, and that was about the same time that Miranda walked out on him,” Julie said.
    “Gosh, you’re right. Sometimes I forget that everything happened in the same year—your parents’ death, you dropping out of college to care for Charlie, and then Miranda, that cow, broke Jarod’s heart.” Lauren was angry all over again. “I never liked that woman.”
    “Me either,” Julie agreed.
    After another twenty minutes of Miranda-bashing, Lauren finished her pow-wow with Julie and hung up the phone.
     

 
     
     

     
     
    V isions of the little boy’s room and the stench of its filth plagued Jarod all night. He kept envisioning