Read Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance) for Free Online Page B

like. There's a girl or two in every port (every job, really) but I've never had a steady girlfriend, woken up next to the same person more than three or four times in a row.
    You know, I could get used to a place like this.
    Persistence is a weird name for a town. I don't know why you'd need to be persistent to live here, it's amazing. Cherry trees line the main street, and the oppressive shadows of skyscrapers are nowhere to be seen. Everything is so bright and open and airy, and even with traffic the air smells sweat and clean, not heavy and stale. Most of the work is in cities. I've spent most of my life sleeping in seedy motels.
    Like I said, this is a special job. No motel this time. We're renting a house. It's about a six block walk from the main drag to the new place, and I enjoy it, breathing in the warm breeze as it kicks up. It gets hot here in the day, and humid, but something about it isn't so bad as the sticky, smelly cling of city air. I could get used to it.
    The house we've rented is a three story Arts and Crafts style, built in 1920. It's a big box with a pitched roof sitting on top, and an attic equal in square footage to an entire floor. Living and sitting room and a dining room on the first floor (what the difference is between a living and sitting room, I have no idea) bedrooms on the second floor. It's a nice place.
    I could get used to this.
    The fence swings open and I walk around to the back yard. All of these houses have off street parking, meaning you go around the back. This one has a gravel driveway, gated off from the road, that rolls up to a detached garage. I look around for my father when I heard a whispering sound and spot a four foot long length of wood come sailing at me.
    I snatch the bokken from the air. It's a sword-sized bundle of wooden lathes bound together with sinew in the shape of a blade. A moment after I catch the sword another one comes singing at my head, the sound of its passing loud and heavy with the skull-cracking threat of a solid hit on my head. I duck out of the way clumsily, almost tripping, and barely get the 'blade' of my own up in time to deflect the next hit.
    From then it's a dance. Dad swings, and I finally remember to use the forms I've been studying ever since he took me in after Mom died. The blades go clack clack clack until my hands are sore from taking the ringing impacts of his hits. I never attack, only defend. It's all I can do to keep his strikes off me, much less find an opening of my own. He's been practicing since before I was born. He claims he learned it in Japan. All I know is he's good.
    When I think he's about to give me a break he comes at me even harder and I have to awkwardly turn my sword-stick, point down and my wrist at a funny angle, to guard a blow that would probably crack one of my ribs. My grip isn't sure and the whole thing twists out of my hands and then I'm on my knees with the tip of his blade inches from my nose.
    He offers me a hand.
    "You let your guard down."
    "Yeah," I pant, suddenly aware of how freaking tired I am. I bend to pick up the dropped bokken.
    "You groan like an old man."
    "Sorry."
    "Never relax until it's over. Keep your head in the moment. What have I been trying to teach you?"
    "Mindfulness."
    "That's right. You must live completely in the present moment. People make mistakes, they do things they don't intend to do, because they let their own thoughts distract them. You were thinking about something else."
    It's not a statement. He just knows.
    "Yeah."
    He leans his weapon on his shoulder. "You met the girl?"
    The two are connected, and he knows it.
    "Yes. Just a quick feeler, like we usually do."
    "First impressions?"
    "Smart, bold, good looking and doesn't know it."
    From his expression I may as well have just read him the weather report.
    He sits on the back steps and finally looks winded. "Remember, this is a job. When it's over we're leaving. Don't let yourself get too attached. I know how you are."
    I've