Fearless, Abby Brooks [leveled readers .txt] 📗

The passenger door flew open and a woman tumbled out. “Are you flippin’ flappin’ crazy?” she yelped, waving her arms like she thought she could fly. Her long, ruffled skirt fluttered in the wind, then clung to her ankles, weighted by the rain.

“Me? You think I’m the crazy one here?” I was the one who ran into the road, directly into their path, but details like that didn’t matter with a crazy person stomping toward you. “Why weren’t you watching where you were going?”

“Oh, we were watching! We watched ourselves right off the road, thank you very much. You’re the one who needed to be paying more attention, mister.” An aggressive finger speared my chest, nearly striking the trembling kitten.

Morgan eyed the animal tucked into my coat and huffed his agreement with the woman.

Traitor.

The driver’s door creaked open and a smaller, quieter woman strode my way. Blonde hair. Blonder than her friend’s. So pale it almost didn’t have a color. Strong eyes. Strong cheeks. Soft lips. Where her friend wore her personality like a badge of honor, this woman could be anything. Anyone. She’d blend into any crowd and no one would question if she belonged.

And yet…

There was more to her. I was sure of it. It hid in her eyes, begging to be acknowledged.

I see you. The thought jumped into my brain and almost straight out my lips. I clamped them shut and glared instead.

Rain plastered her hair to her face, and she swiped it away. “Are you okay?” she asked in a velvet voice. Rich. Soft. Luxurious. It sent chills down my spine and I tried to distill the sound so I could write about it later.

And just like that, the writer’s block lifted. In one glorious instant, I could see everything I’d been missing. The invisible plot hole I’d been tripping over. The backstory I hadn’t been able to unwind. For the first time in weeks, my muse started whispering, and there I was, clutching a kitten in the rain with no way to record any of it.

“We’re good. You?” I needed to get home, pronto, before the inspiration faded. I took a step in that direction as the woman in the namaste shirt kneeled in front of Morgan. Her bracelets jangled while she rubbed his head, cooing sweet nothings his way. His eyes slipped closed and his tongue popped out in what could only be, “Hell, yes I am a good boy.”

The patter of the rain increased, drawing straight lines through the glow of the headlights. Thunder rolled in the distance. Lightening flashed. And the five of us stood awkwardly in the middle of the road as fragments of music dripped out of their car.

Liam McGuire? Collin West? Something poppy, but deep…

“What sent him into the road?” Madame Namaste asked as she straightened.

The call of my laptop had my feet in motion. Something told me I’d be stuck in the rain forever if Namaste saw the kitten, so I shifted my coat to cover his trembling body even more. “No freaking clue and at this point it really doesn’t matter. I’m just glad no one’s hurt.”

“I guess that means it’s destiny, then.” She glanced at her friend, an extreme amount of glee dancing through her smile. “It is awfully unusual for a dog to run into the road for no reason at all.”

It wasn’t. At least not when it came to Morgan. The brute was distracted the day they handed out attention spans.

With a roll of her eyes, the driver turned her attention to me. “Can we at least give you a ride? We don’t exactly know where we’re going but getting you out of the rain is the least we could do after almost killing you.”

She was small. Not in stature, but in personality. Her voice was quiet, her gestures contained, but purposefully so. Like she’d plopped herself in a box and said, “You shall not be bigger than this for any reason whatsoever.” She reminded me of a houseplant trapped in a pot it’d outgrown, begging for space to stretch and grow.

She was mesmerizing. Sopping wet. And waiting for a response.

“It’s all good. Home’s close.” Not as close as I’d like, given the weather, but I didn’t want wet dog all over the interior of her car.

Fucking hell. I was so full of shit, even my thoughts were covered in the stuff.

Turning her down had nothing to do with wet Master Morgan dripping all over her backseat.

This woman intrigued me. With her wide eyes and wet t-shirt, she had my mind traveling down paths I didn’t have time or energy to explore. If my muse was finally talking to me again, the last thing I wanted was distraction. This woman? She had “distraction” written all over her. I could feel it with every roll of thunder in the background.

I was on a deadline.

Twenty-thousand words behind schedule before I wasted an hour and a half of writing time on my walk.

And that—not anything to do with wet dog—was the reason Morgan and I would be slogging home through the rain. If my muse decided to focus on a stranger I’d never see again instead of the first glimpses of inspiration I’d had in weeks, I was fucking done for. I needed out of her presence sooner rather than later or my agent, my editor, my publisher, and thousands of angry readers would be up my ass so fast I’d forget my name.

The women reluctantly climbed into their car while Morgan and I started home. “Now what are we going to call you?” I asked the kitten purring against my chest. He lifted his brilliant green eyes to mine and mewed. “Larry it is then.”

Morgan huffed his disapproval as taillights disappeared down the road, my inspiration evaporating as the car blinked out of view. I choked back a slew of curse words and comforted myself with the fact that I wouldn’t see that particular dynamic duo again.

Chapter Three

Evie

A sopping-wet Amelia pretended to hand