Home is Where the Heart Is (Home #1)

by Cheynee Filkov

  CHAPTER 5

  ISABELLE

  She pressed her fingers to her lips still tingling from almost touching Jace’s. She had no idea what had come over her in that moment. She wasn’t shopping for a boyfriend or looking to get tangled up in another potential disaster but she didn’t seem to have her usual iron clad control when he was around her. All she had really wanted to do was thank him for being so open and understanding but somehow words doesn’t didn’t seem to be enough and her body had taken over.

  She leant against the cool wooden door, her breathing unsteady.

  “You’re home early.”

  Isabelle jumped at her Dad’s voice.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said as he approached, his hands held up in a placating way.

  “It’s fine,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “You didn’t need to wait up though.”

  He smiled at her proudly. “You’re my little girl. No matter how old you get, I’m going to wait up to make sure you’re home safe.”

  Love burst through her body and she surged forward to wrap her arms around her Dad - just like she used to when she was little.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  He held her close and stroked her hair. “Everything OK?”

  No. Not at all, and they both knew it.

  “Its fine,” she told him with a bright smile. “I’m just going to head off to bed.”

  His eyes scrutinised her face for a moment. “Is that a red mark on your cheek?”

  Shit. Kimberley’s hit hadn’t yet bruised but must be visible enough to arouse suspicion.

  “It’s a blush,” she said quickly. “Jace walked me to my door like they do in the movies and my cheeks just flared up.”

  After a brief pause he patted her shoulder. “I’m here if you ever need to talk. You know that, right?”

  He was really saying, please talk to me about Tate and your sudden mood swings, please let me try and help you.

  She smiled at her father tightly. “I know.”

  She walked away with tears in her eyes. No matter how much she loved her Dad, there were just some things she couldn’t tell him. Ever.

  She trudged up the stairs with a heavy heart, her father’s eyes burning into the back of her skull.

  As she moved into her room and let her body fall limply on the bed, she looked over to her balcony doors thinking of Jace. She had no idea what exactly she felt for him, there didn’t seem to be one exact emotion to cover it. Obviously there was an attraction there because she was a little damaged – not blind. But that attraction came with weariness because she had come to learn that pretty faces weren’t always to be trusted.

  God, now she was obsessing about this guy she barely knew and acting like a total head case as she fought against the pull she felt for him.

  She paced backwards and forwards trying to burn off the sudden energy surging through her body. She was not going to fall in love with him, she decided with a firm resolve. Crazy cat ladies weren’t as taboo these days and she was willing to take some sewing classes so she could make the critters little outfits. She definitely had the crazy part down already.

  Sighing deeply she cracked her knuckles unconsciously, trying to relieve some tension from her body. Why was she even so worked up about this? It was a mere flirtation she had romanticised out of proportion and it was going to end tonight. She was going to shower off his lingering smell then keep her distance - at least emotionally.

  After a few more minutes pacing her room and pulling some pyjama shorts over her legs, she settled herself in bed, telling herself over and over again that Jace meant nothing to her.

  She repeated the words like a mantra, working to convince herself it was the only way she ever had a chance of recovering… yet she could not bring herself to shower.

  And she slept wrapped in his jacket.

  *

  The next morning came too soon, beginning with the incessant ringing of her phone.

  Tate was calling her again? It must be Sunday.

  As she blindly felt around for her phone under the pillow, she was overcome with the sense of being watched, the hair rising on her skin.

  Whipping around, her eyes wide, she found a smiling Maia sitting on the bean bag on the floor.

  “You’re pretty popular; your phone’s rung six times since I’ve been here.”

  Isabelle clung to the sheets, her mind working to process everything that was happening.

  “What? How long have you been here?” she managed to ask as she pulled the crust from her eye lashes.

  “Twenty minutes or so,” Maia replied casually.

  Isabelle’s eyes widened. “And you didn’t think to wake me?”

  “I’m trying to work on boundaries - interrupting your sleep and shaking you awake seemed a bit early for our friendship.”

  Isabelle threw her hands over her face as she lay back down, completely flabbergasted.

  “And watching someone you barely know sleep for twenty minutes is so much less intrusive?” she said sarcastically.

  Maia clearly didn’t get it, instead she looked thrilled. “Exactly! Jace told me I was over stepping but I knew you’d understand.”

  Having never had any siblings, Isabelle had no idea if this kind of behaviour was normal or if she was completely justified in being pissed off and slightly uncomfortable.

  When she finally talked herself down enough to look over at Maia she found her smirking.

  “What now?” Isabelle groaned.

  “Not a morning person, huh? No wonder you and Jace get along. Speaking of, cute jacket you got there.”

  Isabelle closed her eyes, mortified. She had completely forgotten she had slept in Jace’s jacket, comforted by the distinct boy smell it carried, and secretly thrilled that she had some of his scent on her skin now too.

  So much for taking a step back.

  Hastily pulling the jacket off her she held it out to Maia like it was a bomb. Considering the irrational attachment she was forming with it, it may as well have been.

  “You can take it back to Jace on your way home,” she told Maia brusquely.

  Maia took a step away from her. “First of all, I’m not leaving any time soon so you should just accept that and move on. Secondly, you can give it back to him yourself; I’m not going to be the messenger.”

  Isabelle froze, jacket still in hand as she imagined seeing Jace again. Her heart sped up, which was completely ridiculous, then her palms started to sweat and her lips tingled.

  Clearly she was getting sick, it was the only explanation.

  She was thrown out of her head by her phone buzzing again. She used to love how persistent and driven Tate was, but now it was getting beyond a joke.

  A beautiful slender wrist moved past Isabelle, pulling her phone out from the pillow and drawing back before she even knew what was happening.

  “Hello ‘Tate love heart’, how can I help you?” Maia asked cheerfully.

  Isabelle nearly died, watching in morbid fascination when Maia’s eyebrows drew together and she turned away, walking a few paces.

  “Maia, I’m her new neighbour. Don’t worry; we’re taking good care of your girl.”

  Another pause.

  “She’s doing great, a little sad maybe but I can only assume that’s from missing you guys.”

  Please let this be a dream. Or a hallucination. Hell, she’d even take a drug induced coma at this point.

  Maia spun around suddenly, her eyes blazing as she stared at Isabelle. “I see, well she has been super busy settling in…no, I can see where you’re coming from…right. Well, I don’t really know what to say except it was nice sort of meeting you and I’ll let Isabelle know you called. Yep, will do, bye.”

  Silently Maia pressed end and then handed Isabelle back her phone. She took it wordlessly as she tried to go into damage control. Her past was not meant to blend at all with this new life she wanted to build for herself, she needed to find a way to justify everything
Tate had just said… even though she wasn’t entirely sure what they had talked about.

  “Stop before you hurt yourself,” Maia told her kindly, settling herself next to Isabelle on the bed.

  “I’m sorry?” Isabelle blurted.

  She really had to learn to pay better attention.

  “You’re trying to come up with an excuse, right? Jace has the same look when he gets home late and Mum catches him. I can assume that since you’re ‘pig headedly ignoring your best friend in the whole world’ - those were his words by the way, not mine, that you’ve got something going on and it’s more than just a disagreement.”

  She felt too exposed having Maia name exactly what was going on. What was it with the Scown twins and seeing into a person’s soul? No one had ever taken such an interest in her before in her old town… except for Tate of course. And look where that got him.

  “He didn’t do anything wrong,” Isabelle blurted, feeling like it was the only point that mattered.

  Maia nodded. “So, you did something and can’t handle someone so close to you knowing?”

  Damn, she was good.

  “How do you do that?” Isabelle asked in wonder.

  Maia shrugged. “My brother has a myriad of issues that he works to conceal from me, but I’ve learnt all the tricks.”

  “I don’t want to get into it,” Isabelle said a little more firmly than she meant to, knowing that Maia was only trying to be a friend.

  Emotional intimacy it seemed, was a trigger for her bitchiness.

  Maia shrugged, completely nonplussed. “I never asked you to, I just came over to see how you’re feeling after last night.”

  Isabelle smiled softly. “Jace said you’d be over to interrogate me.”

  Maia grunted in frustration. “Jace would be wrong. If I were interrogating you I would be demanding answers and not just asking.”

  Isabelle flinched; she was in no shape for a question and answer session. Thankfully, it seemed that Maia understood because her face softened and she leant against Isabelle in a casual display of support.

  “So, you met Kimberley,” Maia said carefully.

  “What delightful taste in women Jace has.”

  Maia chuckled. “She wasn’t always so bad; I mean she was always a bit unstable but never to that extent.”

  “Were they serious?”

  Isabelle hated herself for asking, but she had to know.

  “I don’t really know how to answer that,” Maia said in a sigh. “It’s not an easy answer with those two. They’ve been on and off for the last two years and they went through a lot of bad stuff together which I guess bonded them. But they didn’t have a relationship built on love, trust and loyalty. So I guess it was serious, but in all the wrong ways.”

  “Wow, thank you,” Isabelle said gratefully, feeling oddly out of sorts with how candid everyone seemed to be in this place.

  “For what?”

  “Being so honest with me when you didn’t have to.”

  Maia rested a hand on Isabelle’s arm. “I’m not being nice.”

  Isabelle eyed her warily, not sure where this conversation was going.

  “What do you mean?”

  Maia rose from the bed, strolled over to the balcony doors and threw open the drapes, just staring out across at the adjacent balcony.

  “I love my brother,” she said finally. “More than words could ever say, and I want him to be happy. He’s had a hard life. Our father, he wasn’t… well, he just wasn’t any sort of nice to Jace.”

  Isabelle shuffled back, hoping it would give her some distance from this conversation but knowing it was futile.

  Maia turned to her, those beautiful eyes sad.

  “I know you probably don’t want to hear all this but I need you to. I need you to understand that Jace deserves the best and never gets it. He is worthy of so much love even if he’s convinced himself otherwise and I will do anything to help him get that.”

  “I don’t know how that involves me,” Isabelle said slowly.

  “I don’t know that it does yet,” Maia admitted. “But there’s no denying that he’s drawn to you in ways I didn’t even know he was capable of, and for that reason you terrify me.”

  Isabelle curled her arms around her body. “Me?”

  “Yes,” Maia sighed. “You have the potential to completely destroy him. I can see it in the way he stares at you and I would never try to turn you away when you could possibly save him from himself. I just want to ask, no beg you really, to please don’t hurt him if you can help it.”

  She felt like she’d been slapped. Never in her life had she felt so guilty for something she hadn’t even done, or angry at the assumption.

  She opened her mouth to retort that she was broken and perhaps her brother best stay away so she doesn’t get ruined completely, but Maia beat her to it, wrapping skinny arms around her neck.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t want to upset you but I just can’t lose him, I won’t.”

  Isabelle hesitantly put her arms around Maia, her anger fading as she realised it wasn’t anything personal. This was just a sister who had seen her brother go through hell and wasn’t sure she could watch idly anymore.

  Maia had nothing to worry about though. Isabelle wasn’t entirely sure she would ever get over her aversion to male touch and she liked Jace enough to want to spare him from her issues.

  “You have nothing to worry about when it comes to me,” she told Maia flatly.

  Something in her voice must have startled Maia, because she pulled away and gazed into Isabelle’s eyes, a slow horror spreading across her face.

  “I shouldn’t have said anything,” Maia whispered, her cheeks pink with shame.

  Isabelle shook her head, trying to keep it casual and shift the conversation forward before she did something stupid, like tell Maia her own sorry little tale.

  “Have I been blacklisted by the whole school yet?”

  Maia looked like she wanted to say more but then changed her mind and plastered a smile on her face.

  “You definitely made an impression, but if anything you’ve just made everyone even more determined to get to know you and have you around. Especially the guys, you caused quite a stir!”

  Isabelle felt a blush creeping on her cheeks. That was almost as bad as being blacklisted; she hated attention.

  “And your little showdown with Kimberley ended in your favour. Once you left, Ben actually got mad and he never gets mad! He told her that she better leave before he decided to take out the trash. People actually cheered!”

  Isabelle felt a stab in her heart. She didn’t love getting punched in the face by some girl she’d never met or done anything to, but she hated the idea that she was the cause of humiliation and pain for someone who just didn’t know how to let go of the one they loved.

  “I don’t want that to happen again,” Isabelle said quietly.

  “Trust me, she will never get close enough to touch you again, I promise you,” Maia swore.

  “No,” Isabelle said louder this time. “For people to yell and humiliate her like that, I don’t want that to happen again, ok?”

  Maia stared at her, her mouth actually opened slightly. She was looking at Isabelle like she was from a different planet.

  Isabelle looked away quickly, feeling uncomfortable under that stunning gaze.

  “I was wrong,” Maia finally said.

  Isabelle looked up then. “About what?”

  “You could never hurt anyone,” she said firmly sliding off the bed and pulling Isabelle with her. “Now enough of this - go and have a shower coz we’re going out.”

  Isabelle felt exhausted already.

  “Where to now?” she whined.

  Maia smiled indulgently. “The faster you get ready, the faster you’ll know.”

  Isabelle made no effort to hide her groan as she trudged to her bathroom, shutting the door not so gently behind her.

  All she really felt like doing was curling up in a ball, wat
ching ridiculously cheesy chick flicks and stuffing her face with excess amounts of calories. She yanked her shorts off, stepped out of her swimmer bottoms and then tossed her bikini over her head, dropping them messily on the floor.

  She glanced at the mirror and flinched a little at her face. There was a new purplish bruise on her left cheek, joining the party with all the other fading bruises. Probably not a good sign that her first night out since the incident and she got smacked again. Seriously, what was it about her that made people want to hurt her?

  Forcing herself away from the mirror she started the shower, stepped into the hot jets of water then slid down the wall resting her head on her knees as the water ran all over her body. She was so beyond exhausted she honestly had no idea how she even got up lately. Hell, even consciousness seemed like the greatest effort in the world.

  Loud banging on the door had her jump so high she felt like she may have bruised her tail bone when she settled back down.

  “You’re wasting the day,” Maia called impatiently. “Two minutes and then I want you out.”

  “You’re so annoying,” Isabelle snapped before she could stop herself.

  Luckily Maia didn’t seem to mind and instead pounded on the door twice more to emphasize her point.

  Isabelle covered her face with her hands and sighed deeply from the pit of her stomach.

  Thank God she was an only child.

  *

  As it turned out, the mystery location Maia had chosen was actually a shopping centre, most likely the only good one in the small town as it was absolutely packed.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Maia asked, her face alight with excitement.

  Honestly? She wasn’t the biggest fan of shopping and hated crowds, especially with a battered face, but Maia was trying to make her feel welcome and the gesture itself made it worth braving the pitying glances.

  “It’s great,” Isabelle said with a smile, praying it looked convincing.

  Maia rolled her eyes. “You are the worst liar ever; remind me to play against you in poker. I know it just looks like a dumb mall but I figured we could go shopping for a perfect back to school outfit, and I brought back up.”

  Isabelle’s heart sped up. Please don’t be Jace. Please don’t be Jace.