HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

these parts.”
    “Around,” she said vaguely, waving her hand as if she’d appeared out of thin air.
    “Not Texas.”
    “And why not Texas?”
    “You don’t talk like you’re from Texas?”
    “And who are you?” That was her favorite pose…I was beginning to suspect…those hands pushed against her hips, elbows out like sharp little wings. “Are you some linguistics expert, familiar with how each and every single person in this state speaks?”
    “Forget I asked.” She was so difficult to get along with. “How long are you paid to be here, anyway?”
    Hadley shrugged. “Your brother paid me a retainer. I’m here until the job’s done.”
    I winced. “Retainers are for lawyers.”
    “And I’m negotiating your recovery. Now, no more dawdling. You’re getting cleaned up, Marine.”
    That startled me. I felt like even less a Marine than a rancher at this point.
    “I don’t like that,” I said, continuing my long hobble.
    “Don’t like what?”
    “Being called that.” I pushed the door open to the bedroom and flipped on the light. “A Marine, I’m not.”
    “That’s not what I heard.” Hadley looked around at the shambles my living space was in and whistled. “Though I heard Marines were a lot more disciplined than this.”
    She knew her stuff. I’d have had my ass handed to me on a platter if any of my commanding officers had seen my quarters like this, but I wasn’t in that life anymore. I didn’t know what life to take on, where I stood. I existed in a sort of limbo, caught between several different worlds, none of them quite my own.
    “This is a pretty big room,” Hadley said. “You have your own bathroom, too? How’d you swing that?”
    “This is my parents’ old room,” I explained. “Chance had been in here, being the oldest and all, but he moved into my old bedroom upstairs when I…when I came back.”
    “What was wrong with your old bedroom?” Hadley stared at me, and I recognized that question for what it was—a challenge.
    “It was upstairs.”
    “And what’s so bad about upstairs?”
    “Hard to get up there these days.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, I seem to be down a leg these days.”
    “That’s a sorry excuse, Hunter Corbin.” Hadley pushed a pile of dirty clothes from a chair and set her bag on it. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get yourself cleaned up. Then you’re going to clean this room up. Then we’re going to walk upstairs and take stock of your old room and start moving you back up there. That’s going to be our therapy session for the day.”
    “Are you sure you’re not interested in the housekeeping position?” I asked her, shucking my shirt off in disgust. “You seem awfully eager to get to sweeping and mopping and dusting.”
    “Who said anything about me doing any of that?” she retorted, her eyes drifting down my torso coolly. “You’d be surprised just how effective an exercise cleaning can be. And you need to build your strength any way you can. That’s important.”
    I looked down at myself and flushed. My body was a wasted version of itself. I remembered how strong I’d felt before boot camp, my muscles honed from hard work on the ranch, and how invincible I’d felt afterward, every ounce of fat on my body melted away through brutal workouts and training. Now though, my chest was thin, my stomach sunken, and the act of using a crutch to get around the house made my arm and remaining leg burn in protest. I was a shadow of my former self. Exactly half of what I used to be.
    “Shower,” Hadley reminded me quietly. “Come on.”
    She cleared a path to the bathroom, kicking clothes and bottles and trash out of the way before flipping on the light in there. 
    “Jesus, God almighty,” she remarked, her tone almost reverential. “Has that toilet ever seen a brush before?”
    “Women and men have different standards of cleanliness,” I tried to tell her, but she was having none of it.
    “This is unsanitary,