Making Ripples: The Rosewoods, #6

By Katrina Abbott

Since Thanksgiving, life has gotten very complicated for Brooklyn Prescott. After being whisked away from Rosewood because of a threat on her life by terrorists—the bad guys her father is working hard to eradicate—she finds herself back in London. Now she has no friends, no boyfriend and is basically under house arrest courtesy of her father. But he’s just trying to keep her safe now that the unforgiving press splashed her picture all over the tabloids after seeing her with the famous Declan, known as ‘the Dashing Duke.’ Brooklyn has gone from being on the cusp of having it all to having the life of a hermit.

Trying to make the best of things, she uses her Christmas gift from her parents—a Moleskine notebook—to start writing, and even finds an intriguing subject to write about: the strange man who sits outside her window for hours at a time. As she creates his fictional story in her room at night, she starts to discover the real one by day. But as life begins to imitate art (or is it the other way around?), Brooklyn realizes she is in way too deep with this guy.

And what about the boys she left back at Rosewood? Will she ever see them again? More importantly, will they ever be able to forgive her for what she did?

Making Ripples is the sixth installment of The Rosewoods, an exciting new Young Adult series for readers who love fun, flirty love stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Over The Cliff Publishing
• Release date: Jan 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781501467547

Katrina Abbott

A survivor of adolescence, Katrina Abbott loves writing about teens: best friends, cute boys, kissing, drama. Her main vice is romance, but she’s been known to succumb to the occasional chocolate binge. She may or may not live in California with her husband, kids and several cats. Taking the Reins is not her first book.  

Book preview

Making Ripples

The Rosewoods, Book 6

By

Katrina Abbott

––––––––

Over The Cliff Publishing, 2015

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places or events are entirely coincidental.

MAKING RIPPLES

First edition. January, 2015

Copyright © 2015 Katrina Abbott

Written by Katrina Abbott

ISBN-13: 978-1502811455

ISBN-10: 1502811456

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For all you badasses out there.

You know who you are.

Cabin Fever

Cabin fever is a real thing. I know this because my dork of a brother Robert has watched every single episode of Mythbusters and they did a show about it a few years back. I never could have known at the time that I would use this knowledge to convince my father to get me and my mom back to civilization. But whatever—I did what I needed to do, because I was going nuts.

And my mother hadn’t been faring much better, either. In fact, our secluded little ‘holiday’ in Switzerland was nowhere near as romantic as you might think. The days without modern conveniences—ones that I had previously thought of as necessities—were dragging very long, causing our nerves to wear extremely thin. I had caught up on all my schoolwork (because I had nothing better to do) had done a million Sudokus and had even started getting my mom to teach me to knit when her hands got tired of working on her own projects all day. Yes, I was that desperate.

The second we’d walked into the cottage and I’d realized just what my Dad meant by completely off the grid, I regretted not grabbing Jared’s manuscript before I’d left Rosewood. There was no telling when I’d even be able to get it back to him, so I guess it was for the best. For him, at least.

I’d tried to start a journal, but it quickly got pretty boring since I wasn’t about to write anything my mother might read, so that got abandoned early on.

Mom and I passed a good bit of time by needling at each other. I usually got along pretty well with her, but days on end with no TV or internet, along with her snoring, incessant questions about things I didn’t want to talk about and hand-wringing over whether we’d get out before Christmas, and I’d pretty much had it. Don’t get me wrong, I was no peach to live with either; I knew that. But we were not made to live in such close quarters without activities or escape and it was amazing we hadn’t killed each other.

The one upside to all this was that I had a new appreciation for those early settlers who lived in their sod huts and had nothing but each other and hard work to fill their days. Actually, at this point, hard work didn’t sound so bad.

So when Dad finally radioed us to say the immediate threat was over and that his team had infiltrated and shut down the terrorist cell that had been behind the threat I’d received on my phone back at school, we packed up our things faster than you can yodel (Swiss Alps). Dad wanted us to stay put for a while, but even Mom was willing to take the risk, so within a few hours we were on our way to Geneva where we got on a train to London.

Returning to London was half the battle. The other half was getting my parents to let me go back to the States and Rosewood. Okay, maybe getting back to London was five percent of the battle, because I knew I had the fight of a lifetime still ahead.

But I had to get back. The quiet in that cottage had given me nothing but opportunities to think about what my life had been like at Rosewood, and although things had gotten a bit crazy at times, I realized now I loved it and was desperate to go back to my friends. And, of course, Dave.

Dave. The guy who returned from his Thanksgiving weekend at home with his family to find me gone. And even worse, Emmie probably had to be the one to tell him I’d left. I felt horrible about leaving my friends the way I did. I didn’t have any choice, and I guess deep down, I’d always known having to bolt with no notice or explanation could be a possibility. That didn’t make me feel any better about it, though.

As Mom slept in the seat beside me on the train, I looked out the window at the landscape passing by, but thought about what had become my world half a planet away. My world where I’d had a boyfriend and better friends than I’d ever had before. Better friends than I ever thought I would have. And the boyfriend part? Don’t even.

I wiped away a tear as I thought about my dad and how freaked out he’d been when I’d first returned after receiving that threat. He wasn’t going to give in easily. The good news was I had over seven hours on the train to figure out my strategy.

~ ♥ ~

No. You’re not going back there.

So much for the just ask strategy.

But, Dad...

My father slammed his palm down on the table, making the cutlery and dishes hop and clatter. Mom squeaked as she startled in her chair. That's enough, young lady, Dad said through clenched teeth. You made your case, and I said no. Repeatedly. It’s too much of a security risk to have you out of the country.

But I’m no safer here, I said, reaching out my arms to indicate our new London flat. ISIS is just as much a threat here in London as it is in the States. Probably even more here.

He gave me an incredulous look. "You think I don’t know that? It’s my job to know exactly how much danger civilians are in. To calculate the potential death tolls in myriad situations, especially in populated cities like this one. It’s why you went to that school in the first place. But things have changed and I just can’t take the risk of having you so far away. Do you have any idea how much pressure we’re under?" He blew out a long breath and scrubbed his reddened face with his hands, pushing his glasses up on his head to rub at his eyes. Which was the sign that I had just pushed as much as I could. One more nudge and he would blow his stack and there would be no reasoning with him.

I glanced at my mother and she gave me a shake of her head that said: back off. It was unnecessary, but I nodded at her anyway so she would know I was done. For today.

When he was done rubbing at his eyes, he looked up at me. It seemed he wasn’t quite finished making his point. Someday, when you have kids of your own, you’ll understand why I want you close.

Great. The Someday when you have kids speech. I sighed, resigned to leave it for now because I didn’t need him to actually have the heart attack I’d told everyone at Rosewood that he’d suffered. Anyway, I still had some time; it was too late to make it back to school before the Christmas break, so I was working toward returning in the new year, which meant I had time to convince him.

What happened to you at that school?

What do you mean? I asked warily, worried he was looking into my thoughts and knew I’d been thinking about getting back to Dave and how we’d never gotten a chance to redo that kiss. The one that had started off great, but went very wrong when he’d had the allergic reaction.

You’re different now. You’ve never been this committed to your school before. He gave me a sideways glance. What are you up to there?

I frowned. Dad, you’re being paranoid. You saw my marks before I got pulled out of there. I was doing well, making friends. I finally felt like I was fitting in somewhere. I really liked it there and think it will prepare me for a good college. I hoped stating facts wasn’t going to push him over the edge, but he had asked.

It’s a very respected school, my mother said. I gave her a grateful look, which I guess must have encouraged her to continue. It certainly cost enough. And I appreciate that there are no boys there; she can concentrate on her studies and getting into a good college.

I nodded at Mom and gave Dad a very innocent look. Exactly. I feel very focused. I was keeping my grades up, so there was no reason for them to worry about panty raids and sneaking out to bonfires and those sorts of things. They didn’t have to know about Dave and the other Westwood boys who were just a fence away.

He sighed. I know you’re a good kid. I would send you back there if I could. It’s just too risky right now.

He had calmed down enough that I said, But Robert can look out for me there and he said they were beefing up the security...

Dad shook his head. He’s back at his training facility. He left the campus already. That he was even at the school was a temporary thing while things heated up here. I should have brought you home then, but I was trying to stay focused. Please understand, honey, he said, looking into my eyes, his voice going soft. I would let you go back if I could. I just couldn’t bear to lose you. I need to keep you close right now so I can keep my head in the game.

My chest ached and I feared I was losing ground. I nodded.

Just think, Mom said. You’ll get to see all your friends from last year when you go back to your old school in January.

What friends? I didn’t say out loud. Instead, I just gave Mom the best smile I could muster.

Uh... Dad said.

I didn’t like the sound of that. What?

He shook his head. You can’t go to a public school here. We’re going to have to home-school you.

Awesome. So no Rosewood, no boyfriend and now no outside contact or the chance at friends at all. For how long?

He at least looked sympathetic when he said, I don’t know. For the foreseeable future, at least.

I opened my mouth, but closed it again when I realized by the look on his face that he was done arguing.

Your mother can help with a lot of your schooling and we can get in tutors for whatever she can’t handle.

Dad’s hand landed on my arm, causing me to look up at him. I’m sorry. But we all have to make sacrifices to try to make the world a safer place.

It’s not like I could argue with that.

On My Way to the Circus

Since there wasn’t much else to do, Mom started with the homeschooling the next day. It was just a few days until Christmas, but she was so worked up about Robert not coming home for the holidays (and also trying to accept the whole thing about Robert being an agency protégé, which was as much news to her as it had been to me) she was desperate for a project. It may as well be me, she’d said.

But I needed to get out at least once a day or I was going to succumb to that cabin fever thing and murder someone, so Dad agreed I could leave the flat under some very strict conditions.

First, I had to vary my routine, which meant never going out at the same time and using different entrances and exits to our building. He said one of the reasons he’d chosen this current flat (besides it having been cleared by his agency and having a twenty-four hour security detail) was because it had several doors and a courtyard, so we could duck in and out without anyone who might be watching knowing exactly where we were going.

He also said I had to stay within a ten block radius. And the most important part, I had to not look like me.

That meant I’d gotten a haircut and color, courtesy of my mother (read: hack job on my now blond hair) and wore a ton of makeup and different clothes when I went out. I doubted even Robert would have recognized me if he’d seen me on the street. That thought made me feel sad about him not coming home for Christmas—it would be our first one apart and as much as we gave each other a hard time, he was still my big brother and I loved him.

I just hoped he hadn’t run roughshod over any hearts back at Rosewood. Emmie had seemed kind of interested, but if I had to guess, it would have been Chelly who got her claws into him. I smiled as I jogged down the stairwell, eager to get outside and into some fresh air, thinking about my boisterous friend. God, I missed all the girls. Maybe I’d ask Dad if I could somehow send them messages on Christmas.

I came out of the building into the dreary drizzle that was London in December, knowing sunshine was too much to hope for. But it was still outside and it wasn’t an isolated cabin in Switzerland, so I wasn’t about to complain.

I walked down the block toward today’s Starbucks (because I had to alternate shops, as per Dad’s conditions; luckily there were several coffee shops in my ten block radius) and wondered what my friends were doing back at Rosewood. Then I remembered it was so close to Christmas that most of them would be gone off campus. Chelly and Celia would have left for their respective homes. Emmie was stuck at the school, but she’d probably be happy to have our dorm room to herself and quiet time alone to work on her e-commerce site. Having practically the whole school to herself sounded kind of fun, albeit maybe a bit lonely. Though based on what she’d told me of her family, she’d be happy not to spend the holidays with them.

Kaylee was probably somewhere here in London with Declan, the thought of which made me itchy to get a hold of him so I could meet up with them. Dad would lose his mind if I made that happen, so I dismissed that idea pretty quickly. Even though Declan now knew about my family since I’d traveled with him on his plane, Kaylee didn’t and the fewer people who knew, the better. Plus, more contact with Declan could put him at risk and that was the last thing I wanted.

Dave had told me way back when that he was spending most of the holiday at home except for Christmas, which he’d spend with his grandparents in Manhattan; a big family tradition for the Davidsons. He’d almost hinted at me coming with him, but since we hadn’t even established that we were a couple then, I’d played dumb and didn’t bite.

But as I thought of him wondering what was going on with me and worrying that I’d fallen off the planet since leaving while he was away, I felt incredibly guilty and desperately wanted to check in with him. Finding a computer to use would be easy enough, but staying off the grid wouldn’t. I’d have to make up an e-mail address and yet identify myself in it and if his account was being watched, I may as well pin a target to my back. Or worse: his.

I sighed at this and ducked into Starbucks, ordered and waited for my latte (almost forgetting when they called out Angie that it was the name I’d given them) and continued down the street. I weaved my way through the busy throng of people toward Piccadilly Circus, my destination for today. It was one of my favorite places because I could sit on the fountain steps and people-watch. It was always busy with people: tourists taking pictures, business people grabbing lunch, kids like me just hanging out.

As I walked, my legs feeling good at the exercise, I allowed myself to think of one more person I’d left behind at Rosewood. I usually didn’t let myself think about Brady, because when