His Muted Mate

Chapter One

One Moment

Life is made up of moments. Good moments and bad. Moments that last years and moments that pass in the blink of an eye. The short moments, the ones that were over before you registered that they'd begun, they could tear the ground out from beneath your feet and leave you falling, gasping to right yourself and force the air to return to your lungs.

You could spend the rest of your life trying to recover, trying to go back, to understand the exact details of what had happened. It wouldn't change anything though, those kinds of moments leave scars, permanent ones that buried themselves beneath your skin and flesh, imprinting upon your heart.

The moment the tore my parents away from my siblings and me was among these life changing moments and it had left enough physical and emotional damage to last us a life time. The physical damaged healed first, most of it anyways.

We were having a family dinner and had gone out. Mom, Dad, Brian, Grace and I, all piled into the car. One second, I was singing to the radio, then a bright light followed by darkness. A truck hit our car, crushing the front corner and most of the right side of the car on impact. Our car was sent off the side of the road, rolling right through the guardrail that separated the road from the short but steep cliff on the other side.

Grace had shattered a leg. It took bone grafts and over a year of physical therapy for her to walk again. Brain had gotten concussed and spent the following two months in a coma. I had been on the wrong side of the vehicle when we got hit. When I woke after the crash all I could feel was a horrible burning in my throat. I never got my voice back.

One moment had taking a happy family and left three freshly orphaned children.

"Kayla," Brain called, rousing me from my sleep-like state. "We're here."

I rubbed my eyes, shifting in my seat to look out the car window. Trees. Lots of trees. A private driveway. A minute after turning onto the driveway and I could see the house. It was strange to build a house in the woods, though the house itself was beautiful. Victorian-influenced architecture, nothing like the cookie-cutter houses I was used to.

"It's big," Grace commented from the front seat, pulling out her earbuds.

Brain shrugged. "I know it's only three of us but everything else was in the middle of town."

"Whatever," Grace replied coldly. "The bigger the house, the less we have to see each other." She returned the earbuds to her ears and hopped out of the car, grabbing her pink and black suitcase and going up to the front door.

Brian grimaced. I patted his shoulder in comfort. Grace didn't want to move and Brian wouldn't tell her why we had to. He thought it was better for her to hate him instead of me. I didn't with the last part, but my sister didn't need to know the details of the situation either.

"Do you like it?" he asked, turning to look at me.

I forced a smile. It was big. Far too big for the three of us, but our privacy was worth it. And money wasn't an issue. Brian tells me that our parents had been lawyers, successful ones. Between that and the insurance money I preferred not to think about... 'It's nice,' I answered. It's extravagant.

"This will be good for us," Brain said, more to himself than me. "A fresh start." A start that we most definitely needed. He was definitely speaking to me when he said, "Come on, I've already got the rooms set up."

We got out, grabbing our bags from the trunk and going to join Grace at the front door. Brain pulled out the house key and unlocked it. Grace took off immediately, not waiting for Brian to direct her to her room. I set my suitcase down so I could sign.