Tongue Tied by Cassie Mint EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Cassie Mint
- Language: English
- Genre: Two-Hour Romance Short Reads
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Eden
One month ago
The walk to the greenhouse is cold. All across campus, the wind howls
and rattles the college windows. It’s that time of year when winter grapples
with spring, and either season could come up victorious for the next week:
choppy steel-gray waves headbutt the shore in the distance, while new
blossom buds cling to tree branches, shivering too hard to open yet.
The sunshine is pale and watery. Bundled up in all my winter layers, my
breath mists against my scarf where it pillows my chin, and my fingers are
toasty-warm inside gloves. My boots thud across campus, along the coast path,
and up the stone steps to where the greenhouse glass dome perches on the cliff
side.
By halfway up the stone steps, I’m sweating, tugging my scarf loose and
carrying it instead. When I reach the top, the wind blows clean through my
clothes and I’m frozen again, my sweat chilled against my skin.
Shading my eyes against the bright sunshine, I turn in a slow circle, taking
in the view. Long grass ripples across the clifftop, combed by the wind, while
out at sea the waves foam at the mouth. Sunlight glints on the water, and
seabirds screech as they play on air currents high above, while the town of
Kephart spreads down below, spooning the college campus.
It’s all so small down there—like a model town. I moved here from my
identi-kit suburb two years ago, and every day this small town makes my heart
thump faster.
But no sight hitches my breath like the Kephart greenhouse. Looming
above the town on the clifftop, its glass walls sparkle in the sunshine, and
there’s a whole miniature rainforest shadowed inside.
I’m early. Of course I am. Two whole years, I’ve waited for my placement in
this greenhouse, and today is my first day. As a Botany major… this is it. The
promised land.
Tugging my gloves off with my teeth, I stuff them in my jacket pockets as I
wander to the entrance. The heavy glass door is closed, but when I tug on the
handle it swings open with a sigh of hot air.
Inside, through heavy strips of dangling plastic, it’s another planet. A
stream trickles somewhere nearby, hidden for the moment by the tangle of
foliage. Everything is bigger in here: the trees stretching up toward the clouds,
visible through the glass ceiling; the waxy green leaves, some the size of small
canoes; the flowers; the jewel-toned butterflies that flit from plant to plant. It’s
hot and humid, and birds chatter up in the canopy.
“Hello?” The door swings shut behind me. Shrugging my backpack off, I
stuff it with my scarf while peering through the tropical plants. “Is anyone
here?”
The door was open, but should I not have come in? This greenhouse is the
college’s masterpiece, after all, and they don’t even let tourists in, even though
selling tickets could make a fortune. It’s all about the science here, science and
conservation, and no one is allowed in the greenhouse without an invitation
and a supervisor
For More Read Download This Book
EPUB