Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Love and sex and good food and laughing. It was the perfect honeymoon. I sent Nicky pictures of pastries. He replied with all the junk food my mother was letting him eat while he stayed with her. As much as I loved our time in Paris, by the end, I was a little homesick. I missed Nicky and my mom. I missed the rest of the Sawyers, Heartstone Manor, and our cottage.
Finn had moved his things into the cottage the day before the wedding, Nicky watching with curiosity. “Do I still call you Mr. Finn after you and Mom get married?” he’d asked.
Finn had said, “You can call me whatever you want, bud.”
“Are you going to be my dad?”
“I’d like to be,” Finn had said. “Are you okay with that?”
I watched with interest to see what Nicky would say.
Nicky didn’t have to think. He nodded. “August and Thatcher said Tenn is their stepdad. But their dad’s still alive. He never comes to see them, but he’s still alive, so they could see him, you know?”
Finn had nodded. Nicky went on, “But my dad’s not alive. I can’t see him. So, is it okay if instead of stepdad, I just call you Dad?”
I’d watched a tremor go through Finn at that question. He never pushed with Nicky, but at Nicky’s request, Finn nodded and choked out, “I’d like that, Nicky. I want to be your dad if that’s okay with you.”
Nicky had thrown himself at Finn, wrapping his arms around him in a tight squeeze before he raced off shouting, “I’m going to go tell August.”
Now, after a blissful week in Paris, we were back in Sawyers Bend, turning onto the long, winding drive to Heartstone Manor, ready to settle back into our cottage and our lives together.
“I miss Nicky,” I murmured.
“Me too,” Finn said. “I think he’s going to like that cookbook I found. I just have to translate for him.” We almost pulled past the courtyard until Finn spotted a vehicle in front of the wide steps to the front door.
“Is that Cole Haywood’s car?” he asked. Before I could answer, Finn diverted, turning to park in the courtyard behind Cole Haywood’s sedan.
“This can’t be good,” Finn said under his breath as we got out of the car. Finn took my hand. “We’ll come back and get our things after we see what’s going on.”
Already climbing the steps of the house, Cole acknowledged us with a chin lift but said nothing. We followed him inside, the door already opening, Griffen looking past Cole to see us.
Griffen’s face brightened. “You’re back,” he said. “Just in time.”
“It looks like,” Finn said, looking at Cole and then back at Griffen, obviously hoping for some kind of explanation.
Griffen’s expression shifted from happy to grim, but he didn’t say anything else.
We followed Griffen and Cole through the entry and down the hall to Griffen’s office.
“What’s going on?” I asked Hope in a low voice.
She smiled up at me, baby Stella cradled in her arms. “It’s so good to see you. We missed you. And I don’t know what’s going on. Cole called and said he needed to talk to us.”
“I’ll just get this over with,” Cole announced, his tone clipped. Something about the way he held himself put me on alert. Something was wrong.
Everyone fell silent. “I have good news and bad news.”
“Start with the bad news,” Griffin said, his eyes hard.
“The bad news is that someone tried to kill Ford last night. He survived. He has some stitches and a concussion. He got lucky.”
Beside me, Finn went stiff. I leaned into him, winding my arm around his waist, trying to get my head around what Cole had said. Someone had tried to kill Ford? Why? Was it prison politics or related to the murder attempts on the rest of the family since Prentice’s death?
“He’s going to be okay?” Griffen asked.
Cole nodded, once, his movements brief and irritated. “I told you stirring things up wasn’t going to help anybody. But you couldn’t fucking listen, could you? You had to dig into things that should be left in the past. You had to go there and see him. He got lucky this time, but that’s what it was. Luck.”
Griffen and Finn shared a long look. I waited to see what Griffen would say, but he ignored Cole’s oblique accusation.
“And the good news?” Griffen asked.
“The good news is that I may have found a way to get Ford out of prison.”