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)
Finn was chopping something when I got there. His green eyes flicked to me, then to the covered plate on the table beside an insulated carafe of coffee. I braced for him to say something. Anything.
He turned his attention back to the cutting board, and I sat, nonplussed. He wasn’t going to say anything? Not a sarcastic comment? No lascivious offer? He was just going to stand there and chop?
My stomach rumbled again. What was wrong with me? It had to be PMS. Finn wasn’t talking. Finn was working and staying out of my way. Wasn’t that what I wanted? Then why was I so annoyed?
Because this was Finn, and if I was being honest with myself, I’d never been rational when it came to Finn.
Letting out a sigh of defeat, I lifted the cover on my plate and drew in a long breath. Heaven. The waffle was perfection, golden brown, crispy on the first bite, steamy and tender in the middle. Perfectly sliced fruit, one scrambled egg, and a single square of chocolate.
I eyed that chocolate with suspicion. What did it mean? No one upstairs had chocolate. Was he making a sly comment about the night before? Was he just being nice?
Stop it! I ordered myself. It’s a piece of chocolate. Eat it. Don’t obsess over it.
Easier said than done, but I did my best. Pulling out my phone, I ate as I reviewed my to-do list for the day.
- Coordinate with April on the guest bath.
- Set a time to meet with Tenn and Scarlett about the wedding.
- Find more Halloween decorations.
- Get Parker a list of contractors qualified to work in the Manor.
- Assess the next target in the guest wing.
The list went on and on. The bulk of my day was spent rushing all over the Manor, just keeping the place running. A house like Heartstone should have had a full staff, but with Prentice’s killer still out there and multiple murder attempts on more than one Sawyer, security was tight. Very tight. So tight the staff comprised me, Kitty and April, Billy Bob, Hawk, and now Finn.
Hawk was both head of security and our groundskeeper. He had his own staff of security rotating through the estate. Finn seemed to have food handled, so at least I didn’t have that back on my plate. Billy Bob, brothers so joined at the hip they shared a name, were assigned to Parker and her renovation projects.
With only Kitty and April to clean the vast Manor, I ended up picking up the slack. Most of my long-term projects, like the guest wing bedrooms and collecting the historical documents scattered around the house, ended up put off in favor of the endless loads of laundry, ironing, vacuuming, polishing, and everything else it took to keep Heartstone going.
One day we’d be able to hire more staff, and I could dig into the fun stuff. For now . . . I scanned the list again. Today I was going to hit the guest wing and try to corral Tenn and Scarlett into a meeting on the wedding.
Everything else could wait. I knew both Scarlett and Tenn thought Christmas Eve was ages away, but not in the world of wedding planning, even for an intimate family wedding. It was the first week of October. December was a blink away.
Something occurred to me. Before I could think better of it, I called out, “Finn!”
His head rose, and he let out a grunt of acknowledgment that reminded me of a teenage Finn. I had to hide a grin. Clearly, Finn was not chatty in the morning.
“Mrs. Bailey was going to handle the menu for the wedding.”
Finn stilled, eyes raising to the ceiling, moving from side to side as if a menu were printed on the stone above his head. “I’ve got it.”
“But you’re a guest,” I protested. It was his brother’s wedding. He shouldn’t be stuck in the kitchen. And a wedding was a formal event, even if it was small. Could he handle that?
“Just the family?”
“And Scarlett’s parents,” I added. “West too. And Daisy’s grandmother. My mother.”
“So, just the family.”
“Yes,” I agreed, my chest squeezing as his assumption settled in. ‘Just the family’ wasn’t only the Sawyers. Not anymore. That felt nice. Better than I thought it should.
Finn nodded and turned for the pantry. “I’ve got it.”
I had no idea what that meant. Surely he didn’t already have a menu in mind. How did he have it? “Okay. Here’s the menu we worked out.” I pulled up the menu on my phone and followed Finn to the pantry.
Taking the phone, he scanned the menu and shoved it back at me. “What part of this did Tenn or Scarlett ask for?”
I looked at my screen. “Tenn wanted filet as the main course, and Scarlett requested the oysters for one of the appetizers. Everything else was Mrs. Bailey’s idea.”