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)
“He has a costume?” I asked. At her blank look, I remembered she couldn’t actually read my mind, no matter how much it sometimes seemed like she could. “Nicky. For Halloween. He has a costume?”
“He, um, yes. Yes, but he can’t—”
“Yeah, I got that. I heard him hacking up a lung. I have a plan, assuming he’s allowed out of bed.”
“Sure. For a while, but he can’t go—”
“Outside,” I finished for her. “I got it. It’s cold, damp, and he’s sick. I have it covered. Can you get him in his costume before dinner? Around four?”
“I can, but what do you mean you have it covered?” She was staring at me as if she’d never seen me before.
Was it that out of character for me to do something nice? Maybe. But I tried not to take offense. I wasn’t here to make friends. Plus, if she’d been paying attention, Savannah would have noticed that I went out of my way for the kids more often than I did for the adults in the house. I didn’t think of myself as a kid person, but Nicky, August, and Thatcher were cool. And anyway, kids are generally more trustworthy than adults. At least in my experience. None of them had ever failed to pay a kidnapping ransom and kicked me out of the house when I was too young to know how to adult. Unlike my father.
It was possible I had some issues to work out.
“I’ve got it covered,” I said again. “Trust me.”
Savannah gave me a long look with her sharp gray eyes before she left without another word. I didn’t have time to wonder what she was thinking. I had a Halloween to plan.
As soon as I had breakfast cleared and finished the first stage of lunch prep, I checked the pantry for the ingredients for the marshmallow rice cereal squares and brownie bites I was already cooking up in my mind. After the last few weeks of making the kids afternoon tea, I knew all their favorite treats. Nicky was a sucker for marshmallow squares, anything brownie-related, and homemade apple cider. I had what I needed for the cider and the brownie bites, but I wanted orange food coloring for the frosting, and we were completely out of marshmallows thanks to the hot cocoa I’d made them over the weekend.
I had enough time for a quick trip into town before lunch. Before I left, I had two stops to make. First, I headed back up to my room in the family wing. The family wing of the Manor was a mix of two-room suites and single rooms. I had one of the single rooms, though I couldn’t complain. More than spacious, it had a sleeping area with the same antique double bed I’d had as a kid, a desk area, and a sofa with an ancient tube TV that hadn’t worked in at least a decade.
Every time I stepped into my room at Heartstone Manor, I was thrown back in time. My room was frozen in my senior year of high school, right down to the pictures tacked on the corkboard over my desk. I no longer recognized most of the faces there. Some high school parties, a few from a field trip to Sliding Rock, all of us sunburned and smiling. I couldn’t remember being that young. Would I have valued those years more if I’d known how short my time was before everything changed? I’d never know. That sunburned, smiling kid was long gone. I wouldn’t know how to get him back, even if I wanted to.
I could have redecorated when I moved back in. My sister Parker was renovating the cottage and gatehouse for Savannah and Hawk, respectively, and she was good at it. Amazing, actually. She’d been focused on the cottage so Savannah and Nicky could have more space as soon as possible, and I couldn’t believe the transformation.
I’d only been in there a few times over the years, but I remembered faded paint and water stains on the ceiling. Now it looked like the after pic on one of those home renovation tv shows. I also learned she knew how to stretch a budget. Parker could have redone my room in her sleep. So why was I still living in this frozen monument to a past I hadn’t liked that much while I was living it? I wished I knew.
I shoved a pile of laundry to the floor to reveal an old trunk stuffed with the remnants of childhood that I hadn’t been able to part with as a teenager. Sitting cross-legged on the thick carpet, I and opened the lid, the smell of cedar washing over me, bringing a wrenching ache to my chest. The last time I’d opened this trunk, I’d been another person. That kid had been an asshole, but he’d been innocent and so fucking young.