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)
Scarlett held up a grocery bag. “I brought coffee,” she said. “I figured you wouldn’t have anything set up yet. There’s also some half and half in there, and Sterling has a box of goodies Daisy brought home with her last night from the bakery.”
“Thank you,” I said with happy relief. “I’m glad you were thinking, because it totally slipped my mind.”
“Not like you’ve been busy or anything,” Scarlett said with a wink and a smile.
Sterling flipped her platinum hair back off her shoulders and held up a white box that looked like it could have held a cake for at least twenty people. Sliding it onto the counter, she lifted the lid and leaned in to take a deep sniff. It wasn’t a cake. It was everything: muffins, croissants, danishes, and cookies. A jumble of deliciousness.
Sterling grinned up at me, her vibrant blue eyes catching the light. “Daisy sent these over,” Sterling said. “She’s sorry she couldn’t help today, but JT has class, and she couldn’t leave Grams in the lurch at the bakery. Town is hopping. Quinn has two tours today—leaf season hikers—so she’s going to be out in the woods all day, but she told me I could send the phone to voicemail and come help out. I didn’t want to miss the fun.”
The youngest Sawyer, Sterling, had it rough growing up. Her mother died when she was a toddler, and no one had bothered to parent her since. By the time Prentice died, Sawyer had been drinking way too much, a hellion who didn’t seem to care about anyone, herself most of all. Griffen refused to put up with her crap, strong-arming her into quitting drinking, getting a job, and most importantly, letting her family love her.
Sterling and I hadn’t had the best beginning. When I started at the Manor, I’d been the one in her way most of the time. Griffen declared she wasn’t to have her room cleaned by Kitty and April until she’d cleaned it herself first. I still remembered the smell in there. Stale vomit and moldy food. She was cut off from alcohol. She couldn’t have access to a vehicle. It seemed like I told her no fifty times a day.
She could have been a nightmare about all of it, but Sterling slowly got herself together. I’d gone from viewing her as a potential problem to regarding her with wary admiration as she stayed sober and started taking care of herself. These days she made me smile with pride for everything she’d accomplished, and she felt more like a little sister than anything else. It still surprised me that she seemed to return the feeling.
Parker set the box she held on the counter and turned for the door, calling back over her shoulder, “You might want to unpack that one. I left the other box on the porch. I’ll be right back.”
Hope eased her way into the suddenly crowded kitchen, pulling open the box Parker had brought with her. “She thinks of everything,” Hope said. I looked over her shoulder into the box. Dishes. Dinner plates, sandwich plates, bowls.
“I forgot about dishes,” I murmured, grateful yet again for Parker, who seemed to have remembered everything. I was fantastic at that when it came to running Heartstone Manor, but in my personal life, not so much. Moving to help Hope unpack the box, I loaded everything into the newly installed dishwasher.
“It makes sense you’d forget,” Hope said. “You’ve basically been living in Heartstone’s kitchen. You didn’t need anything for yourself until now.”
Parker returned with another box, this one a set of mugs that matched the dishes. “There’s more in the Manor. It’s with the rest of the things the guys are bringing over, but I thought we’d need the mugs first.”
She snapped into drill sergeant mode. “Scarlett, you get the coffee brewing. Sterling, rinse those mugs and see if you can figure out where I put the paper towels so you can dry them off. Hope, you set some of the pastries out on a plate so the guys don’t go digging in the box. They’ll be here in a few minutes with the first load, and once they’ve gone back and forth a few times, they’re going to be ready for coffee and a snack.”
Playing drill sergeant was usually my job, but for once it was nice to let someone else take over. I watched as Parker scanned the cottage with an eagle eye. “Kitty and April did a great job in here. This place is sparkling. If the guys bring everything over the way I set it out, this should go quickly. Rugs first, then furniture. Then artwork and the decorative stuff.”
“I don’t have any artwork,” I said, momentarily confused. I’d sold pretty much everything when we left Richmond. I hadn’t had anywhere to go except the guest bedroom at my mom’s place in town, and it had seemed smarter to sock away the cash in my savings account than pay for a storage unit.