Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“So do I,” I said, and I did. “But I wish they could all stay.”
Hope let out a knowing laugh. “You’re going to be a nightmare when the kids leave for college, aren’t you?”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “To be honest, I’m a little anxious about Thatcher leaving next year, and he’s my nephew, not my son. But still, it feels like yesterday he was this gangly teenager, angry at the world, fiercely defending his mother, and now he’s ours.”
“Well, you know Tenn and Scarlett aren’t moving out.”
I did. They too had a baby, and it was a running joke that Thatcher would miss his infant sister more than the rest of us when he went off to college in the fall. Tenn, Scarlett, and their brood had taken over a good chunk of the family wing of Heartstone, and Tenn had asked a month before how we felt about them staying once the terms of our father’s will expired. I’d been surprised he even asked. I thought I was clear with my siblings that there was room in Heartstone Manor for all of us.
“I know we’re spreading out,” Tenn had said, resting his ankle on his knee as he sat across from me in my office.
“Are you and Scarlett going to try for another?” I’d asked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d said yes. Tenn had taken to parenting August and Thatcher as if he’d been with them since birth—and had been just as excited when Mandy was born a year ago.
“I don’t know. I’d be up for it. I’m not sure Scarlett is. It’s a lot more work on her end,” he said with a grin.
“True,” I’d agreed.
“It’s just that this is home for all of us. And more than that, the boys are anchored here, and I think they need it.” His grin had faded. “They need their family around them.”
“They talk about their dad much?” I asked. Their father was a deadbeat, lowlife criminal, so it was better if the answer was no, but better didn’t mean easier.
Tenn shook his head. “They don’t talk about him. They don’t hear from him.”
“You’re a great dad,” I assured him.
“I try,” Tenn said. “They make it easy. But we know—it still sucks when your dad sucks, right?” He shot me a sideways grin. We knew all about dads sucking. “I don’t want to uproot them again. I never thought I’d say this about Heartstone, but there’s a lot of love here.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, “and there’ll always be room for you in the Manor. One way or another, we’ll figure it out. I mean, hell, if we cleaned out the attics, there’s practically a whole other house up there.”
“Good point,” Tenn had said, and that had been one problem solved.
“No,” I now confirmed to Hope, “Tenn and Scarlett definitely aren’t going anywhere. And Nash’s mom is staying, since Ophelia is, and they’re hoping to snag Miss Martha.”
We’d all found it amusing when Nash had attempted to build living quarters for his mother in the new house he and Parker had designed, and she’d sweetly turned him down. Heartstone was only a few minutes down the mountain from his and Parker’s new place, and Nash’s mother had been another family member who’d dropped into my office to make sure it was all right she stayed, considering we were only very loosely related now that Parker and Nash were married. But all of us had grown to love Claudia Kingsley, and while I couldn’t say she was like a mother to me, she felt like part of the family. I knew my aunt Ophelia felt the same and would have been disappointed if her friend had moved up the road.
So, we were losing Parker and Nash and their two boys, but keeping Nash’s mom, which meant the Kingsleys would be at Heartstone more often than not, anyway.
“And Savannah and Finn aren’t going anywhere,” Hope reminded me. “After that addition we put on the cottage, they won’t need to.”
“You know, if Finn wanted to go, he would have gotten himself completely out of the kitchens at Heartstone by now. He lets Greg run things most of the time,” Hope said, referring to the apprentice chef Finn had been training. He’d come up with an interesting system of mentoring new chefs interested in working with the now-renowned Finn Sawyer. They shadowed him, learning at Heartstone and at the restaurant he ran at Sawyers Bend Brewing. When they’d learned enough, he put them mostly in charge of our meals at Heartstone, swapping back and forth as needed. By the time he set them free, he was ready for another mentee. We’d been through two chefs so far. It was fun to watch Finn teach them the way Chef Guérard had taught him when he was a teenager.