Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Harper tells it best,” Kola declared, fisting his hands together. “But other people think he doesn’t tell it with enough emotion.”
Kurt scoffed. “I’m a very bullet-point person myself, so, Harper, if I could get the gist, that would be great. Do you all mind if I use my phone to record, or would you prefer I went inside and got a pad and pen?”
“You can record,” Hannah told him. “I use my phone all the time.”
“Well, I appreciate the fact that you haven’t used it while we’re visiting. That makes me feel pretty special.”
She nodded, smiling at him.
“Okay,” he said, pulling his iPhone from his back pocket and setting it down in front of him. “Hit me with the play-by-play, Harper.”
Harper told the story, Kola chimed in, Hannah added more details, and Jake talked about George and how heroic and deadly he was. Kurt heard about Alessia and how her dad was probably in the mob, and how upset Hannah was that she’d lost focus, and how Harper was a pacifist but also was concerned that he should probably be armed, and how Jake felt that Hannah was more of a badass than he was, and since that was true, how ridiculously unmanly he must seem to her.
“What? No,” Hannah gasped, staring at her boyfriend. “Not at all.”
“Why the hell would you ever want a gun?” Kola questioned his friend.
“If you ever got hurt in front of me”––Harper’s voice went out on him––“I don’t know what I would do.”
Kurt glanced up at me, and I got a slow smile. “I think we’ve got lots to talk about, Mr. Harcourt, and we can all do it together, just like this.”
My relief was instantaneous, and there were some tears. Freki was right there, shoving his nose into my hand, and it was, truly, quite comforting.
“So you like this guy?” Sam asked that night in the kitchen while I was preparing dinner and Hannah and Harper were putting the finishing touches on the Mabon candles curing a bit outside while Kola and Jake carried the firmer ones down to the basement.
“I do,” I assured him, exhaling deeply. “And more importantly, the kids really like him and dumped all kinds of things on him. And he’ll see them together, every week, and if they want to see him individually, he’ll make that happen as well.”
“I ran a background check,” Sam told me. I wasn’t surprised. “He did his undergraduate work at Everson University and then moved back to California, where he’s from, to do all the rest. He had a practice in Malibu, California, and then he was attacked by a patient and ended up moving here.”
“Why?”
“He had some friends here, so when he healed up, this is where he came.”
“That’s nice.”
“Dane knows one of his friends, Carson Cress, and Aaron knows the other one.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, apparently Aaron finances genetic research on plants. Did you know that?”
“I did,” Hannah said as she walked in. “He’s been working with Cibus for years. We had a fundraiser for them just over a year ago.”
“And what do they do there?” I asked her.
“They make plants that can survive in the worst conditions possible. Like in the middle of the desert or the tundra or on Mars even.”
“Mars,” Kola snickered.
“You get the idea,” she told him. “And Vincent Wade—Cibus is his foundation—he’s the head research guy. He’s won a ton of awards.”
“And who is Carson Cress?”
“He used to play football,” Jake chimed in, getting something out of the refrigerator. “Might’ve been as good as Tom Brady, but he got hurt in a bowl game, like, thirty years ago.”
“It was not thirty years,” Sam growled, casting a scowl after Jake, who missed it completely as he left the kitchen. “But Cress, he’s a construction manager, and he puts up skyscrapers, and now that Dane has moved from residential to almost exclusively commercial, he works with Cress all the time.”
“What a small world,” I mused, thinking about Kurt Butler. “But as far as Dr. Butler goes, we all liked him.”
“Yeah, he’s good,” Harper assured Sam. “And he wants to meet my folks, and wants to talk to Jake’s folks on Zoom, and of course, meet you.”
“Meet me?”
I couldn’t stifle my laugh.
“Why?” Sam groaned like he was in pain. “What for?”
“To understand the dynamic in the home,” Harper answered, “and the people with the greatest influence in our lives.”
He did a slow pan to me. “I don’t think that’s necessary. He met you.”
“But I’m the nice one,” I explained. “He needs to meet the hammer.”
“I’m not the—I hate meeting shrinks. They always hate me.”
“That’s not true,” I lied, because yes, they did. Sam came off very medieval in his thinking and with how he held himself and how closed off he was. It was never good.
“The hell it’s not,” he groused at me.