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)
“I guess,” Hope said. “Daze has to be in the bakery before dawn. And they found that great place right between the Inn and Sweetheart Bakery, and only a few blocks from Grams. They can both walk to work. It’s just…”
“You’re going to miss her,” I finished.
“I am. It’s silly, because she’s right in town, but still. I loved having my family here.”
“Me too.” I turned, dipping my head to kiss her. When Prentice threw me out of Heartstone Manor all those years ago, I never thought I’d end up back here, madly in love with Hope and secretly wishing my family would live at home forever.
Her phone dinged in her pocket, and she leaned back, breaking our kiss. “It’s time,” she said. “Do you think they’re going to be disappointed?”
“Honestly, I don’t think anyone’s expecting anything.”
When my father died five years ago, he’d left behind a complicated will, filled with secrets and irritating requirements. Ford had been cut out entirely; our father sure that Ford had been plotting against him. Considering he’d been right, Ford said he didn’t care. It wasn’t his money anyway, and he had enough without any inheritance. Technically, he didn’t even have to be here, but I told him I needed him here. He might have been disinherited, but today wasn’t about our father. It was about us.
We walked down the hall to the dining room, my fingers twined with Hope’s. I thought how funny it was, all those years ago, driving to Sawyers Bend from Atlanta to hear the reading of Prentice’s will. I’d planned to be in and out in an afternoon, and when I left Sawyers Bend, I was never going to return. That plan hadn’t lasted long.
After the funeral, Harvey, our family lawyer, had pulled Hope and me aside and informed us that unless we married and stayed that way for five years, the entire Sawyer empire would fall apart. I wouldn’t have had a problem with that, considering my father had thrown me out years before, but I did care about all the people who would lose their jobs if Sawyer Enterprises folded. So, Hope and I had married. The will that had been a weapon of my father’s spite ended up being the greatest gift of my life.
I walked into the dining room to find Harvey already there. He was semi-retired these days. After he killed Cole Haywood, he’d wound down a lot of his business and closed his office in town, and worked out of his house when he worked at all. He said his main job these days was to be an honorary grandfather. And he was a good one—more affectionate than Uncle Edgar, the only other grandfatherly figure around on a day-to-day basis. Harvey always had a hug, was always willing to play with LEGOs or kick a soccer ball.
With the admission that he was the one who’d shot our father, that he’d done it out of rage when he’d learned Prentice had murdered Sarah, things had changed. At first, there’d been distance. Not only had Harvey shot Prentice and set all of this in motion, but he’d also allowed Ford to spend a year in prison, falsely accused of killing his own father. Of all of us, Ford had let it go first, but one by one, we’d forgiven Harvey. The first time Hope invited him back to Sunday dinner, before she’d extended the same invitation to her uncle, Harvey had come to us a different man, the distance he’d been holding between us erased, a layer of formality stripped away. These days, Harvey wore his heart on his sleeve when it came to his family. Because, in the end, that was what we were. Family.
He’d never married, never found a woman to replace my mother in his heart, and I wondered sometimes if the attention he lavished on her grandchildren was a way to keep his love for her alive by sharing it with the grandchildren she’d never know.
Most of us had moved past Prentice’s death and Harvey’s role in it, but I had to wonder if today would be awkward and uncomfortable. Here we all were, gathered this time in Heartstone’s dining room instead of Harvey’s conference room. Five years later, we were a much bigger group now that everyone had paired up.
“All right,” I said to my siblings and their spouses milling around in the dining room. “Let’s get this over with so we can have a party.”
“Party?” Tenn asked. “Who said there was a party?”
Finn, down the table, leaned forward and grinned. “I’ve been cooking, Daisy brought goodies, and Savannah’s got it all set up. As soon as we’re done with the boring stuff, we can kick back and have some fun.”
Scarlett looked at the time on her phone, her red hair curling wildly around her face as her eyebrows drew together. “We have pickup from school in an hour.” She looked to Paige, who often took the afternoon run.