Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91461 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Now Hannah had put up, first, a gilded-and-black-enamel ceiling medallion that looked like it belonged in a palace in France somewhere, and under that, another piece that I wasn’t sure about. Not that it looked garish or out of place, as it too was gilded, but as I examined it from thirty feet below, it appeared to be the lower half of an octopus, intricately made. But the concern was, I saw no light. Meaning she’d replaced something that would illuminate the room with something purely decorative. Which was fine, but an odd choice. More important was the fact that she was performing this labor with a battery-operated drill in her right hand and holding the octopus tentacles in her left, turning it so it fit flush against the medallion which, I could only assume, was recessed in some way.
I was going to have a heart attack just looking at her. The fact that all of her attention was on the task, not a drop on her feet, legs, or balance in general, was going to make me start hyperventilating before I had the heart attack. Of that I was certain.
“Oh dear God,” I rasped.
Any wrong movement, a twitch, a sneeze, heaven forbid a cramp, from any of the three, would put all of them on the ground. This was a high-wire circus act, and they were working without a net.
Now, if they were only up off the ground at their combined height of—and I was rounding—seventeen feet if you made both the boys six feet and rounded Hannah down to five, then, if they toppled, it was survivable. But the ceiling in the living room was, as I mentioned earlier, thirty feet high, and so to reach that there were two step ladders bridged by planks of wood between them on the second-to-the-top step, and balanced on that, on the legs of each plank of wood, was Sam’s twelve-foot multi-position ladder. That was what Wick was standing on, not the top, but again, the second one to the top so his shins had something to press against.
“Who thought this was a good idea?” I barely got out, bending over so I didn’t, in fact, start to hyperventilate, though I did have a pain in my chest. How ironic would it be if my heart gave out on Valentine’s Day. “And you say I have a death wish?” I yelled at my husband for no good reason other than to vent.
“Dane Harcourt!” Aja yelled at her husband, and I heard him grunt from my right, so I turned my head to look at him. He was there, standing at the window with a mug of, I was guessing, Earl Grey, since that was his favorite. “You’re supposed to be supervising!”
“I am,” he replied defensively.
“He is,” Harper chimed in from where he was, lining up strands of lights on the couch so they were all in a row ready for whatever was going to happen. “Mr. Harcourt checked my math after I checked Jake’s.”
“Mine didn’t need checking,” Jake grumbled.
“Someone should always check. That’s just logical.”
“He’s right, Jacob.” Dane backed up Harper. “The devil is in the details.”
“What does that even mean?” Jake asked. “I always hear that, and it makes no sense.”
“It means inspect what you expect, as Dad always says,” Hannah clarified for him.
“Oh, okay. That I get.”
“That he gets?” Dane asked Harper.
“Mr. Kage has been saying that to us since we were small, so yeah, that he knows.”
“Explain to me about the tower of terror, please,” I begged my brother, nearly breathless.
“Listen,” Dane began, “while that stack of ladders and wood is clearly an OSHA violation, barring that, it is, in fact, structurally sound.”
“Oh, is it?” Aja sounded wildly sarcastic.
“I promise you it is,” he said with that superior tone of his that sounded like he was appalled over the fact that you doubted him. “As Harper said, we both checked Jake’s math.”
Of course it was Jake’s math at first, it always was. These kinds of things that stopped my heart—as well as other people’s—were his specialty.
“My only concern at all was with Hannah’s dismount, as that might topple Jake, who would in turn compromise Wick. But now that her father is here, I’m not worried. He can easily catch her, though she should first pass down the drill.”
As if on cue, I heard screws going into the ceiling.
“Is that my drill?” Sam asked because, why not?
“Yes,” she replied absently. “The ladder is yours too. I told you I was borrowing them.”
“I don’t recall being asked about the drill.”
“This is your old one. I didn’t take the new one with the flashlight on top so you can see where you’re drilling.”
Sam only grunted, which caused her to look down at him. He was now directly below her, ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. “It’s fine,” he said quickly, “just pay attention to what you’re doing.”