Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 117740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117740 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
“Rest assured I know nothing about your personal measurements, nor do I want to.” Luke slammed his car door shut and glared at her. “My name is not Mr Snoop, it’s Luke. Mr Butler, to you, Miss Matthews.”
“The only people I refer to like that are my old teachers, my clients, and people I like. As a half-baked Sherlock Holmes, you fall into none of those categories.” She smiled as she crumpled up her empty can of wine, then hopped out of the back of the van. “With that said, Luke, I return your wayward fancypants boss to you before you think I’m so crazy that I’ve kidnapped him.”
“Well, you do dislike him greatly,” Luke replied. “So, if he goes missing, don’t blame me if you’re my number one suspect, Rose.”
“Ha.”
“Ha? What’s ‘ha?’”
“How easily you use my name as if you didn’t just kick up a stink about me using yours,” she said flatly, then turned to me. “What are you waiting for, Mr Fancypants? Get out of my van and take your cheap beer with you.”
I jumped up. “What did I do?”
“You brought this nosy bloke to my doorstep.”
“We’re in a park, Rose.”
She motioned to the back doors of the van, then the step she’d just jumped down from. “My door. My step. Thus, my doorstep.”
Luke cleared his throat and nudged me. “Is she drunk?”
I shook my head. “That’s just her normal thought pathway. It scares me a little that it makes sense to me.”
“Well, if we’re done here, I’m going home.” Rose slammed shut the van doors and wiped her hands on her shorts. “Thanks for your help today. Let me know if you want to volunteer to get mildly verbally abused by some five-year-olds again.”
With those words as her parting shot, she hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“She’s not big on manners, is she?” Luke asked dryly.
“She’s not big on anything other than tormenting me,” I replied. “You should have seen her laughing this afternoon when I was being bullied by children.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “You’ve become pathetic since moving here, Oli. You’d never stand for her attitude in the office.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t the office, and she isn’t my employee.” I shrugged off his hand and rubbed the back of my neck as I headed for his car. “And I will be tied to this place for the rest of my life. Rose and I will probably never be friends, but it won’t kill me to be civil with her.”
“Oli—”
I waved him away. “Leave it, Luke. Let’s just go back. Don’t I have an early meeting tomorrow?”
He sighed. “Understood.”
“I thought you were in Bali doing some soul-soothing or whatever Luke said it was.”
My mother bit into the sugared doughnut she was wearing like a ring on her pointer finger and stared at me, chewing slowly. “I was in Bali. Now I’m here.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be there for two more weeks?”
“My flight got cancelled so I got one a couple of days early instead of needing to find alternative accommodation.” She dropped the doughnut onto the sofa, spreading powdered sugar everywhere. “Whoops.”
I sighed, covering my eyes with one hand. “Mum…”
“I’ll clean it up, I’ll clean it up.”
“Sometimes I wonder how you ever survived at all those fancy aristocratic dinners.”
“I’m a wonderful bullshitter,” she replied brightly, beaming at me. “Now, what kind of chaos are you causing here, dear son? I hear you’ve pissed off a Matthews.”
I peered at her over my fingers. “Are they so notorious that even you know of their madness?”
She tapped the tip of her nail against her cheek. “Is madness the best way to describe it?”
“Certifiable insanity, then?”
“Oliver, don’t be rude,” she said, glaring at me. “I raised you better than that.”
“If you say so.” I sighed and rubbed my temple. “How long are you staying for?”
“What do you mean, how long? Now that your grandfather is gone, I plan to stay here in Hanbury.”
I blinked.
Mum was going to do what now?
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve always loved it here, but your grandfather and father falling out really killed my dreams of a quiet life in the countryside.”
“You dreamt of a quiet life in the countryside?”
“Yes. It’s very quaint, isn’t it? It’s peaceful. I hear there’s going to be a big local market soon, and I’m quite excited for that.” She eyed me, losing her previous brightness. “Although, I am wondering what you did to get on the wrong side of the young Matthews girl.”
“Exactly how long have you been spying on me, Mother?”
“Since the day you were born.”
At least she was honest. “I’m closing the allotments, like I told you I planned to do. Rose is the committee chairman, and she’s very… let’s say, passionate.”
“Mm. Is she making your life difficult, dear?”
“Immensely so. Two days ago, I was forced to accompany her to a nursery to teach a bunch of kids about gardening and got called a rotten bastard by a five-year-old.”