Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
The house was empty, but their warmth still lingered. Mor had asked me a question about the William Shakespeare project she was doing for English, and I’d helped her with it over breakfast. She’d hugged me before she left for school and it had felt wonderful. Mum had fluttered around us all, multitasking like a boss, taking care of us even as she readied herself for work. Between helping Mor, I’d watched her and Dad in the kitchen. She stopped what she was doing to tie his tie for him and then he’d handed her a coffee as she offered him a plate of scrambled eggs on toast. Afterward, he’d taken both their plates to wash them and urged her out of the kitchen to finish getting ready for the day.
Before Dad left for work, because he thought Mor and I were preoccupied, he’d kissed Mum thoroughly. When she was flushed and smiling, dimples appearing, he dropped a tender kiss on the tip of her nose and just stared at her for a few seconds. Like she was a miracle.
After all these years.
I’d returned my focus to Mor because I was afraid I might burst into tears. Ones of happiness for my parents. Maybe ones of sadness and longing for myself.
I think because … I knew what the outcome of my quest would be today.
And I still intended to do it.
Fyfe was not at home.
I tried calling him, but it rang out so I called Lewis instead.
“He’s at my place,” my brother told me. “There’s some new security system he wants to install. We told him the one we have is good enough, but ever since those guys broke in without him knowing, he’s paranoid.”
Lewis referred to the Frenchmen who had been looking for a piece of vital evidence Callie’s police officer ex-boyfriend had hidden in a gift. They’d ransacked my brother and sister-in-law’s beautiful home. It didn’t surprise me Fyfe still held guilt about the fact that he’d been charged with installing their security, but he hadn’t gotten it up and running when the break-in occurred.
“Is he still there?”
“Aye, he just got there.”
“Is he alone?”
“Callie and Harley are at the bakery. Why?”
“I just need to talk to him about something. Thanks.” I hung up before he could pester me for more details.
Thankfully, the drive to Lewis and Callie’s wasn’t that far from Fyfe’s. My dad had designed my brother’s home for a wealthy client who ran into financial difficulties and had to sell the spectacular house for a steal.
It was situated on a small piece of private land, nestled in woodland, between Ardnoch and Golspie. The modern midcentury home was designed so that the living space was upstairs and the bedrooms downstairs. On the first floor there were two walls made entirely of glass. With woodland at the back of the home, the living space emulated the experience of being in a treehouse. The stairs brought you up into the kitchen, and beyond that was a living and dining area.
Off the dining area, Dad had designed an oversized square window box you could sit in. There were windows on all three sides and it literally felt like you were hanging in the trees. Below you could see the twinkle of water from the man-made moat around the house. Water was taken from a downhill stream on the back of the property through underground pipes and pumped into the moat, where propeller turbines attached to a hydropower system created hydroelectricity to power the home. There was also a bank of solar panels out front where there were no trees to block the sunlight.
On the ground floor were four bedrooms. The primary suite had a floor-to-ceiling window that abutted the moat so while lying in bed, it was like being on a boat. Similar to the primary suite, Harley’s nursery had a floor-to-ceiling window so you could see the moat that surrounded the house. Lewis, Walker, and my family had decorated the nursery for Callie before Harley arrived and it looked like a fairy glen.
The house was a dream and a beautiful representation of my father’s imagination and talent. I was a little envious my brother owned it, but I was also happy for him, Callie, and my niece. They got to raise Harley in a magical place, in a house filled with love.
Sure enough, a vehicle was parked outside my brother’s dreamy home. A Volvo SUV I didn’t recognize. It had to be Fyfe’s. Those butterflies returned in force as I got out of my borrowed Range Rover, my legs shaky. If I was staying in Ardnoch, I’d need a car. The infrastructure for driving electric was rubbish up here, but Dad and Regan had hybrid cars and had installed their own electric charging point at home. Maybe I could do the same. The random thought of car buying was a good distraction as nerves unlike anything I’d experienced shivered through me.