Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Ania was so going to learn to be a great hostess the way Evangeline was. Her mother had been. Her grandmother had been. She hadn’t taken the time to really learn those skills from either of them, and she regretted that. Everything her grandfather and father had taught her had seemed much more exciting. Now that she had lost her mother and grandmother, the things they had valued and were so good at seemed much more important.
“Evangeline’s strawberry lemonade is the best,” Ashe declared, already taking Evangeline’s arm and leading her toward the bedroom. She mouthed “thank you” over her shoulder.
“Since I’ve had her pastries, and know they are, I’ll look forward to drinking the lemonade,” Ania said as she hurried out of the room.
For a moment she wished she could talk to Mitya. Fyodor loved his wife, and she couldn’t imagine that Evangeline didn’t have the best of care, but she looked pale and drawn, and it was worrisome. There was something very special about Evangeline. Anyone could see it.
Ania got turned around in the unfamiliar big house and had to backtrack to take the right hallway leading to the kitchen. The kitchen was quite large. Her grandmother, when helping design the interior of the house along with her mother, had designed a kick-ass kitchen. It was spacious and had a butcher block island that could be used on either side if more than one person was working, but this kitchen was something out of a magazine.
She couldn’t help herself, Ania found herself examining the overhead light fixtures that shone down brightly on the counter work surfaces. The flooring was tile, a soft wheat color, intricately cut, adding to the beauty of the room. The uneven tiles added to the appearance of the room being right out of Tuscany, with a wide expanse of windows so that the cook could feel as if he or she were outside in the fresh air. The tiles also prevented anyone slipping should liquid be spilled on the floor.
The herb and vegetable gardens were right outside the windows. Ania couldn’t help but stare at them. Dim lights shone outside the kitchen, illuminating the gardens. She hadn’t turned on the lights in the kitchen because with her increased night vision she didn’t need it. She could see one of Fyodor’s guards pacing back and forth just beyond the gardens. It seemed that all of them had to live with bodyguards.
She turned her attention away from the outside and back to the textured walls. They looked like wood, a light-colored wood, almost blond, with knotty rings scattered here and there. It was an unusual choice for a kitchen, but combined with the tiled floor, they gave the room an exotic, Italian feel. She had to run her hands over the walls in order to feel whether it was real wood or just looked authentic. Immediately she felt the difference from one panel to the next. The panel in the middle was slightly raised. Eyeing it, she couldn’t visually see the variance, but it was there.
It took only a moment to find the hidden spring. The wall panel contained enough weapons for an army. She wasn’t surprised. The walls in her house hid a few revelations as well. She had to smile. Didn’t everyone’s home have similar panels in the wall?
She turned back to the counters, looking for the tray of pastries. It was right beside the refrigerator. Of course, it would be close to where she could easily pull out the pitcher of strawberry lemonade. Evangeline would have everything ready so there would be the minimum amount of work when she had company. That was her secret. Great preparation. Ania remembered her mother and grandmother were the same way. She opened the fridge and found the pitcher immediately, pulled it out and placed it on the tray with the pastries and glasses.
She glanced up to take one last look at the gardens just outside the window and her heart nearly stopped. The guard was no longer pacing back and forth. He lay in the dirt, his automatic some distance from his hand. She didn’t wait but whirled around and hit the spring for the panel in the wall. She grabbed a gas mask, three guns, a rifle and ammunition for each weapon. She wished there was a button to raise the alarm. She was going to have to mention to Fyodor and Mitya that alarms were good things to warn people when there was trouble. She spun around to head back to the bedroom to protect Evangeline and Ashe.
The explosion knocked her off her feet. She hit her head on the wall as she went down, opening a cut just above her temple. It hurt like hell, but there wasn’t any real damage done. While she was on the floor, she took the time to load each gun and then she slid one weapon down into her boot, one into her waistband and the smallest into a pocket of her sweater. The ammunition went into the other pocket. She loaded the rifle and got cautiously to her feet.