Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“It was very sweet of you to step in. He’s looking forward to whatever you have up your sleeve. As long as it involves candy.”
“Oh, it definitely involves candy,” I assured her, leading her up the stairs to the second level. “It’s not Halloween without a sugar overload.”
Since no one else from my generation was home from work at this hour, Miss Martha and I headed to the guest wing to find my Aunt Ophelia and Parker’s mother-in-law, Claudia, playing cards in the sitting room of Ophelia’s suite.
Aunt Ophelia had moved in shortly after Prentice died. Actually, she’d moved in the second Savannah had her suite functional. According to Miss Martha, Prentice had stopped entertaining guests a few years before he died. Sometime after that, something had gone wrong with the electrical and plumbing in the guest wing—maintenance was never-ending in a house like this—and Prentice had just . . . let it go.
As much as he’d loved Heartstone Manor, I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t rushed to stop the decay of his beloved home. In the months since his death, none of us had found the answer. It had taken Savannah weeks to get things working in the guest wing again.
Once there were lights and running water, Aunt Ophelia arrived, accompanied by a truckload of trunks and her son Bryce. We didn’t mind Aunt Ophelia. She was flighty and a little oblivious, but she’d always loved us kids. Our cousin Bryce, we minded. My siblings and I had our differences, but we were united in our hatred of our cousin Bryce. He’d been a spoiled little shit as a kid and was even worse as an adult. Until recently.
After almost getting her killed, Bryce had saved Parker’s life—or tried to, which gave him a little grace. But not much. He left town shortly after we were sure Parker would be okay.
The whole scene had been nuts.
Parker, my younger sister, was always perfect. Always well behaved. Always did what she was told.
But perfect Parker, who never put a foot wrong, had served divorce papers to one of Claudia’s sons and was currently living with the other in Heartstone Manor. I would have thought Claudia would be furious, but she’d been thrilled.
By all accounts, Claudia had loved her younger son, Tyler, Parker’s first husband. Unfortunately for her—and for Parker—it turned out Tyler had been batshit crazy.
Aside from abusing Parker for most of their marriage, something no one had known about, Tyler had gone off the rails the day Parker decided she’d had enough and filed for divorce. Tyler hadn’t liked the idea of divorce. Especially after Claudia cut him off financially. She loved her son, but she also loved her daughter-in-law.
Tyler had decided he’d rather be a widower than a divorced man and set about trying to kill both Parker and his brother Nash. With them dead, he was convinced his mother would have to put him back in the will. Who else would she have left but her devoted son Tyler?
We’d all learned that Nash had been head over heels for Parker since the day they met—at her wedding to Tyler. Nash had bided his time for years, keeping his distance. The second Parker dumped Tyler, Nash had been there to help her pick up the pieces.
My guess was that the Claudia I knew was a shadow of her real self. Tyler was dead, killed by our police chief to save Parker and Nash, and Claudia was grieving. Tyler had been insane, but he was also her son, and despite his horrible faults, she loved him. A week after Tyler’s death, she came to Heartstone Manor for a visit and never left.
No one was eager for her to go. Both Nash and Parker loved her. They got edgy every time the subject of Claudia going anywhere came up. For her part, I think Claudia needed her family around her.
Aunt Ophelia, who’d been at loose ends since Bryce left, loved having another woman her age in the house. It helped that they’d bumped into each other socially over the years and had always liked each other.
Claudia and Ophelia had fallen into an instant camaraderie, spending their days playing cards and gossiping, drinking tea, and going for walks around the still barren gardens or heading into town to shop and, as they put it, stretch their legs.
Claudia and Aunt Ophelia greeted Miss Martha more like a long-lost compatriot than as a former housekeeper, and their easy, affectionate welcome made something in me relax. I still wasn’t used to so much friendliness in Heartstone Manor. Griffen, Hope, and Royal always seemed at ease when they worked together, happy to be in each other’s company. Aunt Ophelia had welcomed Claudia, and they in turn treated Miss Martha like a close friend. I hadn’t expected any of it. For so long, Heartstone Manor meant competition and isolation. Loneliness. Betrayal. But that was my father’s house. Apparently things had changed.