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)
The first time I met Hawk, I’d taken one look at his stern expression, his broad shoulders, and muscles on top of muscles, and I thought Griffen was pulling my leg. This guy liked to garden? He looked like he caught bullets with his teeth for fun. But the few times things had been quiet and I spied him working on the barren garden beds, his face had relaxed into something that almost looked like peace.
Hawk liked to be on his own. He wasn’t an ass about it, but I could tell he didn’t like being around people more than he had to. My guess was that he thought if the gatehouse remained a disaster area, with sketchy plumbing, mice, and no electricity, no one would dare to invade his domain.
Griffen had overruled him and Parker backed Griffen up, eager to get her hands on the stone gatehouse with its high ceilings and tall windows. I knew that as soon as she had the gatehouse sorted, she planned to turn her attention to upgrading my former abode, the housekeeper’s apartment, turning it back into a space for the staff to meet and take a break.
Weaving through the trees at the edge of the woods, I passed a guard in a dark uniform, heading back to the security room in the Manor, I guessed. I nodded in his direction, my hands too full for a wave.
Someday West, our police chief, would figure out who killed Prentice. I remained convinced it wasn’t Ford, despite the evidence to the contrary. Not that Ford didn’t have motive. Practically everyone who’d known Prentice had motive to kill him. But the Ford I knew was far too intelligent to shoot his father and then hide the gun in his own closet. If he was going to kill Prentice, he wouldn’t have gotten caught. Ford wasn’t my favorite person on the planet, but he didn’t deserve to rot in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
I was holding on to the hope that West would find the real killer, Ford would come home, and we wouldn’t have security crawling all over the estate every day. We’d be able to hire staff without them passing a Pentagon-grade background check.
I sighed as I thought of the latest nanny candidate. The security checks were making it extremely difficult to find someone. This latest one had a stepfather with a gambling problem, so she’d been crossed off the list. Hawk and Griffen had no room for weakness. If someone could be compromised, they didn’t cross the threshold of Heartstone Manor. Hope had another few candidates on the line before we ran dry. I really hoped one of them would work out. A nanny would make all our lives a little less hectic.
My arms about to tear out of their sockets, I reached the cottage. I climbed up the porch steps, loving how the new boards didn’t sink under my weight. Another thing Parker had fixed. Well, for that, I knew she’d had Billy Bob’s help. Billy Bob was actually two people, Billy and Bob, brothers so close they shared a name. People started calling them Billy Bob years ago, and it stuck.
They were distant cousins of mine and were the original jacks of all trades. Whatever you needed done, Billy Bob could either do it or knew who could. I couldn’t have put the Manor back together without them. Over the last six months, they were here more than they weren’t, quietly fixing problems and moving on to the next. Today they were repairing trim work in the guest rooms we hoped to put back to use. Tomorrow, they’d help me move before going back to work in the Manor.
Bracing the box on my hip, I let the rest of the stuff slide to the porch. I’d get it in a minute. As soon as I put the box down. Though my arms ached, I still stopped in the doorway, inhaling deeply, savoring the faint scent of fresh paint as I took in my new home.
Chapter Eighteen
SAVANNAH
The first floor of the cottage was mostly open, a long rectangular room the width of the house that we’d use furniture to divide into a sitting area arranged around the wood-burning fireplace and a dining area between the sitting area and the kitchen.
Parker had repaired the chimney and fireplace, refinished the floors, and almost completely redone the kitchen. Every room in the cottage shared a similar style: dark oak-paneled wainscoting along the lower half of the walls and creamy white walls above. With dark beams cutting across the ceilings, it was both elegant and cozy. Only the bathrooms were different, done in floor-to-ceiling vintage white subway tile.
Parker had painted the cabinets in the L-shaped kitchen a lovely sage green and had managed to score me white marble countertops cut with lines of silvery gray. We’d gotten lucky there—Parker told me that clients of the countertop guy ordered the marble counters and then changed their minds. The cottage’s measurements were a perfect match. I loved every inch of those countertops.