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)
I took a sip of wine and picked up my fork, stabbing a crisp leaf of lettuce, my chef’s soul withering at the aroma of vegetable oil drifting up from the plate. Bottled dressing. I fought the urge to sneer and roll my eyes. She has one job, I bitched in my head. It takes three minutes to whisk up a decent vinaigrette, and she’s serving us ranch from a bottle?
Shit like this made it hard to feel guilty for annoying her into quitting. I didn’t know what Griffen was paying her, but I’d noticed the staff was more than happy to be working here. In this, Griffen wasn’t like our father, treating staff like they should be grateful just to come to the big house every day. The current staff had health insurance and vacation time. Mrs. Bailey had to feed sixteen of us three times a day, but breakfast and lunch were usually a buffet set up on the sideboard. She had plenty of time to make dressing from scratch. She didn’t because she was either lazy or unimaginative. My guess was both.
I thought about the sugar cube I’d dropped into the soup, and a warm glow filled my chest. Such a small thing, that sugar cube.
The added sweetness wouldn’t be noticeable in the tureen of soup. The sabotage wasn’t in the sugar. It was in the drop of liquid I’d let soak into the sugar before secreting it in my pocket. Bitrex. The most bitter substance on earth. Usually added to cleaning products so children wouldn’t drink them, only a teaspoon was enough to taste in a swimming pool. I’d diluted it and still only used a drop. That drop would be more than enough to put my plan in motion.
I’d come back to this house swearing I’d never cook for my family, that I’d never again darken the door to Heartstone’s kitchens.
It had taken me too long to understand that Heartstone’s kitchens were exactly where I needed to be.
In my defense, being back here was really fucking with my head. I’d hated this house by the time I left. I’d hated my father. Hated being a Sawyer. Hated my older brothers. Hated school. Hated this town. I’d hated everything and everyone but my sisters, Miss Martha, and Chef Guérard. During my teens, Miss Martha had commented more than once that I’d been such a sunny child, sweet-tempered but overflowing with mischief. Most of which got me into trouble.
Then I hit middle school, and everything went to hell. She and I both knew it wasn’t puberty that turned me into the entitled little shit I became. It was my mother. And my father.
Darcy Sawyer had been love and light and everything good in my world. And then she died, leaving us all adrift. Lost. At the mercy of Prentice, our not-so-loving father. The father who saw me only as collateral. The father who left me for dead. So yeah, back then I hated pretty much everyone.
The only thing I cared about had been cooking. Not much had changed. And the only place in this house I’d ever felt at home was the kitchens. As a child I badgered the family chef to teach me. Chef Guérard refused. Repeatedly. For years. Eventually, he gave in. One lesson, he promised, if I’d swear never to darken his door again. After that one lesson, he gruffly ordered me to return the next day, adding, “Don’t get caught.” I hadn’t.
We both knew what would happen if Chef Guérard had been caught talking to me, much less teaching me to cook. I knew what he was risking, but I couldn’t let it go. I needed to know what he knew. Needed to understand.
He risked his job to teach me and later saved my life when I ended up homeless at nineteen, abandoned by my family and left for dead. He gave me a new life to replace the one I’d been born into. I’d taken the chance he offered me and dove in headfirst. I would never return to Sawyers Bend. Never.
Famous last words. Six months ago, my father was murdered. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy. The family lawyer hunted me down and suggested I return for the reading of the will. I almost didn’t come. Even after all these years, I couldn’t forget. Wouldn’t forgive.
Fuck my father. I hadn’t let him control me for the last ten years. Why would I start now? After a few days, curiosity got the better of me. I came back to Sawyers Bend and stood with my siblings at our father’s grave. I half expected him to rise from the coffin, refusing to succumb to something as mundane as death. He hadn’t. The funeral had been oddly ordinary for one of the undead. Family only. No media. All very normal, except that our brother, Ford, was in jail for our father’s murder.