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)
Based on the quick look we’d taken weeks before while going through furniture in the attic, Hope and I thought these were the historical documents we’d been looking for. The housekeepers’ records. Receipts, to-do lists, supply orders. Things that would tell us more about what it had been like to run the estate at the turn of the century and through the decades since. While Prentice had used his will to prevent his heirs from opening the house to the public, these documents were still a part of history. My history. I was curious to see how much life had changed at Heartstone in the last hundred years.
According to my mother, around ten years ago there’d been a leak in the attic roof, and she reorganized the boxes up there, moving anything easily damaged to these plastic storage containers. I don’t know how these two had gotten to the part of the attic where old furniture was stored. My mother remembered putting everything back on the shelves, the labeled bins lined up neatly.
The plastic bins were a heck of a lot more secure than cardboard boxes, but they weren’t light. Especially when they were stacked on top of each other. I should have made two trips. Any sensible person would have made two trips.
I am usually incredibly sensible, but I was also short on time. I’d been dying to get into these boxes for weeks, ever since Hope and I had stumbled across them, but everything had been far too hectic to take the time to go through old papers.
Until today. Now that Nicky and I were moved into the cottage and completely unpacked, thanks to everyone helping out, I had a little extra time in my day. I wanted to use it on this side project before the next crisis popped up. Hope had already asked me twice this week when I wanted to dig in and see what we could find. I was getting a little worried that she’d try to drag the bins down herself. I remembered well the nervous energy and frustration of waiting in the final weeks of my pregnancy with Nicky, and I didn’t want Hope to get any ideas.
Craning my head around the top storage bin, I tried to gauge how close I was to the bottom of the steps. Close? A few more steps, maybe? It was hard to tell. I went slowly, feeling for each step as I went. The last thing I needed was to pitch down the stairs and break something. I did not want to think about navigating Heartstone Manor on crutches.
At the bottom, I thought, I took a confident step toward the doorway and bounced off a wall of muscle. Twisting to see around the boxes, I caught a glimpse of a shoulder. Only an inch or two, but I’d know that shoulder anywhere.
I nudged with the bins, but Finn didn’t move out of the doorway. “Could you move?”
“What the hell are you doing trying to carry this much down those stairs?” he demanded. He leaned past me to glare up the narrow staircase. “They’re steep, and the lighting sucks. What if you’d fallen?”
Ugh. I didn’t like that he was echoing things that had crossed my own mind only moments ago.
“Finn, can you move, please?” My words were polite. My tone less so. “These are heavy, and I want to put them down before I drop them.”
“Where are they going?” Finn asked casually, as if my arms weren’t about to tear out of their sockets. On the way down, I’d been too focused on the stairs to think about how heavy the bins were. Now I felt every pound. And I knew that tone. Finn was messing with me. Pre-sex with Finn, this would have pissed me off. Now it turned me on. And that pissed me off.
“To my old apartment. By the kitchens,” I said through gritted teeth. I nudged forward again, shoving him a little with the bins.
His hands closed over mine. Interesting. Pre-sex Finn would have made me suffer the consequences of carrying something too heavy.
“Let me take them.” He pulled on the bins.
Irritation flared. I could carry my own damn too-heavy bins. “I don’t need you to take them. I need you to get out of the way.” Why would he not just move?
“Savannah, you carried these all the way down here. Let me take them to the elevator.” Was that a laugh in his voice?
He was messing with me, and still, how was Finn the one being reasonable?
“I’m fine,” I snapped, yanking hard on the bins.
That turned out to be a mistake. Finn’s grip on the bins didn’t budge. My backward momentum knocked me off balance until my feet slid out from under me, ramming directly into Finn’s. I fell on my ass, sprawling on the stairs, momentarily stunned.