Jesse grinned. “Guess we’re all going.”
They stepped outside and headed to his workshop. He opened the heavy, weathered barn doors and the scent of sanded wood hit him hard. He loved it.
The floor was littered with sawdust, a testament to the hours he spent working in this space. There were tools stored along the walls and a workbench in the center, which still held Mr. Bruno’s half-finished coffee table.
He turned on the lights and lifted the piece he’d made for Pam. It still smelled of the polish he’d used on it the previous night.
Pam took it from his fingers, a gasp slipping from her lips. “Oh, Holden. This is spectacular.”
He grinned. It was just a key holder, but Pam had been his biggest supporter since the day they’d met. “Thank you.”
She looked back to him. “You, my boy, are marvelous, you know that?”
“Careful, you’ll give him a big head.” Jesse chuckled under his breath.
“No,” she corrected. “I’ll cement to him just how talented he is.” She ran her fingers over the key organizer like it was a rare piece of art. “Beautiful.”
He always thought that if this was the sort of praise Jesse had grown up with, it was a wonderhishead fit through doorways. “It’s nothing.”
Pam gave him a look. “It’s not nothing.” She drew Holden into another of those big hugs. “You’re so very talented. Your mother would be proud.”
His limbs froze, something heavy suddenly sitting on his chest.
Another thing he loved about Pam—she wasn’t scared to talk about his mother, even though she’d never known the woman. And yeah, it felt kind of good to have her remembered by someone other than him.
CHAPTER 4
The bang of Clara’s bedroom door opening was loud, closely followed by a gasp and an angry shout. “Clara.”
Clara scrunched her eyes. She’d been having the best dream. It involved croissants and sweet teas and Holden without a shirt on.
Something hit her head. A pillow?
“Clara…can you hear me? Why are you still in bed?”
She cracked one eye open. The light immediately made her want to snap it closed again. She didn’t. She forced herself to focus on the figure in front of her. Scarlett. And boy, she looked mad.
“Because I don’t like to sleep on the floor,” she finally mumbled.
The wrong thing to say, if the flaring of Scarlett’s eyes was anything to go by. “It’s five forty-five.”
“Yeah, sleep time.” Was the sun even up?
“We need togo.”
“Go where?”
“Have you got amnesia? The running club.”
Okay, sleep time was well and truly over.
She pushed up and rubbed her eyes. “You still want to do that after you yelled at me in the kitchen two days ago?”
“I didn’t yell at you. I was just mad.”
Clara barely held in the snort.
“You have three minutes.” The words had barely left Scarlett’s lips before the bedroom door slammed behind her.
