“I don’t know,” she answered.“Butwannago see the office space?”
“Dee la!”he agreed enthusiastically.
Watching her wander off with Travis, my heart startedhurting again.
“Isn’t this place so neat?”Carissa called from the kitchen.“Joker told me that Snapper did the whole design for the reno, though I thinkthat he asked Tyra to help with the fittings.She told me about the awesome tubupstairs and when I saw it the other day when we were moving you in, I swear, Ialmost ordered everyone out so I could take a bath.”
“I have the coolest house on the planet but after I saw thattub, I told Logan we’re yanking out ours and getting a soaking one,” Milliesaid.
I watched them putting away groceries.
Then I got out of the path of Joker bringing more in andHigh carrying my suitcases upstairs.
Mom wandered back in, carrying on a full-blown conversationwith Travis.
“Is there any special place you want the bread, Rosalie?”Carissa called and I started out of the frozen trance I seemed to have falleninto.
“I should help you,” I replied, beginning to move that way.
“No,” Millie denied.“Take a load off and go through yourSephora stash.”
“Can I take Travis upstairs?”Mom asked Carissa.“Give himthe full tour.”
“He was here when we moved Rosalie in, but he loved itupstairs, so absolutely,” Carissa answered.
I felt the strings of the Sephora bag I was holding give wayfrom my fingers and I turned to see a returned High setting it on the table bythe door.
“Need a word, darlin’,” he said.
I looked up at him and nodded.
He put a hand to the small of my back and oddly led me downthe hall-type area to the French doors to the courtyard.
Once there, he led me out of them.
It was Denver.It was February.It could be below freezing.There could be a blizzard.
Or it could be like it was that day.Fifty-three degrees.
I still shivered a little bit when High closed the door onus, giving us privacy.
I wasn’t sure what was happening out in the courtyard withHigh.
What I was sure of was that I wasfreaking out.
Snapper owned this crazy-awesome little house.
He’d also apparently fixed it up before he’d had it paintedprior to moving me in.
Further, he’d bought me a bed.
But my furniture looked awesome there, like it was bought tobe just there.
Not to mention his family had not only moved me in, they gotme groceries and a Sephora bag full of happy surprises.
After my father died, I had been looking for something thathe’d given me all my life and it wasn’t just the stability of his love andpride.
It was his capacity to judge a person’s character and hisutter refusal to allow anyone in his life, or his girls’ lives, who he didn’tdeem deserved their place there.
