As weird as it was to dream of her, especially after she had dumped my dinner in my lap and insulted me, a traitorous part of me didn’t actually mind. Normally I had nightmares of the cult, so Sadie was a welcome change.
Wack!
I sat straight up. It was dark outside. Was it a deer? Was Archer being weird? Pulling on my exercise clothes, I went outside into the freezing morning air. I took in the scene then swore. Ellis and Billy were beating one of the huge Turkish rugs that decorated the house with giant paddles. Dust flew off. I coughed. Remy, who was supervising, grinned at me.
“This is the first of a long line of punishments. They're going to come help at the Rural Trust, too.”
“Why can't they do office work in the morning while people are trying to sleep?”
“Waking up early is wholesome,” Remy insisted.
Mace was already up when I went into the kitchen for coffee. I had never truly forgiven my older brothers for not taking me with them when they left the cult. I had been a small child, but I remembered how cold and lonely it was when they left. I had lost my friends and best protectors. Sure, Remy came back eventually, but the rest of my brothers hadn’t. Could I even trust them?
Mace at least seemed to feel guilty. The rest of my brothers didn't seem to care.
“I made extra bulletproof coffee for you,” he said brightly.
“Sorry, all gone,” Archer said from the doorway where he was slurping from a mug.
“How are you going to sleep?” Mace argued with him. “You were up all night.”
“I’m not sleeping. I have to go to Manhattan. I was hit with a stroke of inspiration last night, and I had to work, so I skipped sleep.”
“On what?” Mace asked incredulously. “You don't do anything.”
“I do stuff,” Archer countered.
“What stuff?”
“Stuff stuff.”
I left them to argue and went out back for a run. We had several hundred acres of woods, crisscrossed with trails and bridal paths. We even had horses that Garrett had bought for Penny. After the run, I lifted weights. Billy and Ellis were sitting at the dining room table, faces flushed from the cold and the work, when I sat down with my breakfast of coffee and hard-boiled eggs.
“That's one rug down and eighty-seven more to go,” Remy said cheerfully.
My little brothers slumped in their seats.
“I’m almost disappointed that you didn’t actually have a torrid internet sexting affair with a strange woman,” Archer said around the pile of toast on the plate in front of him. “Billy and Ellis got more action than you did. It’s sad, Parker, really.”
I scowled at him then at Billy and Ellis for good measure.
“I talked to your teachers,” Hunter said, glaring. “You have a free study hall period, which is going to be now used to work at the Rural Trust with Remy and Parker.”
“At least now we don’t have to find Sadie a new position,” Mace said brightly. “Maybe she could help with the Rural Trust.”
Spend more time than necessary with Sadie? No way.The situation was already too complicated.
“I can’t believe you did this to me. You made me look like an idiot and ruined my pants,” I snapped at Ellis and Billy.
The worst? Now I had to go apologize to Sadie.
8
Sadie
For not having done anything that day, I was sure exhausted when I grabbed my bag and fled Parker’s office.
“Hope that’s my last day there,” I told myself as I walked through the cold to the parking lot. “Maybe Mace will move me to a different department. Does Svensson PharmaTech do anything related to early American history?”
