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I laughed so hard inside that I almost lost focus.

God, I missed these people.

I nudged the tissue box.

The gold tube rolled into view, traveled across the glass shelf, and stopped directly between Willow’s elbows.

She screamed, and not some cute little startled sound either.

Willow jumped backward so hard she nearly collided with the bathtub and slapped one hand against her chest.

“Jesus is a fence!”

She eyed the gloss like it had threatened her family.

For several seconds, she didn’t move. Then she approached it carefully, pinched the very end of the cap between two fingers, dropped it into her makeup bag, and zipped the pouch shut like she was containing evidence.

“I’m unpacking downstairs.”

I had to laugh again.

She snatched up her makeup case and headed for the hallway, muttering as she went.

“Too much damn house and not enough Holy Ghost! Nope! I’m not getting dragged through no mirror over thirty-four-dollar lip gloss!”

I followed her as far as the doorway and watched her hurry downstairs.

My son seemed happy, which settled something inside me. Downstairs, the TV murmured softly from Granny Liz’s room, Lakelyn was somewhere trying to make sense of emotions she had spent years avoiding, and Willow had started half-unpacking, half-convincing herself that this house was definitely haunted after what had just happened with her lip gloss. I could already imagine her whispering to Granny Liz about ghosts while pretending she wasn’t scared.

This was what the mansion had been missing: them.

I turned toward the master bedroom again.

Lakelyn still needed time. I understood that. She had walked back into a life she thought she had buried, and I couldn’t expect her to accept everything simply because I had been waiting for her.

But I could wait a little longer… I had already waited this long.

Chapter eleven

Lakelyn

Three days… that was how long we’d been living in Caspian’s mansion, and I was proud to say I hadn’t packed my shit and ran yet.

Actually, things had been going pretty good.

Granny was comfortable in her room downstairs, and she had already claimed the little sunlit sitting area near the back of the house as her favorite spot.

Willow was working from home, which meant she spent most of her mornings locked in her room handling business calls and most of her afternoons wandering the halls, finding new ways to get on my damn nerves.

Kaidence?

That boy was living his best life.

He had more room than he knew what to do with, a backyard big enough to run until his legs gave out, and a bedroom he had already decided needed approximately seventeen custom upgrades added to it.

As for me, I was adjusting.

The first night had been rough. Sleeping in Caspian’s room had felt strange, especially after everything I’d allowed myself to remember while sitting on it that first day. But by the second night, I was exhausted enough to fall asleep without thinking too much.