Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Can I see it?” I asked.
Bob shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“Why not?” Sterling asked, her brow furrowed. My girl wanted to lay eyes on the next clue, as did I. It had to be driving her crazy.
But as much as I loved watching her try to solve these things—the way she puzzled them out was fucking sexy—I was more interested in what Bob was hiding from us, and why.
Chapter Fourteen
FORREST
“What do you want for it?” I asked, mentally calculating what I was willing to pay for the next clue. I wasn’t convinced there was a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but if we walked away, I wouldn’t have an excuse to see Sterling.
Bob gave a snort of disgust, shaking his head. “You got me all wrong, boy.” He looked up with a wide smile. “Ah, here she is.” He hopped out of his chair to open the door behind me for Sugar Mae.
She came out holding a tray loaded with a pitcher of iced tea, four glasses filled with ice, and a plate of sugar cookies, covered in sprinkles.
“Now,” Mae said as she sat, setting the tray on the low table, “tell me everything you’ve been up to. Where are you living? What are you doing? How’s your mama? Are you in this neck of the woods for a visit, or have you come home? I want to know it all.” Before I could answer, she went on. “You were always such a bright boy. So well behaved and sweet. Your parents were so proud of you. I thought we’d get to see you grow up, and then poof! Sometimes life just stabs you in the heart, doesn’t it?”
I nodded, feeling an echo of that long-ago stab as I took in her familiar bright eyes. “Sometimes it does.”
“Here’s the deal,” Bob said, leaning forward to pick up an iced tea and handing it to me. “You’ll stay for dinner.” He looked to his wife. “We have enough?”
“We do,” she agreed with a nod. She continued where Bob left off. “You’ll stay for dinner and catch us up on everything you’ve been up to since you left. You’ll stay the night, and in the morning, we’ll give you what your father left for you.”
“Why not just give it to us now?” Sterling asked.
“We could,” Mae said, her eyes sliding to Bob and then back to me. She reached out to pat my hand. “We could. Maybe we should. But it’s been seventeen years—and I know you don’t remember us the way we remember you—and the three of you were like family to us. In a million years, I never would have thought we’d lose your father that way. I would have said he didn’t have it in him. Then he lost his company.” Her eyes darted to Sterling, then back to mine. “And I guess he lost heart. I don’t know. Sometimes, you don’t know what people have inside them. We’ve missed him, and your mother, and you.”
Mae handed me a cookie. I took it, a lump growing in my throat.
“Now, here you are,” she said. “And I have a feeling if I hand you what you came for, you’re going to disappear, and who knows when we’ll see you again. So, you’ll stay, you’ll tell me everything we missed out on, get a good night’s sleep. And you can head home in the morning with what you came for. Fair?”
I found myself nodding. It was a little weird. I wanted to say these people didn’t know me… But they did. I just didn’t remember. And if they wanted to let two strangers sleep in their house, who was I to argue?
“Sounds fair to me.” Sterling flashed a blinding smile, picked up a cookie, and bit in. “I see why they call you Sugar,” she said, a hint of a southern accent coloring her words. “These are delicious.”
“I’ll push dinner up a little early since you all have to be hungry,” Mae said. “For now, tell me everything. How did you two meet? Seems an unlikely pairing.”
“That’s kind of a long story,” Sterling said. She looked to me. “I’ll let Forrest tell it. I’m curious to see what he’ll say.” She took another bite of cookie and sat back in her chair, a wicked grin on her face.
“We can start with that,” I said. “But it’s not going to paint me in a very good light.”
Sterling let out a snort of laughter, but she didn’t interrupt as I told the story of coming to Sawyers Bend for revenge and falling in love with her, the daughter of the man who’d ruined my father’s life. By the end, Sterling had finished her cookie and taken my hand in hers. She didn’t comment. Didn’t condemn me. Didn’t let me off the hook. She listened when, at Mae’s urging, I went all the way back to the days after my father’s death, when my mother decided she was done with Georgia. She’d wanted to go back to Oregon and her family. In a matter of weeks, she’d packed us up, sold the house, and driven us across the country to a new life, leaving Buck and my father’s memory behind.