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)
“I want to be married to Hawk, and I want a beautiful wedding. But I don’t want to have to figure out the wedding part.”
“I’ve got you,” I said, giving her another hug. “I already have ideas.”
“I knew you would,” Quinn said, her eyes falling to the diamond on her hand.
Then Hope was there with baby Stella in her arms. “Let me see,” she insisted, and I slid out of the way, drifting back to my seat. Griffen called for champagne, dragging Savannah and Finn up from the kitchens to help celebrate Quinn’s engagement.
I watched all the happy couples in the room and felt the absence at my side, not of a partner but of Forrest, specifically. He could have been here, celebrating with us, if I wasn’t such a stubborn ass. I shook the thought away. Not that long ago, I hadn’t even been speaking to him. One thing at a time. I was pretty sure Forrest was what I wanted. Now, I had to figure out if he was what I needed.
I let out a sigh, and my wandering gaze snagged on the two people who didn’t look overwhelmed with joy for the newly engaged couple: Brax and Ford. They sat at the end of the table across from each other, neither of them smiling. Brax looked annoyed. Bitter, maybe? Hard to tell. I made a point of not knowing him, which meant I couldn’t read his face well enough to tell if he was irritated by the delay of dinner, didn’t like Hawk, or was pissed off about something else entirely. His eyes, so like my own and Quinn’s, were brittle and squinty as he stared at Hawk, then Quinn. His gaze slid to meet mine, his mouth twisting in a cold smile that sent a chill down my spine. I gritted my teeth against a shiver. I was not going to give Brax the satisfaction of seeing he’d gotten under my skin. Even if he had.
Ford didn’t notice Brax’s creepy smile. He didn’t seem to notice much of anything going on around him. He was right here, in the dining room with us, but he looked as if he was a thousand miles away, his expression blank, eyes shuttered. Whatever was going on in his head, he wasn’t going to share with the rest of us.
We had champagne and toasted the happy couple. Sometime after dessert—a gorgeous cake that told me Hawk had tipped off Finn—Ford disappeared from the table. My eyes caught on Brax again. His jaw was set, his gaze dark as he glowered down at his cake, then raised a glance after Ford. He stood and slipped from the room.
Was he following Ford?
Chapter Twenty
STERLING
“What’s that about?” a voice next to me asked. I looked over to see Avery sliding into the empty seat next to me, her eyes on the door closing behind Brax.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I said, wondering why Avery was sitting beside me in her Sawyers Bend Brewing polo shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a gleaming ponytail. Even sitting, she was taller than me, everything about her was larger than life—dark hair and eyes, strong brows, and a wide, expressive mouth. If she’d bothered with makeup or fashion, she would have knocked everyone dead. It was for the best that she rarely bothered with either. She was striking enough as she was. Five years older than me, we’d never had a close relationship, but we’d never had issues. As long as you didn’t get between her and the brewery, Avery was a sweetheart.
“People are dropping like flies around here,” she said, nodding toward Quinn and Hawk. “Another wedding soon, and now you’re seeing Forrest again.” I braced for her to weigh in, but Avery just shrugged. “He comes in sometimes to have a beer. He seems like a nice guy.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Avery and I weren’t BFFs. Aside from the age difference, for years, her brewery had been her first love and her baby, which meant she didn’t have a lot of time or space for the rest of us. I didn’t blame her. Until our father died, avoiding family seemed to be the safest way through life. And now, even with Griffen back and things so different in Heartstone Manor, Avery had been a little bit like Brax—buried in work, isolated even in the midst of our forced family reunion. But unlike Brax, Avery had always been cool, just busy with her own stuff.
“I was going to ask Quinn,” she said, “but I don’t want to bring all this up right now when she’s so happy.”
“Ask her what?” I said, curious.
“About the necklace she found in Prentice’s hunting cabin. The one she brought to Harvey.”
I knew what Avery was talking about. Quinn had taken over our father’s hunting cabin and made it her own. While she was cleaning it up, she’d found a necklace we thought might be the key to the mystery woman our father had planned to marry. So far, the only information we had was that there was apparently going to be a new Mrs. Sawyer no one had met. Prentice had been fixing up his suite in the Manor for her. We had reasons to think she might have been pregnant.