Dearly Departed by Heather Novak

Author:Heather Novak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance
ISBN: 9781957748887
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2022-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Eliza

This morning had been a mistake. It reminded me how much I missed Paris, her quiet, steady presence sitting next to me. She had been my anchor, my companion, and a role model for Daisy. One meal shouldn’t feel like coming home, but it did. For a little while, I’d forgotten how much pain she’d caused this family, how I couldn’t trust her.

Then my text alert went off and it was like someone had thrown a rock, shattering the snow globe around this perfect but precarious morning. Reality flooded in, souring everything.

Loren: Call when you can talk

I responded with a thumbs-up emoji and put my phone away. “How’re the roads?” I asked Jake, who had been laughing at something Paris said.

He was leaning back, his chair on two legs, but straightened when he heard the tone of my voice. “Salt trucks are out and it’s stopped sleeting. Go slow and you should be okay. Already had Poppy, Mina, and Carma out Black Friday shopping.”

“How’d that go?”

“They’re going to have to build a second bed and breakfast just for storage.”

I laughed. “Sounds about right.”

“You coming tomorrow night? Carma said you didn’t respond to her text.”

“We’ll talk after work about it. Paris and I have a case we need to wrap up.” I glanced at the clock on the stove. Just after eight. I looked at Paris. “You good?”

For one moment, she looked like I’d punched her in the stomach, then her expression was normal again. I fisted my hand to keep from saying I know, I understand, I didn’t want it to end, either.

Paris stood and started gathering plates. “I’ll grab these, you go get ready for work.”

I shook my head. “You have to drive home, change, then drive to work. It’ll take you longer. I’ve got this.”

“Did you cook?”

“Well, yeah—”

“Then stop arguing with me.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, hands up in surrender. “Okay, you win. Thank you.”

Paris carried the plates to the sink and started rinsing them, then placed them in the dishwasher. Jake looked between us for a long moment, then turned his attention to Daisy. “Munchkin, go change into daytime clothes so we can do some work.”

She crossed her arms and groaned. “But it’s vacation.”

“Ah yes,” he lifted a finger. “Which means once we finish our lessons, we can go play hide and seek with Reggie and Sebastian.” He lifted his finger to his lips. “We don’t even have to tell your mom if we have ice cream for lunch.” He winked.

She nodded, completely serious. “I’ll get dressed,” she whispered.

He nodded back with the same level of seriousness. He watched until she ran into her room and shut the door, then turned to face me and Paris. He gestured between us. “We finally going to talk about what’s going on here?”

Paris dropped a pan into the sink and grimaced. “Nothing,” she said, more to the sink than Jake.

I crossed my arms and looked down at my brother. “What makes you think something’s going on here?”

He laughed once.

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