The Heartbreaker of Echo Pass - Maisey Yates Page 0,14

used to cook and clean, but now my sister-in-law does that. And now it feels so much like her house. It’s just all different than it was. And I don’t really have a place. But anyway. There are a lot of spiders on a ranch, believe me. And I never got used to them.”

“There’s an apartment above the bakery,” he said. He had just been going over the specs of that particular building, because he actually did have a file on it, chucked under the couch, which would make Lucinda crazy. But his business manager had accepted the fact that if she wanted him to keep information, it was going to have to be analog, because up here he didn’t have internet of any kind.

Another thing the Griffin Chance he’d once been would never have believed he might not care about.

But he didn’t. Didn’t miss it. Didn’t want it.

But that meant he had files. Actual physical files about his various interests.

“Really?”

“I imagine I could rent it out separate to the bakery, to someone else. You’re basically robbing me blind, Iris. But, that sounds like a lot of extra work. If you need a place to stay...”

“I... I hadn’t even considered that.”

She looked completely bowled over by the thought. By the offer. And it gratified him. He really didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he should want to offer it to her. Why he should care. It was just that she had spoken of the way that she no longer fit with her family, and there was something familiar about that to him.

He knew what it was like to simply not fit anymore. To walk the same streets he had always walked, going to the same halls that he’d gone into for years, and they were the same, but he was different. And it was just too painful.

Too much of a reminder.

Sometimes new scenery was the best and most important thing you could have.

“That seems awfully nice of you. You’re not a serial killer, are you?”

He nearly spit out the bite of sandwich that was in his mouth. “Am I a serial killer? How did I get from being nice to being a serial killer?”

“My brother was concerned that you might be a serial killer.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I guess that’s a good question for a brother to ask.”

Guilt stabbed him. Because he was a brother. He was a brother, and he hadn’t reached out to his sister in a long time. Hadn’t reached out to anyone in his family.

“Well, are you? Because I would love to be able to answer him in the affirmative that you’re not.”

“No,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. “I’m not.”

“Well then, that’s very nice of you, and I will think about it. It just... I wasn’t really considering getting quite that much independence all at once. But... If I lived above the bakery, it would be so much easier to get all my work done.”

“I’m sure it would be. Plus, solitude,” he said.

“You’re a big fan of solitude, aren’t you?”

He considered that. “Not specifically. But I find it...about the easiest thing.”

“You don’t seem to have too much trouble talking to me.”

“I’ve been saving up for this conversation for a number of years. Probably by tomorrow I won’t have anything left to say.”

“Well, I live in a house full of people. So there’s no saving up conversations. But I don’t mind. My family really is wonderful. We all had to... Really take care of each other.”

Now this was territory he didn’t want to get into. He didn’t want to talk about family. He didn’t want to think about it. No way in the world.

He finished eating while she finished tidying, and then he carried his blankets out to her car. In trade, she handed him one of the two giant insulated bags she was holding. “Your stove works, right? Your oven?”

“Wood fire. So it works as long as there’s a flame.”

“Some of these need the oven. There’s soup, which you can do on the stove top. And bread. There’s also meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Some roast chicken, green beans, rolls and salad. And this one has cake.”

She handed him the second insulated bag. “And cookies. And I also put slices of millionaire bar in there. I made them for my brother-in-law. I figured he didn’t need all of them.”

“That seems excessive,” he said.

“When do you think you’ll need more?” she asked.

“I’m not really sure,” he said.

He shouldn’t be hungry. He had just stuffed himself with