Open Your Heart (Kings Grove #4) - Delancey Stewart Page 0,6

Tomorrow would have to be grocery day. I settled for water for now, and curled up on the couch with my phone, my legs tucked beneath me.

A quick check of my email revealed that the illustrious event management firm of Pierce and Han had been busy in my absence. I had official severance paperwork, which was hilarious, considering they’d fired me in a spectacularly public fashion and then tried to sue me. But my lawyers had been good. They’d kept me out of the Titanic-level sinking of my firm—something I’d actually caused, depending on how you wanted to look at it—and managed to get me a severance package, which I already knew wouldn’t come anywhere near paying for the lawyers in the first place. Every penny I’d made in New York, every dollar I’d scraped and saved, had been spent in a desperate attempt to save myself and my professional reputation as the firm sank.

That’s what you get for trying to do the right thing. Or maybe that’s what you get for sleeping with your boss.

Chapter 3

CAMERON

The coffee I’d made in the little French press was too damned strong, but I wasn’t in the mood to do it again. Why I couldn’t remember the right number of scoops was beyond me, or maybe it was just that I’d bought the wrong coffee again. Either you were supposed to use a super dark espresso roast or you definitely weren’t. I had a mental block about it. Coffee wasn’t my area. Coffee was Jess. She made the coffee. You’d think after almost two years of living without her I’d have figured some things out. Like how to make coffee.

But I hadn’t figured out much of anything.

There was a sheen of condensation on the Adirondack chair I slid into on the deck, and as soon as I laid my arm along the wide planks I was sorry, since my flannel shirt was now soaked from elbow to wrist, not to mention the back of my jeans. I didn’t get up to change though, it seemed like a lot of effort considering my clothes would dry once I got to work.

The big house that lay in front of mine and set off to the right was dark this morning, and though it was a decent hour—8:00 a.m., I didn’t hear any sounds from within, didn’t see any windows light up with evidence of the occupant moving around.

The occupant . . . Harper Lyles. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. I’d wracked my brain after meeting her, hearing she’d grown up here, trying to remember a Lyles family. But I knew these mountains and the people who lived here like I knew my own sorrows—deeply and intimately. And there was no Lyles in Kings Grove, though I guess she might have gotten married somewhere along the way. She’d said her dad was still here, and even though I didn’t make a habit of spending my time playing Nancy Drew and trying to unravel the mysteries of those around me, I’d been curious enough to do a mental sorting of the older men I knew who might have a daughter Harper’s age. Hell, my age. Harper looked like she might be a year or two younger than me.

I’d have to ask Maddie if she remembered her from when we were kids. Although Maddie’s memory wasn’t great for that sort of thing—she hadn’t remembered that we’d once played with Connor when we’d all been little. The guy had saved her life, pulling her out of a pond in the creek down below, and she’d barely remembered that. Maybe my sister wasn’t my best source for information.

Not that I needed to know anything about Harper Lyles anyway.

I sipped my coffee sludge and decided resolutely to not think about her.

The interesting thing about that, though, was an annoying little truth. For the first time in a long time, my mind seemed to have found something to do besides dwell and churn and mope. When I allowed myself to ponder the woman who’d taken the keys from my hand yesterday and then dragged the biggest suitcase I’d ever seen into my house, I didn’t feel as generally horrible as I had for the last couple years. She was an interesting new character, and I guessed maybe considering her wasn’t the worst thing I could do. Especially if it pulled me out of my abyss a little bit.

The girl who’d stepped out of her car yesterday hadn’t looked like