Sweet Heart (The Hearts of Sawyers Bend #2) - Ivy Layne Page 0,31
head off the wall. It deserved better. I added it to the growing pile Griffen had started, watching as he tossed a stuffed mallard on top.
“Any attachment to these curtains?” I asked with a grunt as I tore them to the ground.
“I fucking hate them. The curtains, the trophies. That goddamn painting of Prentice. I want it all out.”
Together we stripped all signs of my father from Heartstone's office. Griffen swung the French doors wide, and we carted all of it to a clear spot in the grass behind the house, piling it high. I whirled at the sound of movement behind me to see Sterling standing there, her eyes wide with fascination.
“I'll be right back,” she breathed and took off at a run into the house.
I didn't know Sterling could move that fast. She was back only minutes later with what looked like yards of white satin shoved under her arm, a half-full bottle of vodka in one hand, a lighter in the other.
Sterling tossed the bundle of fabric on the top of the pile and upended the vodka bottle, watching with an exuberant grin as the vodka soaked into the pile. When it was empty, she tossed it in the grass behind us and flicked her lighter, setting it to the closest bit of white satin. Flames ate at the heavy fabric, greedy, growing by the second.
If we'd wanted to take it back, it was too late.
The three of us stood there side by side and watched it burn, these memories of our father and the mark he'd left on the house. On us.
Finn turned up, taking a spot beside me, his arms crossed over his chest, one dark eyebrow lifted. “Redecorating the office?”
“Taking out the trash,” I answered. Finn was as much a stranger to me as Griffen had been. He'd left home not long after Griffen, choosing the military over life with our father. His constant bitching about the household cooks was entertaining but other than that, I didn't know him very well. Now was as good a time to start as any.
“Anything you want to add?”
Finn stiffened as if arrested by the thought. I wondered what was going through his head when he turned and jogged back into the house as Sterling had. He was back seconds later, half-shoving and half-dragging the throne-like leather chair that had sat behind Prentice's desk as far back as I could remember. Griffen grunted in approval, moving to grab the other side of the chair. Together they hefted it to the top of the pile, dodging sparks as it settled.
“I hate that chair,” Finn murmured from beside me.
“Me too,” Sterling agreed. “The way he'd sit there and stare down at me, telling me what a disappointment I was. How I'd never amount to anything. I always figured—why bother trying? Nothing I did was ever good enough. Not for the mighty Prentice Sawyer.”
“You know it wasn't just you, right?” I asked.
Sterling looked over at me. “But he let you and Tenn run The Inn.”
I shook my head. “Only because he thought we'd fail and he could sell it off. He told us so many times we were going to fuck it up and the whole town would know what losers we were. Then we didn't fuck it up, and he took all the credit.”
“Sounds like Dad,” Finn said. “When I joined the Army, he told me never to come back.” Finn glanced over at Griffen. “I didn't come back often, but I did come back. You could have if you wanted to.”
Griffen's teeth clenched. The fire absorbed his gaze for a long moment before he answered. “I didn't want to at first. Later—it just seemed impossible.” He was silent again, staring at the flames.
In a low voice I could barely hear, he said, “I imagined what he'd say, how he'd take all the things I'd accomplished, everything I'd made of myself, and break it down until I ended up feeling two inches tall. I should have come back. For the rest of you, if not for me. I'm glad I never had to see Prentice again, but I'm sorry for leaving my family.”
“We should have looked for you,” I said. It hurt to make the words real, to take that heavy guilt and make it concrete.
Griffen hadn't wanted to, but he'd come home. He could have ignored the will, could have stayed in the life he'd built in Atlanta with the Sinclairs helping to run Sinclair Security.