up, which then led to the three of them waking their aunts and grandmother.
The other females in Poppy’s family wouldn’t surface for a while and would probably end up having their breakfast in bed. She’d let the Maddox family know they didn’t have to worry about her family joining them.
Val’s seat was Preston’s former place. At dinner the previous night, she’d had Emmie at her side. For breakfast, the kids switched it up, so Val had Ashlee next to her and Emmie was in Noah’s place beside their mom.
Noah stuck close to Poppy, electing to sit in what had been his uncle’s seat the previous night. On his knees, bobbing and weaving to keep his attention trained on the door, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who the little guy was waiting for.
“So we can’t go anywhere?” Autumn complained. “What’s the point of having zillionaires in the family if we can’t go shopping?”
“We could go to the beach,” Poppy said, spreading cream cheese on a bagel. “It’s part of the estate. Private.”
“We don’t have bathing suits,” Val said.
“With the depth of the closets in this house, I’m sure we’d find something to suit everyone,” Poppy said. “If you really want to shop, some of the stores in the city will bring their inventory to us.”
“All of it?” Willow asked.
Poppy shrugged. “If you tell them what you like, your style, they’ll bring a hand-picked selection of outfits. The great thing is they liaise with other stores and bring all kinds of complementary accessories and shoes too. You’ll never need to go to the mall again.”
“We can’t afford that,” Val said.
“My trust isn’t infinite, but there’s enough to keep your girls in shoes. If Violet and Primrose’s can stand up to the beating they get every time there’s a drama in the family, your daughters can’t do too much damage to mine.”
“We couldn’t do that,” Val said.
“It would be my pleasure,” Poppy said, folding some smoked salmon onto the bagel. “It’s just sitting there.”
“Won’t you need it for your life with Turner?” Willow asked. “You won’t have to work or anything.”
“Your brother isn’t the type of man to have staff,” she said, pouring fresh coffee into her cup. “If he didn’t need to work, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.”
“So he’s going to keep working?” Autumn asked.
Poppy sipped the hot liquid. “You’d have to ask him. Though the fact that he’s upstairs getting ready to go to a worksite right now sort of answers that question.”
Noah began to bounce on his knees. His excitement betrayed exactly who he’d spied. She was a little jealous that he could be so open about his enthusiasm.
“Where are you going to work when the house here is built?” Willow asked as soon as her brother entered the room.
Turner crossed to stand behind Poppy’s chair. “What?”
Raising her coffee, she gave him the mug. “Your sisters want permission to dip into my trust.”
“That’s Poppy’s call,” he said, gulping down the java. “What’s it got to do with my job?”
“They thought you might have aspirations to sit around and be waited upon,” she said, taking the cup from him when it was practically empty. “I said it was unlikely.”
“Very unlikely,” he said. “Whatever happens, I’ll be working. I can’t give you guys a trust, but I’ll provide for you best I can.”
“I thought you were moving here,” Charley said.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t make money to support all of you,” Turner said. “Like it or not, I’m what you’ve got.”
“Poppy has like a zillion dollars though,” Autumn said.
She laughed. “I haven’t checked recently, but I don’t think there’s that much.”
“You don’t know how much is in there?”
“It gathers interest,” Poppy said. “But I don’t want to live off the trust, I never did. We can give it to charity for all I care.”
The girls gasped.
“I’m charity,” Autumn exclaimed.
Willow pushed her. “You are not.”
“We haven’t had time to talk about it,” Poppy said, twisting to rest her side against the back of her chair. Although she addressed the table, her hand found its way beneath Turner’s tee-shirt. “But your brother might want to invest.”
Both twins wrinkled their noses. “In what?”
Val’s smile grew. “Property.”
Poppy shrugged. “Maybe. I’d say he could build his own empire, but there will be rules about how we raise our children.”
His hand landed on her head, as he stroked her hair, he curled his fingers into it to ease her head back. “I’ve gotta go to work, no excuse for being late,” he