My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,46
collecting in the low spots already, forming muddy pools.
“So much for getting any work done this morning.”
“Maybe it won’t last long.” She didn’t sound hopeful.
“Maybe.” I wasn’t optimistic either. The dark clouds stretched as far as I could see in every direction.
A gust of wind blew the rain sideways onto the porch, driving us inside the house for shelter. Once we had the door closed, Andie grabbed a couple of dish towels and tossed me one to dry myself off with.
I wasn’t thrilled about her request for space, but I could understand her need for it. Reluctantly, I might even be willing to admit it was the best thing for both of us right now. I couldn’t risk a repeat of last night, and the closer I was to Andie, the greater chance there was that I’d slip up and act on my feelings for her again.
As I dried the rain off my arms, my eyes slid over to her and I caught her staring at me. Not in the angry way she’d been glaring at me a few minutes ago, but with a raw, pained expression that made my mouth go dry as she jerked her gaze away from me.
“Do you have any nine-volt batteries?” I asked, desperate for something to do to keep me busy.
Frowning in confusion, she swiveled her head back toward me. “Why?”
“Since I’m here, I thought I might as well check all your smoke detectors and change the batteries.”
Andie yanked open a kitchen drawer and grabbed a package of batteries. “Knock yourself out.” She slapped them into my hand and stalked out of the kitchen. “I’ve got laundry to fold.”
Still pretty pissed at me, then. Cool.
After fetching Andie’s stepladder out of the laundry room, I got to work on the smoke detectors. She walked past me carrying a laundry basket while I was fiddling with the one in the living room and neither of us said a word. Once I’d finished all the downstairs rooms, I carried the ladder up to the second floor. While I was unscrewing the smoke detector in the hallway, Andie edged around me and went back into her room without a word. I finished up and went into the guest room next, figuring I’d stay out of her hair as long as possible by saving her bedroom for last.
This guest room didn’t see much use. Andie had converted the other spare bedroom into a sort of workshop for her craft projects, but this one was mostly just storage. I shoved a few boxes out of the way to make room for the stepladder and climbed up to reach the smoke detector. While I was up there I noticed the ladder was a little wobbly, as if the floor underneath was uneven. So when I finished putting in a new battery, I squatted down to examine the floorboards.
One of them was definitely loose. I pulled a screwdriver out of my tool belt and gently prodded at the edges of the board. It popped right out of place with barely any pressure, and I realized all the nails must have come out.
Or been removed on purpose.
There was something down there, in the space underneath the floor. Shoved off to one side, nearly out of sight, were some kind of papers. I reached my hand in the narrow gap between the floorboards and drew out a bundle of old letters tied up with a faded pink ribbon.
Sitting back on my haunches, I blew the debris off them and tried to make out the faded cursive writing. They were all addressed to a Miss Lillian Autry, which I remembered was the maiden name of Andie’s grandmother who’d left her this house. I flipped through a few of them as I got to my feet, but they were all addressed the same, in the same handwriting, with no return address on the envelopes.
“Hey, Andie?” I called out as I wandered out of the guest room.
“In here,” she said from her bedroom.
When I reached the doorway of her room, the familiar scent hit me square in the gut—a mix of her honeysuckle shampoo and the sweet, clean smell of her skin that took me right back to last night when I’d tasted her on my tongue.
“What is it?” She was sitting on the bed with stacks of folded laundry around her.
I held out the letters as I came toward her. “I found these under the floor in the guest room.”