Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I’ve unloaded half the groceries when the rumble of a familiar truck engine growls from the road. Mom and Will must be here to drop off Atticus.
“Mom! Guess what?” he calls, sprinting across the gravel a minute later.
“What?” I ask, standing just in time to catch him in a half hug.
“Grandpa let me drive his lawn tractor. And Grandma made waffles for dinner. Waffles.”
“Steer,” my stepdad, Will, corrects him. “I let him steer it, not drive it. Big difference, bud, but we’ll get there.”
“You lucky duck.” I brush a curl from his forehead. “You gonna help me put all this away?”
He wrinkles his nose. I let it slide this once. Normally we’re a team, but this is a special circumstance—and I need to figure out where everything’s going to go first, otherwise I’ll find a box of cereal under the stove and a bottle of ketchup in the freezer.
My mother’s already making her way toward me, arms open, warm and smiling. Pretty sure she hasn’t stopped smiling since the moving truck arrived this morning. She took the day off work specifically to help take Atticus off my hands while I handled the movers.
“Hi, sweetheart.” She’s beaming, dragging in a literal breath of fresh air. “Wow, look at this place.”
“Come on in,” I say, gesturing her and Will inside as I grab another couple of bags. “It’s still a disaster. And we’ll be eating Tony’s frozen pizza for the next three days, but it’s starting to look more like home than some old farmhouse.”
Inside, my mom makes a beeline for the kitchen, already unpacking without asking. It’s her love language—acts of service disguised as mild bossiness. My back is on fire and I can barely keep my eyes open, so I accept her help with a tremendous amount of quiet appreciation.
“Atticus, show Grandpa your new room,” she calls as she tears open a bag of Gala apples and dumps them into a ceramic bowl on the counter.
“I was going to give you the official tour,” I say, handing her a box of pantry items. “But Atticus probably knows the property better than I do. I haven’t even ventured to the outbuildings yet.”
The movers finished early this afternoon, and I spent a few hours unpacking clothes and other essentials before running to the lone grocery store in town.
“It’s all he’s been talking about all day,” Mom says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited about anything in his life. Did he tell you he wants a pony?”
I chuckle. “One of the first things he said.”
She tilts her head to the side, eyes crinkling and warm. “You know, one of our neighbors down the road has a little Shetland. Got it for their grandkids years ago, but the grandkids grew up, got too busy for pony rides. It’d be perfect for Atticus. Want me to ask if they’d sell it to you?”
“Sure.” I don’t know the first thing about pony ownership, but how hard can it be? I’ve got a barn and a corral and some fenced land. I’ll figure out the rest. Besides, Atticus needs some chores. Real chores. Not just unloading the dishwasher.
Upstairs, the sound of Will and Atticus’s footsteps make the place creak and moan. Mom stocks my fridge, making sure all the labels face out the way she always does. The house feels warmer with them here. The kind of warmth that has nothing to do with the thermostat.
“I’m setting up my office in that little room off the front hallway,” I tell her as we unload the last of the groceries. “The one with the bow window.”
“Oh, Wren, I love that one. You’ll be able to see when someone’s coming up the drive.”
“Exactly. I can be nosy and productive at the same time.”
She grins. “Just like Grandma Betty used to. That’s where you get that from, you know.”
We move from room to room, and I show her everything—the unfinished sunroom off the kitchen that I’m dreaming of turning into a reading nook, the barn I haven’t dared venture into yet, the spot in the backyard where I want to plant lavender and tomatoes and zucchini—and probably kill them all, though I’m hell-bent on proving Reese wrong about my black thumb.
“It’s weird being back,” I admit as we circle back to the kitchen. “Everything looks familiar but different at the same time. And the grocery store was filled with strangers. The hardware store too. I saw my old English teacher, Mrs. Crest, on the square and waved. She waved back, but I could tell she didn’t recognize me. Gosh, she was the whole reason I got into writing in the first place.”
“You’ve been here one day,” Mom says, head cocked in sympathy. “And people haven’t forgotten you.”
I raise a brow. “I wouldn’t blame them if they did. I’ve been gone almost twenty years.”