AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Everyone dies in that story,” Taylor, Cormac’s older daughter said. “It’s not romantic.”
“That is an excellent point,” I said, agreeing with the sage words of a child. “And nothing good can come from Tuckers and Tanners hanging out together.”
“Except maybe Mrs. Easter was right,” Paige said. “I mean, better you than me—I’ve been poisoned by proximity to Mom’s constant concern that a Tucker is going to redecorate The Tin again, or steal Verda’s moose.”
“What do you mean, better me than you?” I asked.
“The feud is ridiculous. No one even knows why we hate Tuckers, just that we do. I mean, this isn’t eighteen hundred. Let’s end it already. You should totally do this—end the feud for us all by realizing that Mrs. Easter was basically matchmaking.” Paige looked proud of herself for having figured this out.
Matchmaking? Had Mrs. Easter really had that in her mind when she’d put this together? I wasn’t so sure. I could see her wanting to end the feud, I doubted she cared about my love life. And how did she even know either of us was single? “I don’t think that’s what she’s doing.”
“Maybe she just wanted the two sides of her family to get back together,” Cormac suggested.
“That makes more sense to me,” I said, letting my eyes slide shut as I thought about the house. “I could actually get excited about renovating the place, being allowed to choose all the colors and surfaces and everything. But I’m not sure at all about the moving in part.”
Cormac chuckled. “Because the place is most likely haunted?”
“No,” I said too quickly, thinking that my hesitation was exactly because the place was probably haunted, but I didn’t want to seem like I couldn’t handle a little fear. “Because it’s old. And I’m used to modern conveniences.”
“Wasn’t your building in New York a pre-war building?” Paige piped up.
“They renovated!” I said, defending myself. “We had working toilets and showers, and no ghosts that I knew about. I’m just not sure I could live there with Michael Tucker. And if we each do six months, I have to stay here for a year before we can sell.”
“The place is big, right?” Paige asked.
“Yeah, pretty big, especially compared to a New York apartment.”
“Couldn’t you both live there at the same time without being on top of each other? There’s more than one bedroom, right?”
I nodded, thinking about sleeping with handsome Michael Tucker just down the hall. That’d be strange, wouldn’t it? And Dan would be there too, because Michael had joint custody. I couldn’t figure out quite how I felt about that—would I be an intruder in their family life? I didn’t like that idea.
“One sec?” Cormac said, his face taking a serious cast. “How well do we know this guy? You’re going to move into a house with him? Is that a good idea?”
“I mean...the Tuckers have been in town forever,” I pointed out. “It isn’t like he’s a stranger. I’ve known him since he was a baby.”
“Still,” Paige said. “There’s one more thing to consider. Mom will hate this.”
I thought of Lottie, back in her little house, where my childhood bedroom was just waiting for me to return so it could stifle me with all the hopes and dreams I’d never fulfill under my mother’s painfully sympathetic gaze. I had to get out of there either way. “Yeah. You’re right,” I said. “But I think I’m going to do it anyway.”
* * *
Monday morning,I met Michael at the lawyer’s office again. Augustus had called to find out if we had questions and to tell us he had something else for us.
“What do you suppose this will be?” I asked Michael as we met on the sidewalk outside.
“Well, it’s unlikely to be as surprising as the first time we visited,” he said. Michael smiled at me, and in the sun shining over the square, his hair glowed golden red and his blue eyes sparkled. He might have been a Tucker, but on a purely aesthetic level, the man was hot.
I ignored his dazzling looks and my own unbidden reaction to them and cleared my throat. “Let’s go find out.”
We climbed the stairs and knocked on the door to the lawyer’s office, and Anders greeted us wearing the same strange round hat he’d had on the previous week.
“Hello, hello,” he said, waving us in.
When we were seated, he looked between us. “You’ve seen the house, yes?”
“Yes,” we agreed.
“Then I am bound by the terms of Mrs. Easter’s last wishes to give you this.” He slid an envelope across the desk to us.
