Page 48 of Chaos

“You do?”

His face says it all.

“I hired him for three sessions,” he admits. “We just gotta let him finish them out.”

Makes sense, unfortunately. I can handle two more days of his presence.

Probably.

When we pull up outside the main house, I’m planning on slipping away to the barn like I do every morning, but a firm hand on my shoulder stops that from happening. “We’re having breakfast.”

I’m not hungry, I’m about to claim, except my stomach picks the perfect time to make a loud, rumbling interjection. Jackson smirks, letting go of me for the ten seconds it takes him to maneuver his son out of the backseat, and then he hauls me up the porch steps and practically kicks my ass through the front door.

I’m mid-throwing a scowl over my shoulder when a slightly shorter, slender body knocks the breath out of me. “For fuck’s sake, Eliza.”

Clutching my torso like I didn’t just see her yesterday, my little sister boops me on the fucking nose. “I missed you.”

“I see you every day.”

“But you’ve been skulking.”

“I have not.” I totally have. Almost a fortnight of being here and I still feel like an intruder—skulking is only natural. Lingering awkwardly in the doorway, I watch my sisters and my brother and my nephews and my sister-in-law waltz around thekitchen in weird, routine harmony. Like they do this every day. Which they probably do.

With Isaac on his hip, Jackson nudges me towards the table that’s set for five adults, a baby, and a toddler. As I slide into a chair and stare at a plate that’s already piled high with food—somehow, I know the stack of blueberry pancakes is the exact same recipe I used to beg Lux to make when I was a kid—something about the situation starts to feel a little suspicious. “Is this an intervention?”

“Didn’t Lux already do one of those?” Luna winks, knocking away the knuckles my older sister aims at her clavicle. Stealing her son from her husband-to-be, she flops onto the chair opposite me, nursing the boy while she snags a piece of toast from the platter in the middle of the table. “It’s just breakfast, chaos girl. Eat.”

I do, if only because the wrath of a breastfeeding lady is not something I want to agitate. And then I keep eating and eating and eating because everyone was right—Eliza really is a good cook. I knew that already, I’ve known for over a week now, yet it still surprises me. So good that when she, in all her affectionate glory, stations herself behind my seat, arms hooking around my neck and her chin digging into the top of my head, I let her stay like that. I even reach up and give her forearm a squeeze.

“Is your ankle okay to ride?”

I swear Lux’s neck cracks with how furiously her head whips in my direction. “Why wouldn’t your ankle be okay to ride? I thought it was fine.”

“It is fine,” I insist before throwing Jackson the stink eye.Rat. “Why?”

He stink-eyes me right back. “Got a couple of new horses for trail rides. I thought you and Yasmin could take them out for a test drive.”

“I can go alone.”

“You can go with Yasmin or I can send Yasmin with someone else.”

I purse my lips as I think about it—only for a second though. I haven’t ridden since I got back here, and I can’t deny that I’m itching to. So I relent with a jerky nod, and through a mouthful of pancakes, I ask, “Can I go check on Ruin first?”

The second Jackson nods, I’m on my feet, snagging a handful of sugar cubes from the bowl on the table, halfway out the door before Lux stands too, making me pause. “I’ll come with you.”

Another little voice chimes in. “Can I come?”

Lux shoots her son a look. “You know the rule.”

Alex pouts, but he doesn’t protest other than dodging his mother’s hand when she goes to ruffle his hair and—God, I can’t believe I’m admitting this—looking remarkably likemeas he sulks.

“What’s the rule?” I ask Lux as we head outside. I don’t miss the quick glances she keeps shooting my ankle, so I make a point of rushing across the yard, making it to the barn in record time.

“He’s not allowed near the new horses. ‘Specially ones like Ruin.”

An instinctual sense of protectiveness,defensiveness, makes me frown. “He’s not that bad.”

Almost on cue, there’s a thud and a pissed off whine from the very back of the barn, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear the stallion did it on purpose.

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