Page 33 of The Moment They Can Never Forgive
“Why are you my friend?”
“Because, like your brothers, I insult you. Compliments make you weak, and seeing as you’re in charge of my protection, I need to keep you on edge.”
“Idiot.”
Jay showed him what was on offer, and once they’d settled on two possible properties, his friend brushed his hair and pulled on clothes that weren’t creased.
“Why am I driving if you’re the one making money off anything I buy?” Dan asked as they drove to the first house he was viewing. Jay directed him to park not far from the Circle Left boarding house, bar, and restaurant. “And what the hell are we doing here?”
He got out and turned a full circle.
“Not many know this is here, but I do, so let’s go,” Jay said. “It’s just come on the market, actually.”
“What has? I see the old warehouses that the Slatters use to store their outdoor adventure stuff,” Dan said.
“Will you just shut up and walk.”
They followed a driveway down that someone had cut into the side of the bank. Around the front of the first old building, Dan saw that someone had been busy.
Red brick and a gabled roof. The joinery had a fresh coat of white, and the windows replaced. The roof looked new too.
Jay pulled out some keys and opened the new red front door. Dan followed him inside, and then just stood.
“The Slatters bought all three about five years ago. They’re keeping one for storage for now, but the other two, they’re doing up. This one is finished.”
The space was big. Kitchen, dining, and living all in one. The front part was open and rose to high ceilings, and in the back, black industrial stairs went up to a mezzanine floor.
“Explore,” Jay said, waving his hand at Dan.
“Maybe do your job and show me around?”
Jay sighed. They then walked over every inch of the place. It was as they walked back out the front door that Dan said he’d buy it.
Chapter 10
“I’ve never grown anything before,” Hudson said from his position crouched beside her. “Mom used to say that one day we’d have a garden.”
“And now you do,” Leah said.
He’s doing okay, Cass.
They’d both got out of bed early this morning and ate a bowl of cereal because if she was honest, other than toast, Leah had zero cooking skills. That was just another thing she needed to master because Hudson deserved home-cooked meals. His mother had been good at that.
Leah had read plenty of cookbooks and watched baking tutorials. Now she had to put them into practice, and here was the right place to do that. She was sure her mother’s kitchen was still full of all that baking paraphernalia she’d once had.
But not right now because they were getting their hands dirty today.
“Your mom and I used to grow stuff in a garden close to the house years ago. Then your granddaddy put these houses up, and we used this one for a while, but then we got too coolto garden,” Leah explained, looking at the earth as yet more memories slipped into her head.
She and Hudson were outside inspecting the first of the two big shade houses her father had randomly erected and never used, like most things in his life. Chuck Reynolds often had good intentions but never carried through with them if too much hard work was involved, which these would have been.
His daughters had decided that if they needed to eat fresh food, then they would have to grow it.
“Cool to grow what you can eat,” Hudson said, lifting a handful of dirt to sift it through his fingers.
“If you want, you can have some space in here just for you,” Leah said as she mentally went through what she needed to start her dream. “And soon you and I are learning to cook because we’ll have plenty of produce to use.”
“Really?” Hudson looked excited. “I used to cook with Mom sometimes.”
