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Lilith House must love them too. The screams in the walls had faded. The rooms felt light. The house was happy that love lived there.
Haddie knew that there was lots of dark in Farrow. She’d felt it that first day. But now, many places felt light, as if the darkness had been swept away. Mommy said that her new daddy had become the biggest sheriff, and that he was finding all the bad and making them leave Farrow. Her new daddy was very tall, so that’s maybe how he did that.
A man appeared at the edge of the forest, large and horned, and Haddie’s face broke into a grin. “Alonzo!” she called, grasping the hem of her dress and rushing toward him as he whooped with joy and ran toward her.**********Camden grinned as he watched Alonzo race toward Haddie, that deep, snorty laugh filling the air as he picked her up and twirled her around, her yellow dress flying out around her. They were close. Even closer than he and Alonzo, but that was because Haddie understood him on a level no one else did. Haddie had a gift that surpassed his understanding. She confounded him. And awed him. He couldn’t wait until she was old enough to explain the things that went on inside her extraordinary mind. She didn’t have the words yet, but perhaps, in the same way she’d learned to speak to Alonzo, that was a language she’d need to teach them when she was able.
They’d initially enrolled Alonzo in several programs where he could interact with others like him, but he’d become withdrawn, even depressed. He’d never lived in the outside world and he didn’t take well to it. His brother very obviously felt most comfortable, most himself in the woods, so they let him come and go as he pleased. He was still “home,” but he was no longer alone. He had all the love and affection he could handle and sought it out often. Thanks to Ruby Sugar, he had all the cake he could handle as well and that seemed to be quite a bit.
Haddie took Alonzo’s hand and they began conversing in that unique way of theirs, hurrying toward the shed near the back tree line to tend to the healing creatures the way he once had.
Inside the house, Camden headed for the kitchen. Scarlett was taking a bride and her mother on a tour of the grounds and he spotted them out the window, standing by the gazebo, chatting and laughing. He picked up one of the first apples that had come from the small orchard they’d planted, and bit into it, smiling as he chewed. If they booked—and he was confident they would as almost a hundred percent of the people who traveled to view Lilith House in person did—Scarlett would need to hire another few employees.
Glancing down, Camden noticed one of Scarlett’s lists sitting on the counter. He grabbed a pen and added two line items to the bottom:
Be ready at seven for dinner in town with the sheriff.
Do the swirly thing to your husband.
With a self-satisfied smile, he set down the pen, noticing the pile of mail nearby, a letter from Georgia on top. She could have emailed him, of course, but whenever he suggested it, she laughed and asked if he could blame her for being “old school.”
He opened the envelope, scanning her letter quickly. Because of the files Kandace had stolen and then hidden, he, Mason, and Georgia had all been able to locate and contact their mothers’ families. Each of them had sadly assumed their daughters were dead and had been shocked to learn they’d birthed children.
Georgia had healed physically from the gunshot wound she’d sustained, the one that had been removed by the doctor a town over who Mason had managed to get her to in the nick of time. Emotionally . . . well, that was still ongoing. But testifying in the trials of the few remaining men who’d been arrested in connection to what happened at Lilith House and in Farrow had helped her heal.
Georgia’s grandmother was especially involved in Georgia’s life. Georgia was in the South spending a few months with her. Her letters, including the one he’d just read, sounded . . . hopeful. More hopeful than Camden had ever known her to sound. Mason had moved to LA six months before and was working with a company who restored old homes. His mother’s family had embraced him as well, though from afar, and Mason sounded happy too.
Camden’s family had flown to California immediately upon finding out he and Alonzo existed. There had been an overwhelming reunion and although Camden was still getting to know them, they were good people he knew would be a constant in his life. In Scarlett’s and Haddie’s and Millie’s lives, along with the baby on the way.
