Page 35 of Road to Redemption

But before I could find the words, footsteps came pounding down the stairs, followed by my fellow houseguests swinging through the doorway.

Leo headed straight for the coffee pot with a nod as Spencer sidled up to my chair. “Oooo, we’ve got Cap’n Crunch?”

“That was the last of it,” Viv winked at me before looking up at Spencer. “Be a dear and drop that bowl in the sink for us?”

“You’ve got it, ma’am.” Spence nodded. As she crossed to the sink, Leo shoved a mug of fresh coffee into her hand. And like the animal she was, Spencer downed half of it in a single sip.

While the two of them flitted around the kitchen, insisting on cooking a nice breakfast for Viv and I, Dom lurked by the doorway, eyes flitting between her mother and I.

Her gaze made my skin prickle. Had she overheard our conversation, and if so, how much of it? But before she could say a word, Viv greeted her with a smile.

“Sleep alright, hon?”

“Mmm? Mhm.” Dom nodded, uncrossing her arms and approaching the table. She ducked her head as she walked, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought there was a slight blush creeping at her cheeks.

Dom? Feeling shy? Maybe she’s more human than I thought.

As she took the seat next to me, her warm, heavy scent brought heat to my cheeks as well. Not wanting her to get the wrong idea, I avoided Dom’s gaze, bending down to give Lady a scratch on the head instead.

I was still skeptical of Viv’s read on Dom, but if my body’s response was anything to go off of, she’d certainly been right about one thing: against all logic and odds, it certainly seemed like Dom had me.

22

KIERA

Apparently, fine art had been Viv’s attempt at an isolation hobby before cooking. And holy shit, had she invested.

I almost felt bad taking the supplies she’d offered me that day in the kitchen until she showed me the closet full of paint, sketch pads, pastels and colored pencils covered in a thick layer of dust.

“The art store was having a sale,” she’d explained. “Anyway, I’m just glad to see them put to good use. Lord knows I had no clue what to do with them.”

And while I couldn’t say for certain that I was putting them to good use these last couple of days, they were certainly seeing more use than they had in the closet.

I adjusted in the Adirondack chair, leaning the sketchpad against my knee. A couple yards away, Lady was lazing by the gate of the chicken run. At this point, the hens didn’t faze her in the slightest, even as they wandered past the gate and started grazing in the grass around her.

Dom had been right when we found Lady at the shelter; this dog didn’t have a mean bone in her body.

A terrible guard dog? Maybe. But she’s still the perfect still-life model.

I needed darker brown for her eyes, though. As I reached for the pencil case on the table beside me, my gaze drifted beyond the chicken coop to the garden.

Viv, as always, was elbow-deep in the veggie patch, training the peas’ tendrils up their trellises. And tonight, Dom had joined her, getting her hands dirty tidying the bed as her mother gushed about the ins and outs of raising cool weather crops.

For once, Dom’s phone was nowhere in sight. There was no need for calls, no need to pull connections or make another plan. As of yesterday, she had a lead, and once the Oracle confirmed it, we would be going home. Or back to New York at least.

She still wouldn’t confirm exactly where we were headed, other than to say that it was a last resort. But as nervous as that thought made all of us, I knew that she’d have considered it carefully. She wouldn’t take us somewhere she couldn’t personally guarantee our safety.

At least I trusted her that much.

Off to the left, a bag of soil thudded to the ground, grabbing my attention as well as the chickens’. Lady, on the other hand, barely cracked open one lazy eye as Spencer dropped to the ground for another round of push-ups.

She’d been missing the expensive home gym set-up the crew had assembled back in Valemont. But Viv’s garden had enough heavy shit for her to cobble together a pretty intense workout. And I certainly didn’t mind the view of her all sweaty and dirty.

I flipped the page in my sketchpad, ready to memorialize the glow of those biceps. But as my pencil hovered above the paper, a frustrated exhale drew my eye to the Adirondack chair beside mine.

Leo was leaned back with an ankle crossed over her knee and her laptop propped up in the gap of her legs. One hand clutched her chin while the other worked the computer, scrolling and typing at an unpredictable clip.

Her brows knit, Leo didn’t look up from her screen once — not even as Spencer hoisted the soil bag up with a grunt and jogged to the other side of the yard.