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I nodded. “You look good.”
“Of course I do,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I look after myself.”
Hettie ate a lot of her own food as she had a vegetable garden out back, along with raspberries, blueberries, and the three apple trees. She’d preserve what she needed for the winter months, including several shelves of jams and applesauce, and the rest she took to the food bank.
Jaeg used to bitch and complain every fall when the apples began to ripen because he was the one out there doing the picking. I’d done it too. Shit, all of us had when we did something to warrant fruit-picking punishment.
But even if we saw it as a punishment back then, it wasn’t. It was cathartic, and I think that’s why she made us do it.
Her smile fell as her eyes locked on mine. “Can’t say the same of you. You look like you’ve been up all night, dancing with a herd of pink-tutu-wearing boars.” She paused. “It rained.”
I grunted.
Hettie was always brutally honest, and she was right. I did look like crap because I hadn’t slept since Moldova, thanks to the little rainbird perched in my bloody cabin.
Her gaze travelled the length of my body. “You’ve lost weight.”
I had, but only in the last three weeks. The mission in Moldova lasted twelve days longer than we intended, and instead of calling in the bird and regrouping, we decided to stay put and ration food.
She walked back inside the house. “Rules still apply,” she said over her shoulder.
No weapons in the house, which was why I’d off-loaded them in the truck.
I came into the house and followed her down the hallway, passing the staircase that led upstairs to the five bedrooms. The same red-and-black Persian carpet runner on the old hardwood floor greeted me, along with the familiar beige walls with the painting of a chestnut racehorse on one side, and framed family photos of Jaeg, Aderyn, and Arthur Mason, Hettie’s late husband, on the other. He’d drowned with Jaeg and Aderyn’s parents in a boating accident long before I moved to town.
She placed the stainless-steel kettle on the stove. “Addie says you’re kicking Mac and Jackson out of the cabin,” she said.
Jesus. Right to the guts of the matter. But I’d expect no less from Hettie, and that was why I’d delayed coming to see her.
I propped my shoulder against the archway that led into the kitchen and crossed my arms. “They can’t stay, Hettie.”
She tsked, shaking her head. “Victor Gate, it’s a woman and child. She’s also North’s sister and Addie’s friend, which means family.”
She’s the only one who ever used my full name. And she only did it when she was disappointed. “North has money. He can buy them a house.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I gave them a week.” And I regretted giving them that long.
She scowled, and it was one of those lip-disappearing scowls, so I knew I was about to be pelted with a slew of admonishments.
I added, “It’s not safe for them to stay.” For a hell of a lot more reasons than the fact that I’d held a gun to Macayla’s head. Shit, if Hettie knew, I’d never hear the end of it.
Her scowl eased. “That’s why you’re home. They’re back.”
With a vengeance, but I didn’t tell her that. “Just need some downtime before I head out again.”
She was silent for a moment, her thin brows furrowed. “How long are you staying?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know. I hadn’t given Deck a timeline, and he didn’t ask. I rarely took time off, and he knew I wouldn’t take it unless I needed it.
The kettle whistled and steam billowed from the spout. She turned the dial on the gas stove and lifted the kettle off to the side. “The boy has night terrors too.”
I stiffened. “I know.”
She didn’t seem surprised that I knew this already. She plucked a tea bag out of a tin box and plunked it into her teacup. I didn’t drink tea, but for her sake I drank water with lemon. She poured steaming hot water into the two cups before picking them up and walking to the island.
“He must have talked about you for over an hour the other day.”
