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“Your family will know this is your shirt, Joe.”
“Sure, and that we’re sleeping together, so you probably just need to deal with that fact.”
“I’m a private person.”
“I’m not,” he said, touching her shoulder. “And they’re all good people who like you, Bailey.”
“I like them too.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes off the house yet.
“That’s good to know.”
Her sigh came from the soles of her feet.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for the memories that will hit me when I walk through that door, Joe.”
“They weren’t all bad surely?” He moved in behind Bailey, and wrapped his arms around her.
“No, not all of them.”
“It’s changed in there now, baby. Come and see.”
She didn’t speak, just let him lead her inside. Her eyes moved around the entrance that was now bigger than when she’d lived here.
“We knocked out a few walls, and opened it up. So things are going to look different.”
Bailey touched the wood paneling as she walked. Her eyes went left to right as she took it all in silently. He walked her through the big lounge that had large, comfortable furnishings and an open fireplace. Piper was into plants, so there was plenty of greenery scattered about the place.
“We went for light colors inside, with a few feature walls. There were plenty of battles over what eventually went up, with so many strong-willed people involved, but we got there in the end.”
She stopped by a window they’d put in recently, and looked out.
“Speak, woman.” He didn’t like her silence, or not knowing what she was thinking.
“It’s a different place now. I still see touches of the house I lived in, like the paneling, of which there are forty boards, by the way. But I like it, and somehow it feels easier being in here because of the changes.”
“You counted them?” He moved closer to touch her cheek.
“What?”
“The boards, how come you counted them?”
“When my mom called me down for dinner, I would count each one before I went to the dining room. It was like a nightly ritual, and a small rebellion on my part.”
“How did you figure that?”
“Because I wasn’t coming at once like she wanted.”
“Such a tough girl.”
She gave him a small smile.
“I’m glad you like the changes, Bailey.”
“I really do. It’s lovely, Joe. I like all that I’ve seen so far. I mean that. This place was like a show home when I lived here, but now I have a feeling it’s a family home.”
He’d known about her mother. How Bailey wasn’t allowed to touch anything. Everything had to be in its place and spotlessly clean.
