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Chapter Four
CHARLOTTE
Well.
It took about thirty minutes of a blank-stare sort of processing to wrap my head around what had just happened.
In those thirty minutes, my jumbled brain didn’t come up with anything of substance. I definitely didn’t feel any better. Didn’t feel any sort of shoulder-slumping relief now that the broad-shouldered, dark-haired storm cloud was gone.
What was his problem?
Stomping around with the eyes and the broody-man thing. Like I had anything to do with him ending up with Campbell House.
He didn’t deserve it, from what I could tell. Though ... at least he wasn’t selling it for the land, I begrudgingly admitted.
With a shake of my head, I went back into the carriage house and took a sip of my room-temperature coffee. With a grimace, I poured the remainder down the drain.
I snatched my canvas bag, loaded down with paint samples and fabric swatches, and marched out of the carriage house. I took a quick detour through the main house and skirted out the back. Through a path in the wooded grove of trees by the bay, I could take a twenty-minutewalk to Daphne’s house, and given I had nothing else to do, I knew the walk would give me a bit of extra time to ponder.
Not that it helped.
I was still agitated when I pulled open the back door to her house.
“You here?” I called.
Richard was in the kitchen, elbow-deep in flour, kneading out some dough. “She’s at the store.”
With a heavy sigh, I sank into a chair at the small kitchen table.
He eyed me. “You look quite unhappy.”
“Did she tell you about the handcuffs?”
Judging by the immediate avoidance of eye contact, I took that as a yes.
“They’re in my bag, if you want them back.” I tilted my head. “Though I should really destroy them so she doesn’t have access to such things anymore.”
He cleared his throat. “Don’t think that would matter.”
Of course she had extras. I shook my head, a reluctant smile tugging at my lips. Richard was so different from my aunt. Quiet and conscientious, he’d been such a grounding force in our ragtag little family unit for the last ten years.
“Whatcha making?” I asked.
“Focaccia with garlic and rosemary.”
With a happy hum, I relaxed into the chair. “Yum.”
The sound of Daphne’s car punctuated the silence, and like I always did, I watched Richard’s face transform into a peaceful smile when she walked through the door.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. They kissed, just a brief brush of lips, as she dumped the bags on the counter.
“My darling niece,” she said. “I see you survived.”
“No thanks to you.” I reached into my bag and yanked out the broken spindle, which I’d grabbed on my way over to her house. “Here, I brought you something.”
She took it, brow furrowed. “What is it?”
“The spindle he snapped off because you didn’t leave me the key.”
