Page 38 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

He wasn’t sure the last time someone hugged him or that he was craving it so much.

“I’d say the spark is there in many forms,” he said, moving back out of her arms.

“Yep,” she said happily. “I like to be proven right.”

“You’re much more cheerful than I thought you’d be about this.”

“I’ll apologize,” she said. “I should. I had no right to get angry or upset. Everything you said was spot on. You owed more to my father than me, but you made sure you told me rather than letting him do it.”

“I wouldn’t let anyone else do my work for me,” he said.

“You’ve got integrity,” she said. “I like that in a man.”

He snorted. “Do you want to stand here and chat or move into the house?”

“Why don’t you show me around? This is a beautiful location. Nice and modern too. Though I remember my father said Barry had a bunch of work done a few years ago. I found it odd, but maybe he knew he’d be leaving it to you. To live in or sell. Almost like he wanted it in good shape.”

Van hadn’t thought of it that way. “No clue,” he said. “It’s pretty open, as you can see. The house is about seventy years old. No way it always was open like this when it was built. I will admit when I opened the door the first time I wasn’t positive what I was expecting. The furniture is all his too.”

She was scratching her chin. “You know. It’s like this was staged. Some of it looks new.”

“I thought the same thing,” he said.

“My father would know, but it probably doesn’t make much of a difference.”

“No,” he said. But maybe it would have been nice to have something that was his grandfather's.

Then he wondered why he was thinking that way.

“Do you have a bedroom down here?” she asked. “I remember my father saying the stairs were hard for Barry.”

“I’ll show you,” he said, leading her to the back of the house.

“Nice,” she said. “My room is on the first floor too. I’ve got two rooms upstairs with a hall bath. It’s not a huge house, but it’s mine. It’s hard to find property on the island and I wanted something easy to maintain. It’s got a few extra rooms that never get used. I always figured if I had kids someday I’ll decide if I stay there or not.”

“This house is more than I need,” he said. “The downstairs is twice the size of my last apartment. There are four more rooms upstairs and two full baths plus a loft over the garage. I go up once a month and just kind of look for dust. Not much to do.”

“Is it all furnished?” she asked.

“Yes. Almost staged. I guess I didn’t notice it before.”

He wasn’t sure why. Just more thoughts to clog his brain.

“You’ll notice things when you are ready to,” she said.

“Can you really be this cheerful?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I’ve had a week to calm down a bit. You didn’t do anything to me personally. The events and situations around it suck, but it’s more in your life than mine. It was selfish of me to think otherwise.”

“How long did it take you to rehearse that?”

She turned to look at him. “Phew! I’m glad you could see that. Now I don’t need to pretend I wasn’t annoyed.”

He laughed. She did have the ability to make him do that.

“I knew you were annoyed. I said you would be.”

“I think most would be. As I said, you kind of wound me up by saying I would be.”

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