Page 26 of Counting Quarters

Chapter Fourteen

Kyle

BlaireGrangerjustmight be the only person in this entire town who stood a chance against Rayner.

She was also the most underestimated.

I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not.

Why, after all these months of supposedly helping, had Tabitha kept her such a secret?

And why did I feel so strongly like I needed to do the same?

I shouldn't have shown her my gift. If you could even call it that. Reading a person's thoughts sounded exciting in theory, but it often led to knowing things about them that were better left a mystery. The ability came to me around the same time everything else fell apart, and there weren't many people I could confide in then, so I kept it to myself. I usually tried to shut it out, but the shock from seeing Toni Amster's spirit form had me momentarily letting my guard down.

And what the hell was that? I'd never seen anything like it before.

The whole drive home, I questioned everything I knew about the Grangers. I had heard the Quarters talk about a possible fifth in passing, but honestly hadn't bothered to pay much attention when they let something slip in my presence. Their gifts were hanging on by a thread and they were grasping at anything to find answers.

And if by some off chance she were one of them, what elemental gifts did she possess?

I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since I watched her disappear through her door. Each day, I pulled into the driveway expecting to see her sitting on the porch so we could talk about it, but her chair was empty every time.

It had been a week, and today I stopped at Millie's on my way home. When Blaire gave me her ridiculous deposit, I went straight to my sister's house and told her to start thinking about who she wanted to help her. She was resistant to the idea, claiming she enjoyed taking care of Ma and would rather I come to help more often than have a stranger come around her kids. But we both knew that wasn't possible, and as much as Millie wanted to claim she could handle it all, she was drowning.

“She's out back,” Millie's husband, Arthur, greeted me as I stepped out of my cruiser. He was sitting on the porch with one of the kids' bikes tipped upside down on his lap.

We never really got along. Not that there was any tension between me and my brother-in-law, but our personalities didn't click. Especially not in the way Millie wanted us to. We tried in the beginning—for her. But he was a product of the lowly neighborhood we grew up in through and through, and I had dedicated my life to never allowing my upbringing to influence my future.

He was perfectly fine with working a job that laid him off regularly, so he was consistently behind on bills, and cramming his kids into a house that was half the size they needed. I thought my sister deserved better, but I'd never voice that opinion to her.

This was her life—her choices to make. And despite his failures, he was a good husband to Millie and an even better father to my nieces and nephews.

I sent him a nod as I walked past his gangly form crouched over the bike, long fingers struggling to sling the chain back on.

Millie was in the garden, bent over some tomato plants, while three of her kids ran around shirtless in the yard behind her. She lifted her head as I rounded the house and greeted me with a large smile when her kids attacked me, shouting random things over one another. I listened to each story and fact, being sure to give all of them my attention, before Millie interrupted and sent them away again.

“You don't have to do that. I come here to see them, too.”

She smiled as if she knew something I didn't. “So, I'm a little jealous. I don't get to see my big brother often, and I want to maximize the time we have.”

“Have you thought about who can come help?”

Millie's face fell into a grimace. She wiped her brow with a gloved hand, smearing dirt across her forehead. “I still don't think we need anyone. Work is about to slow down for Arthur, and he'll be home to help more.”

“Why don't you want to accept help, Mill? It's too heavy of a load for your family to give her as much medical attention as she needs. I doubt Arthur is stoked about it, either. Just let me do this for you.”

I slid my hands into my pockets and glanced up toward the second-story window, where I knew our mother would be sitting.

She was looking down at us with pinched brows. Had she heard what I said? Did she even know who I was anymore?

Millie didn't bother turning around to look. “Why can't you come help out a few days a week after work? I'd feel better about that, and I know she would, too.”

“My work schedule is insane right now. I barely have time to eat or sleep with all this Movement stuff.”

“That's been your excuse for the past year, Kyle. It's overdone. I know you didn't have the best relationship with her growing up, but there's still time to fix it. She's still in there.” When I rolled my eyes, she rushed to add, “You don't want to regret not being there like you weren't with Dad.”

I scoffed, biting back my bitter response. The truth was, I didn't regret missing my dad's last few months. He had recovered from his alcoholism by the time Millie was old enough to have a childhood with him, often preaching the process of the twelve steps any chance he had. But I was practically gone by then, and I wasn't going to forget any of it.

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