Page 69 of Things Left Unsaid

“I could ace them in my sleep.”

“Don’t be precocious.” To Mrs. Abelman, as I butter some toast, I direct, “Keep Mum in the guest wing. She was happy there last summer.” When we’d been hoping God would evict Pops from the world permanently after his first bout with arrhythmia. “As for my stuff, if you could move it into Pops’s room, please, Mrs. Abelman, and make sure Mum’s old suite is ready so Zee can unpack in there when her things arrive.

“The changes are going to be…”

“Rough?” Mrs. Abelman nods. “We’ll get through it. Just like we always do.”

The ‘together’ part of the sentence goes unspoken.

“Two came in last night,” she informs us both.

“Everything go okay?”

Callan, like always when this topic arises, clams up.

He certainly doesn’t disapprove of what we do behind the scenes here at Seven Cs, but it unnerves him.

The pain men can put women through, women they vowed to cherish, is something I don’t think he’ll ever fully be able to accept.

The funny thing is, he’s the one who remembers how Pops beat on Mum the least but our guests affect him hardest.

I say that but it’s not like Cody or Cole know what goes on here.

They’d have to stick around for more than five minutes to look beneath the surface, and that’s more than either of them are capable of.

“I settled them in the bunkhouse as planned. It’s getting too full,” she warns.

“There’s an empty house by the gas station that we can use if need be. The tenants moved out last month.”

It’s not like we can refuse someone sanctuary because we don’t have the space.

“There are no scheduled drops, are there?” Callan asks, anxiety riddling the words.

“No. But emergencies happen.” She pats his shoulder, fully aware of how sensitive he is in these situations.

He might be eighteen in the eyes of the law, but he’s still a kid. A kid from a broken home with a fucked-up parental unit.

Callan’s fork clatters on his dish. “There won’t be the anonymity of the bunkhouse in a rental.”

I glance at him, making sure to present a calm facade. “I’ll look into having another bunkhouse built.”

His sigh of relief tells me that was the right answer. “Did you hear about the Linnox place?”

“What about it?”

“It’s no longer for sale. They’re closer to us than the McAllisters. It could be important for logistics.”

“Can you find out who the buyer is?”

“I heard in town it’s someone famous.”

My brows lift at Mrs. Abelman’s words. “Since when do you listen to the rumor mill?”

“That old fool, Harold, sometimes knows more than theHeralddoes.” Her disapproval is a tad hypocritical, seeing as she’s using him as her source. Not that I point that out.

“Ugh. Famous?” Callan whines. “Are we going to have an influencer breeding alpacas next door?”

I grin at the thought. “It might shake things up in town.”

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