Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83343 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“See how our hands are joined,” I say. “I’ve got you.”
She looks at our linked hands and then back up to me, shaking her head.
“I want you to take a deep breath in.”
She sucks in a staccato breath, but it’s a start.
“Longer this time. Watch me.”
She looks up and I start to inhale. She mirrors me.
“Then out.”
She copies me, and we fall into a rhythm, breathing together in and out. In and out. Her body starts to relax. Her shoulders drop, her arms grow heavy in mine and her breaths get longer and deeper.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I just don’t leave the estate very often. And when I do, I never feel like myself.”
I’d already figured she didn’t spend much time off the estate—she lives and works there after all. But a panic attack after moving just a few miles down the road? I have to wonder how often she actually steps foot off the grounds.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say.
When she calms down, I want to talk to her. She’s right about a shuttle: we need to arrange transport between the staff cottages and the estate. Kate sees details Michael and I don’t—not only because she’s familiar with the estate, but because she’s an essential part of the community that’s grown around it and because of it.
If she’s willing, I’d like to employ her to help Michael. He needs someone like her—someone with a different perspective, whose attention to detail won’t get steamrolled by more pressing responsibilities. And it might help Kate, too. If she’s on the inside, helping shape things and push the project forward, she might start to look forward to the future.
Good things can happen after your world crumbles. I’m a testament to that.
SEVENTEEN
Kate
I’m sitting at Granny’s kitchen table, scrolling through Crompton’s Instagram page, when I say, “I got another job offer last night.” I put down my phone. Granny’s knitting. I’m not quite sure what it will be when she’s finished, but it will definitely be colorful.
“Another one?” The clack of the needles doesn’t falter. It’s a comforting, rhythmic soundtrack to many of our conversations, and it’s just what I need right now. So much is changing or about to change. At least Granny’s knitting is always the same.
“An interim one. From Vincent…Cove.” I add his surname because he’s not just “Vincent” to everyone. He’s still Vincent Cove to everyone else. I wonder if I would have slept with him if I’d have known what he was at Crompton to do. Probably not, unless I could have foreseen how good it was going to be. It shouldn’t have been, because we were strangers, but it was so…I don’t know a word to describe it other than intimate. We seemed to know what each other was thinking, what we needed, what we wanted. It was as if we’d known each other a lifetime. Or maybe just that on some molecular level, I knew I was always going to know him. Or I was waiting for him. Or something.
It was the same yesterday during my anxiety attack—something Granny definitely doesn’t need to know about. She worries about me too much as it is. Vincent seemed to know exactly how to calm and soothe me. Like he was a Kate whisperer or something. The visit to the new houses yesterday was overwhelming. It didn’t help that the development is a little farther out of the village than I thought it would be. I’m surprised at how calm Vincent was. He talked me down. Made me feel safe.
“Oh yes, has it got something to do with the guest relations job?” Granny asks.
I haven’t accepted that job either. Yet. “He wants me to assist his assistant, Michael. He reckons I’ve got good attention to detail and think about things in a different way because I’m a local. He says I’ll be an asset to his team. I made a suggestion about having a shuttle from the village to the estate. He says my ideas are good and he doesn’t want important details missed because it’s such a big project.”
“Wow,” Granny says. “That sounds like a very responsible position. Did you accept?”
“I was more focused on the new houses. You should go and look at the site too. He says you can pick the one you want.”
Granny sighs and sets down her knitting. “Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
My heart begins to thud in my ears. This sounds ominous. “About what?”
“I don’t think I’ll be moving into the houses that nice man Beck is building.”
My pulse is racing and I have to fight the urge to stand. Leaving the estate will be bad enough. But is Granny talking about moving us out of the village entirely? “Then where will we go?”
“I think one of those houses will suit you perfectly. But I think I need something else. I don’t manage the stairs as well as I used to. I’d like to be all on one floor.”