Chapter 45
brOOKE
One month later
Whit and I unloaded our cars in front of the charming bungalow. The sides were covered in buttery yellow siding, and the bright red front door beckoned our entry.
“What do you think?” I asked, gauging Whit’s reaction.
I glanced at the Lake Realty FOR RENT sign in the front yard. We’d both seen pictures of the place, and Owen had taken us on a FaceTime tour when his realtor friend Trevor had shown him the place.
Whit nodded contemplatively as she surveyed the exterior. “The yard needs a little love. I think that’ll be my project,” she mused.
“Think we can pull this off?” I asked her.
She slung her arm around my shoulder. “Absolutely we can. Ivy is with Mr. and Mrs. Adler, being spoiled rotten. And Owen and Bryan took Cade on a boys’ camping trip. We’ve got this.” She picked up a box and walked up the two front steps to the porch.
“Hey, Whit?” I called.
“Yeah?” She turned back.
“You know I couldn’t do this without you. I couldn’t do life without you. You’re my sister in every way that matters.”
“Well lucky for you, you don’t have to. C’mon, enough with the mushy stuff. We’ve got less than two days to turn this place into a home.”
We lugged boxes inside. Thankfully the sprain to my wrist had been relatively minor, and I was back to full movement again.
After many protests, Whit convinced me to take the master bedroom and bathroom and let her and Ivy have the two front bedrooms, which shared a bathroom between.
“It’ll be better for me to have the room right across from her,” she said simply.
While we waited for the movers to arrive with our furniture, we unloaded dishes and hung our clothes in the closets.
An hour after we’d arrived, I wandered into the kitchen and found Whit sitting on the window seat that overlooked the back yard, her legs curled up under her.
“This was always my dream, you know,” she said wistfully. “A house with a window seat.”
Whit didn’t talk much about her life before her adoption, but I knew she’d spent some time in foster care, dreaming of a life with a family and a home. In a lot of ways, this move was as important a step for her as it was for me.
I pulled her hand. “Come on . . . let’s go work on Ivy’s room.”
It was a busy two days.
Whit and I blasted our favorite movie soundtracks while we cleaned, unloaded, and organized.
I’d planned this surprise for weeks, organizing the rental through Owen, interviewing for and securing a nursing job at an outpatient hospital in River Bend—everything I needed to set my life up in Vermont.
We were taking a break and surveying our progress when my phone made its telltale text-alert chirp.
As I walked to the counter to pick it up, Whit appreciatively gazed around our new home. “I can’t believe we got all this done in two days.”
“I know, and I can’t believe Cade and I are finally going to be living close enough to have a normal relationship. It seems like it’s taken forever, but I guess it only took us a month to get here.”
She gave me an incredulous look.
“Okay,” I laughed. “More like ten years and a month.”
She grinned.
“He deserves something like this,” I mused as I unlocked my phone and opened my texts.
“He’s constantly showing up for me, and surprising me in all these wonderful ways.
I’m so ready to do something like that for him,” I finished, my heart fluttering with eager anticipation. I couldn’t wait to see his reaction.
Whit nodded. “What’s the text say?”
“It’s Owen,” I told her. “They’re on the way back.”
“What can I do?” Whit asked.
I met her eyes. “I’m gonna need your baking magic.”