The Will
GRIFFEN
THREE YEARS LATER
“Are you ready for this, Griffen?” Hope asked, sliding her arm around my waist and leaning into me, her head against my chest.
“I’m ready for anything,” I said, “as long as I have you right here.” My heart fell for the trillionth time at the sweetness of her smile, the spark of lust in her warm hazel eyes.
Life was good. But even when it hadn’t been, the days that I spent with Hope at my side—loving me, loving her in return—could never be truly bad.
But I knew what she was really asking.
“No,” I admitted, a little surprised by my answer.
To Hope, I could say the thing that had me off-balance.
The vulnerability I didn’t want to admit, but could to her.
“What if they all leave now that they don’t have to stay?
It’s been five years, and sometimes even a house as big as Heartstone feels a little crowded—especially now that there are so many kids and pets running around. ”
“You wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said with a smile, “and neither would I. The truth is, some of them will leave, and some of them won’t.
Savannah is still working on getting Miss Martha to move in.
The lure of a new granddaughter is pretty strong.
Sterling and Forrest will move into their house in a few weeks.
He gave his tenants notice months ago. And Parker and Nash—that place he built up the mountain is like a work of art. ”
“I know,” I said, seeing in my mind the plate-glass windows overlooking the mountains, the long lines of cedar and black metal.
It was modern and bold and very much my brother-in-law, but Parker, with her more classic elegance, somehow fit right in—just like she did with Nash.
“They’re only a few minutes up the mountain, though,” I reminded Hope and myself.
“With a toddler and an infant, they want more space and privacy. I get it.”
“So do I,” I said, and I did. “But I wish they could all stay.”
Hope let out a knowing laugh. “You’re going to be a nightmare when the kids leave for college, aren’t you?”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “To be honest, I’m a little anxious about Thatcher leaving next year, and he’s my nephew, not my son. But still, it feels like yesterday he was this gangly teenager, angry at the world, fiercely defending his mother, and now he’s ours.”
“Well, you know Tenn and Scarlett aren’t moving out.”
I did. They too had a baby, and it was a running joke that Thatcher would miss his infant sister more than the rest of us when he went off to college in the fall.
Tenn, Scarlett, and their brood had taken over a good chunk of the family wing of Heartstone, and Tenn had asked a month before how we felt about them staying once the terms of our father’s will expired.
I’d been surprised he even asked. I thought I was clear with my siblings that there was room in Heartstone Manor for all of us.
“I know we’re spreading out,” Tenn had said, resting his ankle on his knee as he sat across from me in my office.
“Are you and Scarlett going to try for another?” I’d asked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d said yes. Tenn had taken to parenting August and Thatcher as if he’d been with them since birth—and had been just as excited when Mandy was born a year ago.
“I don’t know. I’d be up for it. I’m not sure Scarlett is. It’s a lot more work on her end,” he said with a grin.
“True,” I’d agreed.
“It’s just that this is home for all of us. And more than that, the boys are anchored here, and I think they need it.” His grin had faded. “They need their family around them.”
“They talk about their dad much?” I asked. Their father was a deadbeat, lowlife criminal, so it was better if the answer was no, but better didn’t mean easier.
Tenn shook his head. “They don’t talk about him. They don’t hear from him.”
“You’re a great dad,” I assured him.
“I try,” Tenn said. “They make it easy. But we know—it still sucks when your dad sucks, right?” He shot me a sideways grin. We knew all about dads sucking. “I don’t want to uproot them again. I never thought I’d say this about Heartstone, but there’s a lot of love here.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, “and there’ll always be room for you in the Manor. One way or another, we’ll figure it out. I mean, hell, if we cleaned out the attics, there’s practically a whole other house up there.”
“Good point,” Tenn had said, and that had been one problem solved.
“No,” I now confirmed to Hope, “Tenn and Scarlett definitely aren’t going anywhere. And Nash’s mom is staying, since Ophelia is, and they’re hoping to snag Miss Martha.”
We’d all found it amusing when Nash had attempted to build living quarters for his mother in the new house he and Parker had designed, and she’d sweetly turned him down.
Heartstone was only a few minutes down the mountain from his and Parker’s new place, and Nash’s mother had been another family member who’d dropped into my office to make sure it was all right she stayed, considering we were only very loosely related now that Parker and Nash were married.
But all of us had grown to love Claudia Kingsley, and while I couldn’t say she was like a mother to me, she felt like part of the family.
I knew my aunt Ophelia felt the same and would have been disappointed if her friend had moved up the road.
So, we were losing Parker and Nash and their two boys, but keeping Nash’s mom, which meant the Kingsleys would be at Heartstone more often than not, anyway.
“And Savannah and Finn aren’t going anywhere,” Hope reminded me. “After that addition we put on the cottage, they won’t need to.”
“You know, if Finn wanted to go, he would have gotten himself completely out of the kitchens at Heartstone by now. He lets Greg run things most of the time,” Hope said, referring to the apprentice chef Finn had been training.
He’d come up with an interesting system of mentoring new chefs interested in working with the now-renowned Finn Sawyer.
They shadowed him, learning at Heartstone and at the restaurant he ran at Sawyers Bend Brewing.
When they’d learned enough, he put them mostly in charge of our meals at Heartstone, swapping back and forth as needed.
By the time he set them free, he was ready for another mentee.
We’d been through two chefs so far. It was fun to watch Finn teach them the way Chef Guérard had taught him when he was a teenager.
“Same for Hawk and Quinn,” Hope had said. “Parker just finished renovating the gatehouse last year. You’d have to blow it up to get them out of it.”
“True,” I said. “They’ve got the perfect setup, odd as it is.”
The gatehouse spanned both sides of Heartstone’s drive.
Built in a porte cochere style, when entering the estate, you basically drove through Hawk and Quinn’s house.
It had been abandoned for years by the time Hawk moved in—happy to share the space with mice and spider webs if it meant he didn’t have to live in Heartstone with the Sawyers.
These days, he shared the gatehouse with my sister Quinn, their enormous dog and monster cat, and their infant daughter, whom he carried around in a baby wrap, scowling fiercely at anyone who tried to get too close.
It made everyone laugh—their daughter a carbon copy of her father, right down to the dark-eyed scowl.
Parker, knowing that Hawk and Quinn loved the gatehouse but needed more room with a baby on the way, had redesigned the unused side of the building—a mirror to the space Hawk and Quinn had been living in.
Once we’d cleaned the other side of the gatehouse of the old broken furniture and junk the former groundskeeper had stored there, Parker had transformed it, turning the first floor into a huge family room and the upstairs into a bedroom suite perfect for two parents who sometimes needed a little space from their kid.
The second floor on each side of the gatehouse, connected by the part of the building that spanned the road, so, with the new design, Hawk and Quinn would have privacy but also easy access to the baby once they moved her into her own room.
Given Hawk’s newfound devotion to fatherhood, I had a feeling the baby was not going to be an only child, but the gatehouse now had three bedrooms, so they had room to grow.
I rested my chin on top of Hope’s head, rubbing it back and forth. The apple scent of her shampoo drifted up, comforting and familiar. “Ford said he and Paige are staying,” I said.
Hope turned in my arms and looked up at me, her eyes bright with surprise. “Did you think he was going to leave? For one thing, Paige wouldn’t like the commute.”
Despite their marriage and toddler, Paige was still the family nanny.
She’d thought long and hard about what she wanted and came to the realization that the only change she was looking for was Ford.
Otherwise, she loved taking care of the kids.
She said that maybe, when all the Sawyers were done having babies and hers were in school, she’d think about going back to school herself or substituting in the classroom.
But for now, she wanted to chase around her own two-year-old.
And if she was doing that, she might as well take on the rest, too.