31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The warmth was the first thing he noticed when he arrived.
From the eclectic wallpaper to the glow of the chandeliers to the hum of the old cast-iron stove while Effie cooked.
Everything in the Thatcher house radiated the feeling of freshly baked bread and going home. It was inviting, a warm embrace.
That is until you actually came upon any of the Thatchers under the age of seventy-five.
Then it was all ice and sharp edges. Theo tried not to notice the sting of Pamela’s glare from where she sat at the breakfast table as he finished binding the trash bag that nearly overflowed.
Effie and Hope still had more mess to make and the bin wasn’t going to make it.
He completely ignored Pamela as he stepped around his girlfriend—who was worth this current discomfort—and wrapped his free hand around her waist from behind.
His fingers curled into her hip bone, and where his nose brushed the soft waves of her hair he was rewarded with the scent of rosemary and mint.
Effie leaned into him; if he wasn’t careful, he’d have to hide behind the trash bag as he left.
He moved back enough so that the curve of her perfect backside no longer conformed to his body.
He really needed to stop wondering what she looked like naked, especially with her mother watching his every move. “Where’s this go?”
Effie craned her neck away from the pan of bubbling pasta sauce she had made from scratch. “Far end of the carriage house, twenty paces to your right after you step out the front door. Try?”
She lifted the wooden spoon to his lips. Garlic, onion, and Italian spices layered perfectly with the San Marzano tomatoes and chunks of celery and carrot that were stewed alongside the ground beef. But it was an almost smoky acid that had him groaning his approval. “Soy sauce?”
“Worcestershire,” she said proudly. They’d been cooking together a lot at his place and the joy it seemed to bring her was only surpassed by her baking. In Theo’s experience, nothing brought people together quite like good food. He hoped that belief held true through the rest of the night.
“It’s very good,” he said before dropping a kiss to her collarbone. When he straightened it took every conscious thought not to reflexively shield his balls. He sensed that Pamela wanted them in a vise somewhere. He gave her a terse smile before hauling the trash toward the front door.
He admired the decor as he took his time getting to the entry.
Though he knew the home was Dorothea’s first, Effie’s touch was everywhere—in the embroidery pieces that hung in their hoops like frames, to the artfully arranged bookshelves and mantels, to the faux stained glass that hung in the bay window of the front room to catch the morning light.
It was the latter that drew him briefly from his task.
He set the garbage by the door, ignoring the snipped murmurs from the kitchen, and stepped into the room that housed all manner of crafts and books and hobbies.
He didn’t realize it until he walked in, but he wanted a room like it someday.
He inspected the fake stained glass that had made Effie a very real part of his life.
The lines were perfect, the colors translucent enough to cast hued shadows onto the windowsill.
She’d taken the glass from the original picture frame and used actual solder to make a gilded edge around the glass that matched the chain she fixed to the top so it could be hung just so.
Intuitively he knew that this piece was important and would be prominently displayed in their home.
Their home . He liked the sound of that.
Theo nearly jumped out of his skin at the whoosh of feathers and the sting of claws on his shoulder.
Not wanting to startle the bird back, he turned his head ever so slightly and came face to face with a perky little parrot.
He held out his hand, inviting it to change perches, and lifted it out before him.
“Nice to meet you,” he said and felt a little stupid, but the bird cocked its head like it was listening.
A sharp word almost screeched from the kitchen sent the parrot gliding back to its perch in the far corner of the darkened room.
Theo sighed and returned to the hall, the quick clip of Pamela’s voice a shrill murmur he didn’t care to try to understand.
Hope’s voice cut through the chatter loudly enough that he could hear from the foyer as he put on his shoes. “Be nice, or I’ll make you eat in your room.”
She would be a good mom. Theo smiled at the thought, but it wrenched away when he considered that he hadn’t heard from Schilling in a couple of days.
It was a fact he immediately shared with Hope upon arriving, though it seemed to do little to quell the embarrassment she felt over her vulnerability at the book launch.
He struggled to understand Schilling in that moment.
Theo himself had been about ready to proclaim his love for Hope by the end of her reading.
He was surprised his friend was so resigned to his decision at just being co-parents that he hadn’t swept her off the stage with a romantic flourish.
Schilling had never taken outside opinions so seriously.
But this one had burrowed in and couldn’t be taken back, regardless of what Theo had to say about it now.
Any lingering guilt about not being able to right their ship evaporated as he nearly ran into Effie’s oldest sister Ellen on the sidewalk. “Sorry, didn’t see you there.”
“Yes, you’re taking your trash duties very seriously.”
“Trying to help where I can.”
“I’m grateful. It’s usually my job. Circumstance of getting the separate apartment.
” She waved to the carriage house behind them and Theo nodded.
It hadn’t occurred to him that they might split other chores besides the cooking.
He wondered now who did the property taxes, who was in charge of the scant lawn out front, who cleaned out the gutters.
He knew they could handle such things but he wondered if they wanted to.
He also wondered what things were like when Effie’s grandfather was still alive.
It had been awhile, from what she’d told him, but as an outsider he could still pinpoint the Herman-sized holes left behind.
Mostly in the way Dorothea moved through the home.
His face must have scrunched into something like discomfort because Ellen placed a hand on his shoulder. “Take a breath. We don’t all bite.”
Theo’s shoulders slackened and he let out a soft chuckle. It caught in his throat when Ellen’s eyes turned steely. “Unless provoked.”
He nodded firmly. She left him on the sidewalk utterly convinced that Effie was the golden child they’d all go to the ends of the earth to protect.
Theo had heard rumblings from Effie about the calamitous dinner that occurred with Louisa and Ellen’s dad, but he had thought the tense atmosphere she described to be an exaggeration.
He realized, now being the one occupying the hot seat, that she hadn’t given it enough credence.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have insisted on coming for dinner.
The tension was thick enough to form a noose and hang by, something Theo considered with every word he uttered.
In truth, it wasn’t all of them. It emanated in its strongest waves from Pamela and Tibby.
Tibby, he assumed, because he associated with the man who refused to take her daughter back—something he guessed she was privy to if only because he had heard she tried to come to Ed’s aid.
Not Theo’s though. Not tonight. No wonder Effie had avoided them at the book launch.
Louisa offered her own bit of calculating assessment, but it was far lighter than her mother’s and took on a shade of envy more than anything else.
Then there was Ellen, who wasn’t exactly grilling him along with everyone else but wasn’t helping him either.
Effie’s pinched, unhappy expression told Theo she had expected more from her big sister.
Time slogged forward as he answered one of many questions hurled at him that snuck through Effie, Hope, Dorothea, and Bea’s conversational defenses.
“They divorced when I was sixteen. My dad lives in Boston with my stepmother. My mom moved into a camper van and travels. My older sister lives in San Diego, my brother lives in Boulder, and my younger sister is still in college in Texas. No brothers- or sisters-in-law, no nieces or nephews, and my one cousin is some kind of recluse who studies fungus in the world’s rainforests.
My grandparents on my dad’s side moved back to Germany in their retirement.
My mom’s parents are both deceased. And my aunt and uncle—the reasons my cousin became a recluse—keep well to themselves somewhere in Gorham, New Hampshire.
So, the only person I consider family that lives near enough to see regularly is Schilling—Brayden.
” Hope received his apologetic glance with grace before he turned his attention back on Pamela. “Detailed enough?”
“Satisfactory.” Pamela grinned over the lip of her wineglass.
“Though counting a man like that as family surely demonstrates a poor judge of character.”
“Mother,” Hope seethed. Theo would stake his life on it that Hope had tried and failed to defend Schilling to her mother.
“If you mean kind, loyal, sensitive, and goofy as hell, then yes, he is like that . And my judge of character is impeccable. Which is how I know not to take you insulting my family to heart, Tibby, because I can tell you’re better than all that.”
He was playing with fire. A bomb really, but he’d be damned if was just going to sit here and take it. She softened at his earnestness, which was nothing short of a miracle in his eyes. Then again, he always had been a good judge of character.