"Oh, eventually. This right here," she said, nodding to the dough in her hand, "is for his favorite blueberry scones. He likes them with jam and cream. He'll act angry for a couple days just to preserve his pride, but after a few of these, he really won't be." She smiled merrily, but then went serious. "Oh, that reminds me, Kira. I’ll need to go to the south field to collect the apricots so ripe they’re falling on the ground. Do you want to help me make a couple batches of my apricot jam?"
"Oh, sure. I made strawberry preserves with my grandmother once," I said, thinking back fondly to that day.
"I like this place," Kimberly suddenly declared taking a sip of her coffee. "I think you belong here, Kira." Her words alternately brought me happiness and dread.
And as we sat in the warm kitchen, fragrant with the smells of blueberries and coffee, eating oatmeal honey muffins, Charlotte prattling on about her weekend trip, it suddenly hit me: Grayson had said that, for all intents and purposes, he'd grown up with no parents at all. I still didn't understand the exact dynamics of that situation. But he'd been wrong on one account. He'd had parents all along. Their names were Walter and Charlotte Popplewell, and they loved him as if he was their own. I wondered if Grayson even realized it.
We chatted for a while longer and then Kimberly told me she had to get going. I walked her outside and, as we stood at her car, she smiled at me. "This has been such a nice visit. I meant what I said," she looked around at the Hawthorn property, "it feels like you fit here." She studied my face for a second. "But take care of yourself. I couldn't bear to see you hurt again, Kira Kat."
I gave her a brief smile. "I will, I promise."
She nodded. "I almost hate to tell you this, after seeing how well you're doing here—"
My heart sank. "My dad's been calling you, hasn't he?" I asked, guessing immediately. She always got the same tight look on her face whenever my dad came to her mind. She nodded.
"He's called several times, even hinting once that if I didn't get you to call him, he'd pull some strings at Andy's job somehow—and I don't think he means to get him a promotion."
"That controlling bastard," I seethed. Andy was a police dispatcher, and I supposed it wasn't out of the scope of impossible that my father had some pull at the San Francisco Police Department, but for my father to even consider that? Was there no limit to the depths he would sink to control me?
Kimberly put her hand on me. "Now listen. I didn’t tell you that so you'd contact him on our account. Andy is a little bit worried, but frankly, we'd rather collect unemployment than let your father influence our lives. I just thought you should be aware. Who knows what else he's up to? It might be best for you to go to him now, so he doesn't figure out where you are before you're ready and come here."
I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. I agreed, though. And I would not let this become my friend's problem. Nodding my head, I said, "I will. Thanks, Kimberly." Please let that marriage license come soon. I just needed to cash that check first . . .
I hugged her goodbye tightly, promising to visit soon, and update her frequently, and then I watched her car drive out the gate.
Again, I wrapped my arms around myself and stood, staring blindly at the non-working fountain, wondering what it would look like when it was fixed and working, wondering how far it was down on Grayson's list of priorities. Grayson . . . He had spent the entire weekend in a state of utter torment thanks to Charlotte, and yet he'd selflessly cared for me, soothing my fever, and making sure I was never alone. Apparently, I'd been wrong about The Dragon, in some ways at least. He wasn't the uncaring beast I'd originally thought. I pondered momentarily how he'd been betrayed by his brother, father, and stepmother. He was just a man—a man who held deep hurts and was trying his best to get by in a situation that, until me, had offered very little hope.