Rock Redemption (Rock Revenge Trilogy 3)

“Hey, Ma.”

“Zoe Jayne, what are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too.” I hopped down and hugged my mother. I loved her dearly, but she wasn’t the most effusive woman in the world.

She patted my back, then gripped my arms and held me away from her to look me over. “You’re too skinny.”

“California chic.”

She frowned at me. “You get into those art trances and forget to eat. I worried you’d do that if we weren’t around to remind you to eat.”

I wandered over to the sink where vegetables were chopped up on the thick butcher block right beside it. I filched a red pepper. My mother never really understood my artwork. She understood dirt and growing things—she could literally bring any plant back to life. She was also an encyclopedia of plants. She never went to school for it, she’d simply been working in either a planter bed or in the orchard all her life.

Me and my weird art made her uncomfortable.

“Things have been a little crazy in California. I decided to come home for awhile.”

She blinked at me, worrying the towel she wore tucked in her front pocket. Sarah Manning didn’t like her schedule in disarray.

The pepper caught in my throat. I went to the fridge and found a bottle of sweet tea at the back. I pulled it out and found my cup in the same spot it had been since I was a girl. The sameness that had driven me away now comforted in a way I didn’t want to dissect.

I just wanted some tea, some annoyingly loud brother chatter, and my bed for twenty-four hours. Didn’t seem like much to ask for. I took a long belt of my mom’s sweet tea. I never could quite make it right.

I leaned back on the counter. “I know it’s a little bit of a surprise.”

“Little?” My mother shook off her owl impersonation and moved back to her pile of veggies. She picked up her knife and resumed her precise cuts. “Beck, call your father and have him pick up an extra pack of chicken for dinner.”

“I’m sure I can just eat—”

“Beck.”

“Right.” Beck gave me a tight smile. My mother had spoken, there wasn’t much use arguing.

“What’s Dad doing today?”

“He’s out with Fred today checking on the seedlings.”

My dad was semi-retired, but as with my Uncle Fred, the men in this family didn’t truly ever know how to put their gloves down.

“Can I help with anything?”

“No. I’m just making fajitas.”

“Sounds like I picked the right day to drop in.” I snatched another pepper before she could slap my hand. I wasn’t used to to being this unsure in my own house. “It’s all right that I came home for a while, right?”

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“Of course. We’ll just have to do some rearranging.”

I frowned. “Rearranging?”

“Your room isn’t exactly a bedroom anymore.” She didn’t look up from her pile of onions.

“Oh.” It was my turn to play owl. I didn’t even think of that. My bedroom had simply been mine—always. The last one at the edge of the house. My window was big enough that it felt more like a door, especially since I’d escaped through it many a night to walk the orchard at sunrise.

It bothered me enough that I left the kitchen and went down the long hallway through the back of the house to my room. My brothers had moved out long ago, which had brought on a big renovation when I was a teen. I’d actually convinced my dad to knock one of the walls down to get a larger bedroom.

I opened my door and simply stared. My room wasn’t a room at all. It was a greenhouse.