Fallen

There was nothing there.

Nothing at all.CHAPTER EIGHTEENThe banging was music to her ears if not to her utterly exhausted brain. After approving the—pleasantly reasonable—bid for the first phase of the project, Mason had been true to his word and said he could get a couple of guys over ASAP to at least begin some of the demolition. As Scarlett and Haddie descended the stairs, Scarlett waved at the two men Mason had sent, already busy tearing up the warped portion of flooring in the foyer. They spared her a quick salute and went back to work.

She grasped Haddie’s hand, leading her toward the back door, to avoid the work being done near the entrance. They stepped out into the warm summer morning, the sun a bright orange orb in the cloudless blue sky. Haddie pulled her hand away and peeked in at the sleeping baby bird, and seemingly content with his comfort level, dropped the dark cloth back over him.

Scarlett would have loved to take a break and leave the little guy at Lilith House, but she’d learned well that he wasn’t keen on missing any of his hour-on-the-hour meals, and so if she didn’t want to terrorize the work crew, she had to cart her new charge with them, along with a baggie of food.

Next time she saw an orphaned baby bird on the ground, she was going to avert her gaze and walk right on by.

That’s your exhaustion speaking, and you know it.

Yeah, she did. She’d never be able to abandon something in need, but darn it, staying up to feed someone else’s demanding—and let’s face it, butt-ugly—baby hadn’t exactly been on any of her lists, master or otherwise.

As they made their way around the side of the house, Scarlett noticed what looked like a green Skittle every few steps, slightly melted and blending into the patchy grass. She stopped, looking behind her and ahead to see that they traveled in a straight line to form a trail that led toward the old shed near the tree line. The shed she hadn’t yet been brave enough to look inside. Who knew what manner of mess it contained?

“Haddie”—she turned to her daughter who’d stopped beside her—“did you do that?” Scarlett nodded down to the widely spaced line of green Skittles.

Haddie paused but then nodded slowly, her expression blank. “Yes, Mommy,” she said. “I was trying to . . . catch something.”

“What? Like a bunny? With candy?”

Haddie swallowed and Scarlett got that internal buzz she felt when Haddie was having trouble communicating something or leaving information out. “Yes, Mommy.” She looked behind them and then ahead. “I left a trail of all the colors.”

Scarlett frowned in confusion. Something had eaten most of the candy. It couldn’t have been a bunny, could it? More likely a scavenger such as a raccoon. Those things would eat anything. A small nervous laugh emerged. “Well, whatever it was that ate your trail, decided it didn’t like the green ones.” Odd. Scarlett took a step forward, heading for the front of the house and their car as Haddie walked beside her. “I guess I can’t blame it.” She smiled down at her daughter. “Everyone knows the green ones aren’t any good.”

Haddie’s expression remained mostly blank, though her eyes were alight with interest. Or . . . wonder. A curiosity that stayed burning in her gaze even as they got in the car and pulled away from Lilith House. A curiosity that Scarlett could see had stolen her away, at least temporarily as she pondered things available only to her own mystifying mind. “It doesn’t like green,” Scarlett thought she heard Haddie murmur under her breath.

Scarlett pulled her eyes away from where she’d watched Haddie for a moment in the rearview mirror, focusing on the windy, single-lane road that weaved through the forest toward town. The drive to Farrow took about thirty minutes, but to Scarlett, who was from Los Angeles where it could literally take two hours to go twenty miles, the drive was nothing. If anything, it was relaxing, a chance to think, to get lost in the quiet of her own head as the road disappeared beneath her tires. Haddie, similarly, seemed happy to quietly stare at the woods outside her window, caught up in her secret thoughts.

As she drove, Scarlett’s mind turned to Camden West and the moment she’d thought he was going to kiss her two nights before. At the memory, a kaleidoscope of unwanted butterflies stirred to life in her stomach. Speaking of curiosity. It seemed she and her daughter were alike in that they both were in possession of far too much of it.

She was slightly embarrassed that she’d been so forthcoming with him, but then again, he’d made her feel like he was deeply interested in her, like he was almost . . . hanging on her every word, and it’d felt good. He’d made her feel interesting, and God, it’d been a long time since she’d thought of herself as such.