Free Ever After by Odessa Gillespie Black Page B

couldn’t be more than four rooms.
    “I like the privacy.” He paused. “Unless me staying out there conflicts with your idea of where hired help should live?”
    Did he really think I was that callous?
    Cole stepped into the tool shed to replace the flashlight and reappeared in the bright sun.
    My breath caught in my throat for a second. “You can drop it with the attitude. I get it. You hate me and can’t wait for me to leave, but I have to find out what’s going on here. And if I do actually gain control of this house, I have no plans of changing anyone’s way of life.”
    Just when hot tears threatened to spill, Cole watched me thoughtfully.
    “I take care of what I care about. And this house is the only place I could ever picture myself living.” He examined my face intently.
    “So, you actually care about something? Because it sure seems you couldn’t care less about how you make other people feel.” My voice cracked on the last word.
    “Oh, no. Don’t do that.” He started to step closer but stopped. He made a funny, uncomfortable noise. “You are not going to cry on me.”
    “Then quit trying to make me.”
    “I wasn’t—okay, listen. I don’t hate you. I’m concerned with the job security of the only family I’ve ever known. I don’t mean to attack you personally. Much.” He let a half-hearted smile through.
    My breath snagged in my throat, the tears forgotten.
    “I’m attacking what Ava’s actions might mean for all of us.” For once he appeared vulnerable, which made it hard to hold a grudge. Cole twitched and took a step away. His face brightened.
    I sniffled and wiped my eyes.
    “Come on. There’s more to see.”
    Trees shaded a trail lined with twigs and summer flowers.
    This time he walked slower.
    “There’s something at the end I was sorta hoping you wouldn’t tear down, if you are in fact the sole heiress.” He flicked his eyebrow into a quick arch and grinned apologetically.
    “A shopping mall would look great right about here,” I said. “You’re not going to blindfold me, are you?”
    “Fresh out of blindfolds.” He gave me an appreciative appraisal.
    Finally. A full-on look.
    “But that would have been some great comic relief. Watching you stumble through the woods all day.” He relaxed and seemed to be happy.
    Forgiven.
    I fell in step beside him. “Yeah, funny. Didn’t you get enough of that last night?”
    He turned away with a smoldering, burn-my-heart-into-a-pile-of-ash grin.
    Once we were about a half mile into the woods, we came upon a clearing. In the center, lampposts surrounded a statue of a young woman.
    “Wow. This is amazing.” I stepped onto the landscaping stone stacked around her.
    “Don’t touch—I mean. Be careful. It’s old.” Cole eyed my outstretched hand with nervous concern.
    The birds stopped chirping. The breeze stilled. The gray stone’s coolness sent a tingle of electricity that tickled my fingertips. A lone bird chirped in the distance, and a breeze wafted against my face. I stepped back. She stood five feet against the blue sky. The artist had definitely captured the family resemblance.
    “She looks a lot like a painting of Ava I saw in the house earlier,” I said, awestruck. The statue had a name plate, but time and weather left only a date.
    1879. I turned to Cole, wide-eyed.
    The statue absorbed Cole’s hard stare.
    “That’s not Ava.” The period at the end of his statement stabbed me, but he shook his head, and the hard stare melted. With the same melancholy, he crouched down to pull a few weeds from the bed of clover surrounding her. After the hard man routine he’d portrayed the night before, this was completely out of character.
    “If it was put here in 1879, and she was a real person, then you keep it landscaped for a girl who died years before you were born.”
    He got lost in the statue’s face, somewhere else maybe? Pain, anguish, happiness, loss all in the same expression.
    I climbed down and gave him