Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) by Alison Kent Read Free Book Online

phone rings, expecting bad news. Not wondering how much I can afford to keep out of my own paycheck. Not waiting every day for another shoe to drop. Not hoping there are no more shoes.”
    She hated that his family’s demands had been so hard on him. “I wondered if things between you had changed after…”
    “After they disowned me?” He shook his head.
    That made her sad. “I never meant for that to happen.”
    “Neither did I.”
    “They must hate me so much,” she said, and took a deep breath. “Sierra. Then you.”
    His heavy-lidded gaze found hers. “‘First you will come to the Sirens, who enchant all who come near them.’”
    Angelo Caffey quoting Homer. Her world was upside down. She cocked her head, considered him. “Is that what you think I am? A Siren?”
    The grin that pulled at his mouth spoke of knowing her well. “You always were, Ms. Meadows. You always were.”

D AY O NE
    TUESDAY
    Perhaps even these things, one day, will be pleasing to remember.
    —Virgil

CHAPTER SIX
    T uesday morning, Luna started work in the kitchen, picking up where she’d left off the day Angelo had found her. While she’d looked through cabinets and drawers, he’d brought a stack of moving boxes inside, dropped them on the kitchen table, and silently set about assembling them, taping the bottoms, lining them up along the wall.
    She’d asked him about some of the things she’d found: the coffee cup his father had never been without, white with black musical notes scattered about and the size of a pint glass, the teapot his mother had used every morning at breakfast with Darjeeling, every evening at the Caffey family hour with chamomile. He hadn’t been interested in either, or in any of the pots or pans or small appliances or gadgets or even the knives.
    She’d filled two garbage cans, which Angelo had carried out to the Dumpster. It had arrived shortly after her, not long past seven. Sadly, there wasn’t much worth donating. Time had taken its toll. Bugs and mice and, judging by their leavings, larger varmints had used the abandoned house for shelter. She’d yet to run into any that might cause her to scream, but then she’d been raised on a farm. She wasn’t much of a screamer.
    After two hours in the kitchen, she was beginning to doubt five days would be enough for just this one room. An exaggeration, of course, but not by much. The house was filled with nooks and crannies, and the Caffey family had put all of them to use. Who needed five bottle openers? Five packs of five hundred wooden skewers? Five cabinets filled with empty spaghetti sauce jars? Who did everything in fives? Certainly not her, because three more hours of this and she’d be on the phone to a cleaning service, forget Angelo and his five days.
    Stepping off the back porch into the beautiful September morning, she breathed deeply of the warming air and lifted her face to the sun. She wasn’t an outdoors nut—she had no trouble sitting in her weaving shed for hours at a time—but seeing all that clutter had her thinking about hiking boots and hiking trails and, well, hiking. Instead, she took off around the house, looking at the siding and the gutters and the window frames. She didn’t know enough about construction to tell what was in good shape, but she could definitely tell what was bad. As sad as she’d be to see the house go, it was probably for the best.
    A quarter of the way around it, she reached the window she knew best, the one Sierra had used to escape her first-floor bedroom more times than Luna could count. And she only knew of the times when she’d escaped, too, or stayed behind and waited up to let Sierra back in. Who knew how often Sierra and Oscar had arranged to meet past her curfew? How far down Three Wishes Road she’d had to walk to climb into his car?
    How quiet they must’ve been, maybe rolling his convertible until they were far enough from the house to start it without being heard. Or perhaps they hadn’t