I even skipped a little.

Once I’d left the cobblestones behind, of course. Anyone with half a brain cell knew you didn’t skip on those. Walking was hard enough at the best of times. Unless you were a child—then you beelined for them because it was fun.

I smiled at a little girl who was doing just that on a cobbled section just to the side of the carpark and got in my car. Was Dad home yet? If he was, I wondered if he would have ten minutes for me to talk to him about my course.

I had to get it over and done with as soon as possible.

The drive back to Arrowwood Estate was quick and easy. That was one of the perks of living in the country—the only things likely to hold you up were tractors or livestock. It wasn’t unusual to see a road full of cows or sheep being ushered along by a farmer on a quad bike with his collies keeping them all together. Neither of those things had happened today, thankfully.

After I’d parked in the barn we’d converted into a garage when we’d opened a portion of the house to the public, I made my way to the house, clutching my keys tightly. The metal cut into my palm, but that only made me grip it harder.

“Dad? Are you home?”

Nothing.

“Aunt Cat? Dad? Alex?”

“In the library,” Aunt Cat said, passing me with two books tucked under her arm. When she noticed me looking at them, she shrugged and said, “I want to take up plumbing.”

I wasn’t going to ask.

“You do that.” I watched as she passed me on her way to the sweeping staircase and trotted up them, already opening the top book.

Plumbing?

You do you, Aunt Cat. You do you.

I walked into the library where my father was sitting in front of the fireplace reading a newspaper with his reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose. “Hi, Daddy.” I bent over the back of the sofa and kissed his cheek. “How was your trip?”

“Busy,” he replied, not looking up from his paper. “How are Adelaide and Evangeline?”

I wasn’t going to ask how he knew. “It was nice. We’ve all been busy lately, so it was nice to catch up.”

“I’m sure. How is Victoria?”

“She’s well,” I answered. “I’ll pass on your best next time we talk.”

“Please do.”

“When did you get back?”

“About half an hour ago.” He licked his finger and turned the page, tilting his head to read the top corner. “You had a phone call while I was out.”

I frowned. “I did?”

“Yes.” He finally looked up at me, and there was a coolness in his gaze that made me freeze in place. “From a…”

There was a scrap of paper on the table in front of him that I hadn’t noticed until now when he picked it up.

“Oh, yes. A Matthew Hornby. He said he’s your horticulture tutor.”