Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) Gwen Rivers (sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT) 📖

Chloe winks and tightens her scarf. “You guys have a nice chat.”

“Oh, okay.” I feel oddly abandoned and somewhat shell-shocked. She’s just leaving me here at the mercy of the strangers who gave me life.

Classic Chloe, out frolicking when times turn tough.

“Would you like something to eat or drink, maybe?” Sophie heads into her small, pokey kitchen that’s done up in—what else—nautical décor. “We have coffee, tea, and hot cocoa.”

My biological mother wants to make me cocoa. My throat closes up a bit. “Don’t go to any trouble.”

“No trouble. Cocoa?” At my hesitant nod, she smiles. “Garret?”

“Coffee,” Garret grunts.

“You take Nic into the living room. I’ll be out in a jiff.” Her step is light and easy as she moves about the tight space.

I study the man who contributed to my DNA. He doesn’t look all that different from many of the high-country types I grew up around. Large, ill-dressed, but washed and relatively groomed. Again, I search for any of my own traits on his dark face and again, come up empty.

“So, Nic. What grade are you in?” The skin around his eyes is tight.

“I’m done with school.” It was a truth I hadn’t yet admitted to myself, never mind out loud.

“You got your diploma already?”

Slowly, I shake my head. “Nope, no diploma here.”

He scratches his beard stubble. “GED then?”

“Nope.” What the hell is taking Sophie so long with the beverages?

“Got any plans for the future?”

Hmm, let’s see. Free Gretchen from Fenrir, kill my mother—not the kind woman making me cocoa in the kitchen—but the one who bore me during my first life. Find my baby daddy and break the news that his cursed and monstrous line would continue in the next year. Oh, and save the fey who remain beyond the Veil from the dead. Then if I somehow swing all that, I have to convince the nice lady out there building sand monsters with your son that she really doesn’t have to kill her big sister.

“Nothing definite, yet.”

Sophie returns with a tray, one cocoa for me, two steaming mugs of java as well as a tray of homemade snickerdoodles.

“What is it you do?” One of the early social skills I’d mastered was to deflect attention away from myself by asking people to talk about themselves. Most people would rather talk than listen.

“We run a campground in the high season,” Sophie says. “This is a big tourist area in the summer. I clean and Garret does maintenance.”

“Sounds nice.” I wonder if my aunts had sent giants in disguise here on vacation, funneling money to the people who gave me life.

More uncomfortable silence. I sip my cocoa. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, next to the double bacon cheeseburger.

“You look all done in.” Sophie hops up and extends a hand. “I made up the guest room for you if you’d like to take a nap.”

I don’t want to nap after the nightmares I’ve been having but any excuse that would get me out of this highly uncomfortable living room is welcome. “Sounds great.”

“Nice meeting you,” I say to Garret, who is still sizing me up and looking unimpressed. His response is a grunt.

“This is where Angie and Jedda are staying,” she points to one wing which is really more of a suite. “How exactly are they related to you again?”

“Cousins.” The lie falls easily from my lips. In a way, all the creatures of Underhill are distant cousins. Angie, really?

She nods. “Oh, well we’re happy to have all of you.”

I study her profile. It’s so much softer than mine. Though she has crows’ feet, her cheeks are flushed and she also carries laugh lines around her mouth. Salt of the earth, quality people.

It’s hard to believe I came from her egg.

My hand goes to my own belly. What will my baby be like?

She sees the gesture and her eyes widen. She doesn’t comment though.

“Thanks again for taking all of us in on such short notice,” I say to cover the awkward gap.

“It’s no trouble,” She turns away and leads me to a door. It’s a sliding barn door style at the back of the house that leads to a narrow staircase. “This room is a little inconvenient to get to but you have your own bath and the view is amazing.”

I follow her up the wooden steps and into the third-floor space. A sliding glass door leads out onto a deck that overlooks the inland waterway. The décor is just as rustic as the rest of the house, with weathered boards and a strong smell of cedar.

It reminds me of Aiden’s unique scent.

Everything looks so normal. I want to fall to my knees on the hand-braided rug, to bury my face in the candlewick bedspread. I want to climb in between the clean, white sheets and sleep for a week.

Sophie stands there, watching me take the space in and I decide to address the elephant in the room.

“Why did you give me up?” I stand by the sliding glass door where I can see Chloe and my brother making sand angels.

Behind me, Sophie sucks in a breath.

“It wasn’t by choice. We were still in high school. I grew up ‘round here and Garret, well. It was a summer fling. By the time I found out you were on the way, he had gone back to his life in New York.”

Again, her gaze drops to my middle. Yeah, the cat is out of the bag there.

Her big blue eyes fill up. “I was young, younger than you are now. And scared. My daddy was a drinker. My mama had passed on and I only had a waitressing job part-time. If I had known Garret would come back into my life, I would have kept you. I swear it.”

“I believe you,” I breathe.

Her arms go around me in a tight hug. My lips tremble and I close my eyes, breathing in her powdery soft scent. She smells of vanilla body lotion and home. My mother.

She pulls away and