Read Online Pennyroyal Christmas (A Ruthorford Holiday Story Book 1) by Shanon Grey - Free Book Online

untouched. She smiled to herself and gingerly placed them in one of the boxes, along with the few other remnants that were salvageable. She’d wait until she got home before going through everything. Not that she didn’t like Jeff. He was great and a big help. But, she wanted to go over everything in privacy when she got home. Neither the trunk nor the armoire was worth taking now. However, on second thought, she set aside the flip-top table and the rush bottom chair.
    Having salvaged what she could from the armoire and trunk, she perused the attic. On the other side were the tumbled boxes.
    “Hey, Jeff, give me hand over here, will you?” As they turned over the boxes, she realized they hadn’t been opened. When she asked Jeff to go downstairs for a knife, he whipped out a blade she wasn’t sure was even legal. He made short work of the taped tops. Inside, she found old dishes and gewgaws from when she’d lived at home—items from another lifetime. She resealed the boxes and put marks on them.
    The moving guys arrived right on schedule and, at her direction, loaded up the items she’d marked. She decided to take a really nice leather chair out of her father’s office with a matching ottoman, a heavy wool wrap in the front closet that was her mother’s and several paintings she recognized and liked. On the last inspection of the house, she added the small jewelry box in her mother’s bathroom.
    With the movers loaded and sent on their way, Kat handed the key to Jeff. “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.” She was glad it was over.
    “You don’t want anything else. There’s some nice stuff in there.”
    “Feel free. I have what I want. Tell your dad thanks. I’m truly grateful.”
    She watched him hesitate and waited. Sure enough, he got the courage to speak.
    “I worked with…for,” he amended, “your dad on occasion. He never mentioned you.”
    “We weren’t close.”
    “I did meet your mom at a couple of functions. She was a real nice lady. Never could understand why she was with him.” His face reddened.
    “It’s okay. I couldn’t either.”
    That seemed to give him courage. “He was a real son-of-a-bitch. Mean. Hard to work for. And there were rumors….” He stopped and looked at her, knowing he’d said too much.
    “Please, Jeff. I’d like to know.”
    He rushed on, “It was rumored that he had lots of women on the side and treated your mom like shit.”
    “I don’t doubt it.” When it became apparent that he wouldn’t say anything else, she walked to her car. “Again, thank your dad for me. And, you take care.”
    He held her door. “I will. You know, my dad is nothing like him.”
    “I’m sure he’s not.”
    Jeff slammed the door shut and waved as she drove off.
    Thinking about what he said, she tried to remember her father in a light other than a bigoted, controlling bastard. She thought back to her childhood. He was strict and gruff, most of the time—a man’s man, he would say. She also remembered when his construction company really took hold and they started running in the black. She was too young to understand that. What she did understand was that he took them to Disneyworld on their first, and only, vacation. It was a fantasy come true. She remembered the Magic Kingdom and how they’d done everything she’d wanted. She’d never seen her parents so happy. Kat didn’t want to leave.
    As the years passed, he worked more, travelled more, drank more and spent time with them less. Until that fateful summer in Ruthorford. She’d known he could be a gruff man, but to send her away because of her and Rowe never made any sense. Then, what Jeff had said. She just shook her head. They were gone and she would never figure it out.

Chapter Four
     

    “Are you tired?” Rowe asked as they turned off the interstate on the way back from the airport.
    “Not particularly,” Kat said, admiring Rowe’s profile. God, it was good to see his tawny face. She studied the line