“Bread?” Chance asked, crinkling his nose and sticking out his tongue.
“Not bread—cake,” Pete said as he pulled out the platter of rolled cake with cream cheese filling.
“Cake!” all three boys said at once.
“But you’ve got to get ready for bed first,” Pete said, lifting the platter out of their reach and looking to Sadie for help.
She turned to Kalan. “Will you help your brothers put on their pajamas?”
Kalan was only six, but he understood what it meant to be the big brother, so he grabbed each younger boy by one of their arms and began pulling them out of the room.
“Are you sure cake before bed is a good idea?” she said. It was after eight o’clock, and the dessert was supposed to chill for a few hours—it had barely been two.
“What’s the fun of having Grandpa stay over if you can’t have cake right before bed?”
It was hard to argue with such logic.
“I should have asked you first, though, it’s your cake,” Pete said, holding the platter with both hands as though trying to determine what to do with it now. “Sorry.”
It was easy to forgive. Sadie stood up from the table and kissed his cheek. “You’re a fabulous grandfather,” she said, pointing for him to put the platter on the table while she headed for the newly repaired cabinet to retrieve some plates.
“I don’t know about that,” Pete said, setting down the platter and watching her busy about the kitchen. “This may turn out to be the longest five days of my life.”
Sadie laughed and grabbed a knife to slice the roll. “Haven’t you ever played Grandpa full-time?”
“No,” Pete said, moving to the sink to wash his hands. “Pat went a few times when the kids went on vacations or had babies or whatnot, and we had Brooke’s kids for a weekend here and there, but I haven’t been called upon since Pat died.”
Sadie looked up at the casual mention of his late wife, liking that he was becoming more comfortable merging his old life with the new possibilities of their relationship. “Well, then, I’m glad I could be a part of this new experience,” she said. “And rest assured, you’re doing wonderfully—cake before bed notwithstanding.” She grinned at him as she carefully sliced the cake.
“I appreciate the validation,” Pete said with a nod, leaning against the counter as he dried his hands with a dish towel. “Even if I don’t really deserve it.”
Sadie carefully lifted each spiral of cake and cream cheese filling before putting it on a plate. A moment later, Pete’s arms snaked around her middle and his lips pressed against her neck, sending a tingle down and then back up her spine. She turned in his arms, holding the knife out to the side so as not to appear threatening.
“I couldn’t have done this without you,” he said in a tender voice. “Aunt Sadie is amazing with these kids.”
“I’m glad it worked out,” Sadie said. She’d been very uncomfortable with the idea when Pete had first invited her. Staying in the same house didn’t seem right, and her reputation had already suffered some painful blows in recent months. But the more she considered the possibility, the more she wondered why she cared so much what people thought of her. She was a woman of high standards, and the people who truly cared about her knew that. A phone call with Heather had assured her that the boys could share one room, which would leave a guest room for Sadie.
It had been nice to have so much uninterrupted time with Pete, and she’d always loved New England in the fall. They had arrived two days early so the boys could get used to them before their parents left for Texas. “It’s been fun getting to know Jared and his family from the inside-out,” she added, looking up at Pete and trying not to get lost in his hazel eyes.
“And they love you,” Pete said. He leaned in for a quick kiss before eyeing the knife still in her hand. “Maybe I should let you get back to work before one of us gets hurt.”
Sadie laughed and turned back to serving.
Pete pulled out a chair. “So, why the interest in psychopaths and sociopaths?”
Sadie shrugged, but easily made the shift in the topic of conversation. “I caught part of a Law & Order episode the other day. They seemed to be using the two terms interchangeably in the show.”
“Well,” Pete said, folding his arms over his chest, “they’re both antisocial personality disorders, which means they function 100 percent on what they want.”
“So, that means they have no moral code, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Pete said. “Many of them still live by a moral code, but only because it gets them what they want. Generally, a sociopath is classified as such because they exist on the fringe of society; they don’t fit in very well with normal people. A psychopath, on the other hand, has an uncanny ability to mimic the way normal people act. Neither of them has a conscience—but one group can pretend that they do.”
“Are they all violent?” Sadie asked.
Pete shook his head. “Not necessarily. Many of them live relatively normal lives and are contributing members of society. Once their disorder turns malignant—meaning it escalates to the point where they’re aggressively acting on their most base instincts—they become dangerous, which is where I end up coming in.”
“That’s scary,” Sadie said. “To think there are people with no conscience living their lives amid the rest of us.”
Pete nodded. “But, like I said, they aren’t all criminals. Some of them find ways to control people and situations to their liking without breaking the law. Pat was involved in the PTA for years, and I’m pretty sure there were a few psychopaths involved in that organization.”
Sadie smiled as she moved to the table and put a fork on each plate. Pete knew so much about so many things. Then she paused. “Shouldn’t the boys have been back by now?”
Pete cocked an ear toward the doorway. “I hate to interrupt them if they aren’t screaming . . . Wait.”
Sadie heard it too. Whispers. She and Pete shared a quick look and then bolted toward the doorway. Sadie reached it first and came up short when she saw the three boys kneeling on the couch and peeking over the back in order to look out the big picture window. They were in their pajamas, she noted with relief, but were obviously intent on something happening outside. She looked over her shoulder at Pete, who was standing directly behind her, and he shrugged.
Slowly, they moved into the room, Sadie veering to the left side of the couch and Pete toward the right. They leaned forward to look out the window, and Sadie scanned the street to figure out what the boys were looking at. After a few seconds, she spotted a woman across the street, digging in a flower bed outside the house . . . in late October . . . at night. And she wasn’t using a trowel to worry out some dead flowers—she was using a spade and making a pile of dirt on the sidewalk that led to the front door.
“Who’s that?” Sadie asked Kalan, who was closest to her.
“Mrs. Wapple,” Kalan said quietly.
“What’s she doing?”
“Being weird,” Kalan whispered.
“Does she do weird things a lot?”
Kalan nodded and folded his arms over the back of the couch, resting his chin on his hands. “We like to watch her when Mom turns off the TV.”
“She’s a witch!” Chance said.
“Witch!” Fig repeated.
Sadie’s eyes flickered to the large cardboard cartoon witch on the wall—one of a dozen decorations Heather had put up in preparation for Halloween next week.
“I think she’s just . . . digging,” Pete said. But Sadie knew he found it strange as well.
“Mr. Forsberk’s dog pooped in her yard and she cast a spell on it and it got hit by a car,” Kalan said.
Sadie flicked a look at Pete, inviting him with her eyes to help her out. He didn’t get the cue. “I feel bad for Mr. Forsberk’s dog,” Sadie said, “but unless Mrs. Wapple was driving the car, then it was probably just a very sad accident.”
“It wasn’t,” Kalan said, still wide-
eyed and sincere. “It was a spell. Mama even said.”
“Your mom said it was a spell?” Pete asked for clarification.
“Well, no,” Kalan said. “But she did say Mrs. Wapple is a witch.”
“A witch!” Fig said, loudly this time, and began jumping on the couch. Apparently, his interest had waned. “A witch, a witch, a witch.”
Pete tried to shush him, and Sadie once again launched into a defense of the poor old woman digging across the street. Then Chance pointed out the window, his mouth open. Sadie followed his gaze and was startled to see Mrs. Wapple facing them, standing on the sidewalk that ran parallel to the street rather than on the walkway leading to her house. The streetlight down the block illuminated the gray hat made of some type of coarse fabric on her head, and the long dark hair that fell in frizzy waves past her shoulders. As they watched, Mrs. Wapple lifted her hand and began drawing pictures in the air with her index finger.
“Okay, boys,” Sadie said, ushering them off the couch. “She’s just a silly old lady. And there’s cake in the kitchen, so let’s eat.”
“Cake!” Fig shouted as he bounded off the couch. Chance and Kalan followed, though Kalan kept looking back over his shoulder. Pete finished herding them into the kitchen, and soon the boys were arguing about which piece of cake was the biggest.
Alone in the living room, Sadie hurried to the side of the window near the floor lamp, but before she pulled the blinds closed, she turned off the light, hoping it would make her less visible. Then she looked at Mrs. Wapple one last time. The woman was still on the sidewalk. Still staring, with her finger still pointing toward the house. No, not the house—pointing at Sadie.
Sadie swallowed and pulled herself a little further behind the heavy curtains. But she didn’t take her eyes off the strange woman outside.
Mrs. Wapple lifted her hand so that it was pointing at the sky, and then she closed her fingers into a fist. Still staring in Sadie’s direction, she punched her hand upward at the precise moment that the lightbulb in the lamp next to Sadie exploded with a pop. Sadie jumped out of the way as a thousand tiny shards of paper-thin glass tinkled to the floor.
“What was that?” Pete asked, stepping into the doorway that led to the kitchen.
Sadie looked at him. “The lightbulb exploded,” she said, refusing to consider the coincidence that it had happened at the same time Mrs. Wapple punched her fist over her head. She looked out the window again, but Mrs. Wapple was gone.
She wasn’t on the sidewalk; she wasn’t digging in the garden. She was gone.
Sadie felt a strange tingling sensation wash over her skin like a chilled breeze as Kalan’s words came back to her: Mama says she’s a witch.
Good thing Sadie didn’t believe in that kind of thing.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Enjoy this sneak peek of Pumpkin Roll
Blackberry Crumble Page 35