“Who knew Royella was secretly edgy?”
“I know,” he said. “Maybe she’ll be the cool kind of stepmom after all.” He let out a cynical laugh.
When Collin left, shutting the door behind him and shutting out the light from the hall, I listened to his footsteps recede. I fell asleep thinking of the trees too large for Dad’s spray paint, of Royella’s genuine shock when Ranger Cooper announced that spotted owls might be nesting on the property, and of the timber insurance quote addressed to both Royella and Taylor. I again wondered momentarily whether the faint sound I heard outside, largely masked by the bubbling creek, was crickets or frogs.
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