Home. It feels a lot more like an escape now.
She headed up the curved steps and pressed the doorbell. Five seconds later, the door opened, and she was looking into the smiling face of Bianca Summerlin’s housekeeper.
“Cheyenne!” The woman grinned and opened the door even wider. “So good to see you.”
“Hey, Eleanor.”
Eleanor wrapped Cheyenne in a crushing embrace. The woman had been running her mother’s household for as long as the halfling could remember. She tried not to wheeze under the pressure of Eleanor’s bear hug, and she smiled when the woman released her and held her by the shoulders at arm’s length. “You look beautiful. New workout routine or something?”
“Oh, stop.”
Eleanor gave her employer’s daughter a playful slap on the arm. “You haven’t been away long enough for either of us to have changed that much.”
The door shut with a soft click, cutting out the rustling leaves and the chirping birds outside. The huge, empty house was way too quiet.
“She’s waiting for you on the back veranda. Can I take your bag?”
Cheyenne squeezed Eleanor’s arm and shook her head. “I’m gonna keep it with me. You joining us for cocktail hour, or does she have you running around doing more important things?”
The older woman pursed her lips and tried to look stern. It hadn’t worked when Cheyenne was a kid, and it didn’t work now. “Is that an invitation?”
“From me, yeah.”
“Oh, she’s already invited me too. I’ll be tidying up a few more things, but if you’re still here when I’m finished, maybe I’ll bring up an extra bottle from the cellar.”
That brought a chuckle from them both, and Cheyenne stepped across the foyer to move through the massive, decorated living room toward the back of the house. “And an extra glass, right?”
“That’s what I said.” Laughing, Eleanor went in the opposite direction.
The woman had already put dinner on in the kitchen, which Cheyenne passed without stopping to snoop around. She hadn’t quite gotten used to smelling every single ingredient in a meal, but she knew enough about how her heightened senses worked to distract herself from the instant growl of her stomach.
Eleanor’s cooking hasn’t changed a bit. Smells like heaven.
The sliding glass doors onto the ground floor’s back veranda were wide open, the sheer curtains pulled aside. Cheyenne had always thought her mom left those curtains hanging like that to create the billowy effect when the breeze rolled in from the north. It added to the perception of heading toward some huge expanse beyond the curtains, like a theatrical gateway one must pass to get to Bianca Summerlin on the other side.
Cheyenne brushed past the billowing fabric and slipped out onto the veranda. She pulled her backpack off her shoulder and set it on the stone outside the sliding doors.
Bianca stood at the edge of the veranda, her forearms resting on the banister railing as she stared over the open valley and the acres of arable land that hadn’t been farmed for decades. The woman’s dark, wavy hair fluttered away from her face in the breeze, which was just strong enough to intensify her expression of deep consideration.
Cheyenne stopped a few feet away. “George still does a great job with the lawn.”
Her mom stiffened, which was as close as Bianca got to being startled, then turned. A soft smile bloomed on her face. “Doesn’t he? You know, I heard somewhere it was impossible for children to sneak up on their mothers.”
“I think we outgrew that a long time ago.” Cheyenne joined her mom at the railing and stepped into Bianca’s arms.
Her mom smelled like vanilla and sandalwood, which was a masculine scent on its own but more powerful and feminine than any floral perfume. Just when she wears it.
When Bianca released her daughter, she ran her hands down Cheyenne’s arms, then tucked a bit of black hair behind Cheyenne’s ear. “I’m glad you stopped by. I still wish you’d come visit more often. Or at least come spend a few weeks out here during the summer.”
“Maybe when I’m done with school.” Cheyenne squeezed her mom’s hand and released it.
“For the year or when you finish your Masters?”
“I don’t know.” Looking out over the valley lined by the thick West Virginian woods, Cheyenne leaned against the banister and echoed her mom’s stance. “I’ve been thinking about all this out here a lot more. How quiet it is.”
How it gets me to not be a crazed drow who can’t pick up her normal human form without it.
“Hmm. I can’t imagine what it would be like to leave this now and head back into the city. I remember it being…hectic.”
Cheyenne’s little stint at the gas station the night before ran through her head, and she snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.”
“I’m sure things have changed since I stopped being a city girl.” Bianca chuckled and turned around to face the sliding doors. “Eleanor should be up with our—oh. I swear, it’s like you can read my mind.”
Grinning, Eleanor stepped out onto the veranda with a tray in one hand. “I should be able to after twenty-five years, don’t you think?” She’d arrived with empty glasses, a corkscrew, an empty decanter, an artisan charcuterie plate, and a bottle of red wine. She set these down on the patio table to the left and nodded. “I’ll leave you to it. There’s salmon and braised asparagus for dinner. Should be ready soon.”
“Thank you.” Bianca wiggled her eyebrows at her daughter and headed toward the table. “Bring an extra glass and come sit with us when you’re finished.”
Eleanor paused at the sliding glass doors and turned halfway around with a coy smile.
“And another bottle of wine,” Cheyenne added.
“I’ll plan on it.” Grinning, the housekeeper hurried back inside, her shadow passing across the long wall of windows onto the veranda before she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Eleanor’s
