Sassy Blonde - Stacey Kennedy Page 0,2

the same thing to me.”

“I love you too,” Maisie whispered.

Those words echoed in the air for a moment, and suddenly, the warmth seeping from Laurel’s hold began to vanish…replaced by something dark…something cold.

She blinked, realizing she was not standing outside with Laurel anymore. She tried to remember how she got back inside her house but failed miserably. Hayes was not sitting in his car waiting for her best friend to return to him. Laurel’s soft voice, her smile…gone. The sun had disappeared, bringing a dark, eerie night. Maisie pressed her hands flat against the cool hardwood floor in the foyer of the house, barely able to drag in breaths. Screams blasted against the walls, until she realized the sounds of pure agony came from her mouth. Her pile of vomit lay next to her, some soaking her nightgown.

She’d just been with Laurel today. They had just talked. Just hugged.

Maisie forced her gaze up. Hayes stared down at her, his expression unreadable, his whiskey-colored eyes were dead…empty. His mouth was moving, but the screams from her mouth wouldn’t stop, the roaring in her ears too loud.

Hands suddenly grabbed her, and Maisie had enough sense to recognize it was her sisters, dragging her away from her vomit.

People began yelling, panic and confusion ripping through the house. Mason stood on the staircase sobbing before Clara ran to him, her nightgown fluttering with the movement.

Time no longer existed, not for Maisie, as Hayes turned and strode out of the house, leaving the front door wide open. He became a blur of navy that faded into the night. Only then did she fully process what he had said.

“Murder. Robbery gone wrong. Laurel…she’s gone.”

1

Two years later…

Maisie’s paintbrush swept across the canvas, mixing the darker green paint in with the lighter, creating depth to the trees of the forest. The sun’s beams warmed her face, the wind swishing the long grasses behind her, while her painting of the sweeping meadow flowed easily. “Not Picasso yet,” she noted, leaning back to admire her work. She caught a hundred things wrong with the painting, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed at home. Few things made her feel content, but replicating the beauty in the world was one of them.

The slight heaviness in her eyelids from waking up at the crack of dawn was worth the spike of happiness painting gave her. She wiped off her paintbrush, tucking her supplies into her tote bag with COOL AF ARTIST written on the side, a present from her sisters for her birthday last year. The last letter from her grandfather peeked out from the bag. She reached for it as she heard the flapping of wings overhead. She unfolded the piece of paper and revealed the quote by Michelangelo: The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Even after two years, Maisie still didn’t know what Pops meant by this or why he’d chosen this quote as his very last thing to say to her. She’d never asked what Pops wrote in her sisters’ letters, and neither Clara nor Amelia had offered the information up.

Thinking of her sisters, and knowing she had a mile-long to-do list today, Maisie checked the time on her phone that rested on a fallen log next to her.

“Shit!” She jolted up, grabbed her bag and canvas, and took off running. The alarm she’d set to remind her about work hadn’t gone off. Her footsteps were muffled in the grass, but a squirrel ran away from her as she charged up the small hill. When she reached the top, she spotted the long driveway that led to the house and the black barn—now turned into a brewery—off to the right of it.

Prepared for a lecture, Maisie stopped at her MINI Cooper and deposited her tote bag and canvas onto the passenger seat before she hurried into the barn. Rows of huge steel tanks filled the space, with a main walkway that led to a room in the back for tastings. Some days the brewery held a metallic scent. Other days, it smelled earthy. As Maisie sucked in a breath, she realized today, it smelled fruity.

As she made her way through the tanks, she caught sight of Amelia, bent over the rim of a tank. Maisie held her breath and tiptoed past. Amelia must have been brewing last night and was now cleaning out the tank. She’d gotten into