Page 4 of Bone’s Choice

WISCONSIN.

Another blast from the semi horn echoed outside.

“Hold your fucking horses.” I grabbed my keys, opened the door, and headed out. Time to get shit done.

Chapter Two

Hazel

I definitely wasn’t in Ohio anymore.

I stood in the middle of my new living room with my hands planted on my hips and slowly turned in a circle.

Boxes. So many fucking boxes.

Boxes stacked against the wall. Boxes piled beside the front door. Boxes in front of the fireplace I hadn’t even known the house had until yesterday. Boxes labeled KITCHEN, BATHROOM, BEDROOM, and one particularly unhelpful box labeled SHIT I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH.

That one had been packed somewhere around midnight three days ago when I’d officially stopped giving a shit about organization.

I had no idea how one woman had accumulated this much stuff. I was said woman.

My apartment back in Ohio had been small. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen barely big enough for two people to stand in without bumping asses, and a living room where I could sit on the couch and almost reach the television with my foot.

Now I had a three-bedroom house.

An actual house. Mine. I still wasn’t quite sure how the hell that had happened.

“Thanks, Aunt Diane,” I muttered.

The empty room didn’t answer. Which was fitting, since Aunt Diane hadn’t exactly been chatty while she was alive either.

Mostly because I’d never met her. Not once. I’d known she existed, technically, but that was about the extent of it.

Diane had been my mother’s older sister. My mother hadn’t talked about her much, and when I’d asked questions as a kid, I’d gotten vague answers that usually ended with some version of families are complicated.

Apparently, complicated meant the two sisters had gone decades without speaking.

My mother had died years ago, and Aunt Diane had remained nothing more than a name I’d heard a handful of times.

Then, three months ago, I’d gotten a phone call from a lawyer in Wisconsin.

Diane was dead and she’d left me her house.

I’d actually laughed right into the phone. Not because it was funny, but because what the hell else was I supposed to do when a lawyer called and told me a woman I’d never met had died and decided I should own her house?

I’d assumed it was a scam.

I’d almost hung up, but the poor man had spent twenty minutes convincing me that, yes, Diane had existed, yes, she really had owned a house outside Marshfield, Wisconsin, and yes, for reasons neither of us understood, she’d named me in her will.

There hadn’t been a fortune waiting for me.

No secret millions. No priceless jewelry. No dramatic letter explaining why she’d disappeared from our lives.

Just the house.

I walked over to the front window and looked outside.

Trees. A whole lot of trees.