Icy Heart and Warm Love

Chapter Three

As soon as Kalda had opened up the front door for her house, she was immediately greeted by yelling.

"Where have you been all week?" Romano angrily demanded. "We were worried sick!"

"Did you move?" Veneziano whined. "Were we too annoying or harsh?"

This kept going on as Kalda fell into deep thought, feeling guilty.

Maybe the letter really wasn't specific enough, Kalda thought in sadness.

Kalda had seriously hoped that her letter would have been enough to convince her two brothers that she was on a trip, but now she supposed that they didn't know the difference between a "Week Only Trip" and a "Leaving For Good Trip."

Kalda sighed as she put her suitcase down, giving the two men a big hug.

"Aw, come on, you two," she calmly soothed them. "You know that nothing that you two do will ever make me leave you."

"You just worried us," Romano replied, hugging her back.

"Grandpa Rome would have had a very long talk with you about this if he were still here," Veneziano scolded with a playful smile.

Kalda laughed as she picked up her suitcase again.

"I'm sure that he would have," she said, "but I'm back now. That's all that matters, right?"

"Well, you're just in time for lunch," Romano stated, finally letting Kalda enter the house.

"That's just what I need," Kalda answered in relief. "This passed week has been quite crazy."

"Where exactly did you go, Kalda?" Veneziano wondered with his usual smile.

"Oh, you know," Kalda casually lied. "I just took a trip to look at all of the scenery and countryside. That's all."

"You could have stated that in the note, you know," Romano grinned, holding up the piece of paper in his hand.

"I guess I was just in a rush that morning," Kalda smiled.

"I'm just glad that you came back," Veneziano grinned as well. "I don't know what I would do without you."

"Well, then we can dedicate this week to just the three of us," Kalda suggested. "How about that?"

Her two brothers also liked that idea, grinning.

After Kalda had finished lunch with her two brothers, she went up to her room to take her clothes out of her suitcase so that she could wash them.

As Kalda picked up one of her favorite dresses, a pale blue sundress with white lace, a piece of paper fell silently onto the floor.

She looked at the piece of paper, to her dress, then to the piece of paper again.

Weird, she thought. That wasn't in here when I packed up my suitcase at the beginning of the week.

Kalda picked up the piece of paper off of the floor, unfolding it to read it.

"Kalda,

I deeply appreciate all of the hard work that you did for me this week. It makes me very happy to see that you paid very close attention to detail.

I know that we don't know each other that well and got off on the wrong foot, and I'm not much of what you would call the "nurturing type," but I just wanted you to know that your hard work was appreciated.