Blackwell Hollow didn’t have a bad neighborhood per se, but I was the black sheep, the kid who’d lived on the periphery of the cute shops on Main Street, the pancake breakfasts at the firehouse, the summer concerts in the pavilion in the town square.
Now I felt a rare moment of low-key panic, like everything I’d built might be taken away at any second.
And it wasn’t mindless fear. Everythingcouldbe taken away in a heartbeat.
I knew that better than anyone.
I thought about Harold Pembroke’s body. I mean, I hardly knew the guy, other than occasional mentions inThe Hollow Heraldand the few times I’d run into him at the Common Ground.
So what the actual fuck had Pembroke been doing on Evelyn’s property?
My mind pivoted to Beck and Noah as I turned onto Hickory Lane. Where had they been in the hours before Pembroke’s body was discovered? And what about Avery herself? After all, she’d been the one to find the body, and none of us had seen her on the property before that moment.
I shook my head and slowed down as I approached the end of the road. I was losing it. There was no way Avery Hart — with her long hair the color of maple syrup and her big brown eyes, someone who wouldn’t even swear out loud for fuck’s sake — had somehow plotted to kill a man on her first day in Blackwell Hollow.
Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have a motive. Pembroke had been trying to stop the Hearthstone gated community, something we all wanted.
I pulled next to the curb, turned off the car, and tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. What about Beck and Noah? I didn’t really know them, not well enough to say for sure they didn’t have it in them to murder someone.
The why was still a mystery, but if one of us had murdered Harold, I’d put more money on Beck and Noah than on Avery Hart.
But maybe that was just my jealousy talking. And I was jealous, something I could admit only to myself: jealous of the fact that Beck had gotten to kiss Avery like he wanted to eat her face, that he’d gotten to feel her plush body in his hands.
Fuck.
I shifted in the driver’s seat of the Lexus, trying to tame my dick, which had decided to stand at attention just when I needed to get out of the car.
I looked out the window, trying to distract myself, and took in the old farmhouse sitting at the end of a paved walkway. Last year’s paint job was holding up well, the cheerful yellow paint still clean and intact. I’d painted the porch a crisp white, and the wicker chairs and side tables beckoned, inviting a midday respite and a glass of iced tea.
Not for me though. I didn’t come here to rest. But I was glad it looked nice for the house’s occupants.
I let my gaze travel along the roofline, making notes: the gutters needed cleaning and tightening after winter, and one of the fascia’s wood panels was drooping, an invitation to squirrels I didn’t want to extend.
I added it to the never-ending list of projects in my mind and reached for the door handle.
Thinking about who might have killed Harold Pembroke was a black hole of speculation I didn’t have time for. And thinking about Avery Hart was a pointless exercise in lustful futility.
But here… well, here I could do work that mattered. It didn’t keep me warm at night, didn’t give me someone to come home to at the end of the day, but it was something.
14
AVERY
I avoided going downstairsthe next morning until I was sure Beck had left for the bakery. We’d parted awkwardly in the foyer the night before, Dane’s scathing voice echoing in my mind, and I’d retreated to my room in a puddle of embarrassment.
And lust.
Now I just needed to escape the house without running into Noah — or god forbid Dane — and try to salvage what was left of my dignity.
It was after ten a.m. when I left my room wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. I planned to scope out the town, get the lay of the land, and see if I could find a realtor to list the house.
I could have asked one of the guys for a recommendation, but that felt wrong, like asking an employee who was about to be fired to train their own replacement. Besides, I needed an excuse to escape the memory of what had happened between Beck and me the night before.
Not that I was going to forget aboutthatanytime soon. I was pretty sure I would be thinking about the kiss on my deathbed, and I looked longingly at the closed doors on my way to the stairs, wondering which room belonged to Beck.
It wasn’t like I’d never been kissed. I’d just never been kissed like that.
I could still feel his fingers in my hair, the slow stroke of his thumb against my cheek, the heat of his bare skin against my chest. I’d almost stopped breathing when he’d captured my mouth, and the bottom had dropped out of my stomach when he’d slipped his tongue between my lips.