Beck took plates down from one of the cupboards and started setting the long wooden table in the dining nook next to glass doors that led to a terrace. “Evelyn cooked a lot, said she enjoyed it. We’ve mostly been doing takeout since she passed, but if you tell me what you like I can plan to make dinner most nights.”
“You don’t have to do that.” I was beginning to think it would be smartest to keep my distance.
“Eat alone if you want,” Dane said.
Noah frowned at him. “Dane just means that you shouldn’t feel obligated to eat with us if you want to do your own thing.”
I didn’t know what to say, mostly because right then what I wanted was a tie between running to the farthest corners of the big house to avoid the three men who seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the room and getting naked with them — all of them — right there in the kitchen.
Beck went to the oven to pull out the mac and cheese. “We can figure all that out later. Avery’s probably tired and hungry. Let’s eat.”
I forced myself to breathe. I could eat one meal with my hot new employees without wanting to rail them. I’d figure out the rest later.
This was fine. Everything was fine.
5
NOAH
It wasstrange sitting around the big table in the kitchen, not just because Avery was there but because Dane, Beck, and I didn’t usually eat together.
In fact, we didn’t do much of anything together.
On a normal day, we’d grunt one-word questions and responses while we went about our business around the house. We’d scrounge up our own food and take it to our rooms on the second floor, except for the times when Evelyn would insist we join her for dinner.
Even then, we didn’t talk much. Evelyn would tell us about Blackwell Hollow — its history and its people — and about the house. She’d been practical and reserved most of the time, but history had mattered to her, places had mattered, and there had been no place she’d loved more than Blackwell Hollow.
Now we sat around the table with Avery Hart, and I couldn’t help but feel the world tilt a little. Evelyn was gone but here was her niece, a magical creature with hair the color of rich soil in summer who had said “Oh my gravy!” when we’d surprised her in the gazebo.
“There’s a terrace?” Avery asked, her voice soft with surprise as she settled into a seat to my left.
I followed her gaze to the terrace on the other side of the glass doors. The doors had been open on all but the coldest days when Evelyn had been alive, but it had only just started getting warm again, and Dane, Beck, and I hadn’t bothered to open them in the three months since her death.
I realized now that I missed it. Missed having a connection to the earth even from inside.
“Yeah, we can open the doors if you want,” I said.
It was almost summer, and the sun had just sunk behind the mountains that surrounded Blackwell Hollow. The sky had turned deep violet, and I knew that on the other side of the terrace doors, the gardens were already full of night sounds: crickets and frogs and the rustling of the rabbits that lived around the kitchen garden.
Avery hesitated, then shook her head. “Maybe not yet.”
I wondered if she was thinking about Pembroke’s body. She had been surprisingly calm when we’d found her in the gazebo, but it had to have been traumatic on some level. She was probably still in shock.
She picked up her fork and took a bite of the mac and cheese, then looked at Beck with wide eyes. “This is good.”
He laughed. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended that you sound so surprised.”
“It’s just mac and cheese,” Dane said, shoveling food into his mouth.
“It’s amazing mac and cheese,” Avery said. “And Beck made it. For us.”
Dane hesitated, then furrowed his brow like this was new information. I didn’t think it was my imagination that he stopped eating like a starving dog.
“Don’t mind him,” Beck said. “He’s better with numbers than he is with people.”
“Don’t fucking apologize for me,” Dane said, glaring at his bowl.
Avery frowned, then tried to compose her features into a mask of pleasantry. “Are you… an accountant?”