Footsteps sounded from inside, crossing the floor toward the front of the house, and then the door opened.
Patrick stood in the doorway in a dark henley with his phone in his hand. The expression on his face when he found her in his Adirondack chair with his housemate’s dog on her knee was… well, kind of cute, actually.
“How did you know where I live?” he started.
She smiled.
The corner of his mouth moved. “County assessor?”
“Yes. I brought coffee and donuts.” She lifted the carryout box to show him.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know. If you don’t want them, I think this guy might.” She looked down at the dog. Funny, she’d never considered herself a dog person before, but she’d befriended two of them since arriving in Pine Ridge.
“No doubt,” Patrick said. “Bruno’s got a sweet tooth.”
“Is he yours?”
“Wade’s,” Patrick said. “But he tolerates all of us.”
So the dark shadow guy was Wade. Morgan looked back to the post, only to find no one there.
“Would you like to come inside? Or maybe you’d prefer to go somewhere else?”
“Here is fine, as long as you’re okay with it.”
“I’m okay with it. Fair warning though—it’s not as nice as my parents’.”
She stood, the dog stepping aside with dignified patience. “Not many places are.”
He smiled. “That’s kind of you to say. It was my great-grandmother’s place, and restoring it was important to my mother.”
Morgan waved at the house. “Like mother like son?”
“Newer places just don’t have the same character.”
She agreed with him.
He held the door open for her and waved her into the small foyer. Even in the midst of renovation, Morgan could see the appeal of the place. High ceilings, wide-plank floors, a staircase with a turned banister, and the kind of proportions that new construction didn’t have. More importantly, it looked as if the work they were doing was more about restoration than replacement. The plaster walls were being patched and repainted above the wainscoting, the hardwood floors and trim stripped back and refinished, brass hardware that looked original.
She turned in the entry to get a better look at the leaded glass fanlight above the door and found Wade behind her, moving silently toward the back of the house. It should have been creepy. It wasn’t.
“It’s a work in progress,” Patrick said almost apologetically.
“I can see that. Are you doing all the work yourself?”
“Me and the other guys who live here. My cousins Declan and Garrett. Wade.”
“Looks like you know what you’re doing.”
“Garrett does. He’s been working construction and renos with his dad for years. The rest of us just do what he says.”
Morgan didn’t believe that for a moment.
She followed him into the kitchen. It was the room that had gotten the most attention—and the most use. A long table ran the length of one wall, substantial and scarred, ringed by mismatched chairs. Mugs on hooks, an industrial sized coffeemaker, a dry-erase board behind the door with a column of entries written by several hands.
She couldn’t completely hide her smile as she took in the takeout containers and boxes of cereal lining the counters.