Chapter 48
Couldermouth welcomes you
Scarlett
It’s two in the morning by the time we arrive at Widow’s Keep.
Marquis parks the SUV in front of the mansion, and we step out of the vehicle.
Four huge bright lights shine down on us and then move slowly away and across the lawn.
Two of them swing back and forth in front of the forested area, where several dozen men stand on guard.
“Lots of security,” I comment as I follow them across the driveway.
“We’re on high alert,” Marquis says.
Cass Macarley, whom I officially met on the plane ride to Couldermouth, climbs the steps to the Keep. “Until I make an example of your daddy and all his associates.”
“I thought you already did that at the wedding.”
Endo scrunches his nose. “Cass let him live.”
“What? Why?” I shout after Endo’s brother, hoping he’ll tell me before he disappears into the Keep.
Cass opens one side of the Keep’s door, then unlatches the other and pushes them open, widening the entrance. Endo sweeps an arm under my legs and lifts me.
“Oh!” I laugh and throw my arm over his shoulders. He carries me up the steps. No point in pressing Cass about my dad. I doubt he’ll tell me. I don’t doubt he’ll deal out his brand of justice.
I squeeze my husband’s biceps. “You’re so big and strong.”
Endo frowns.
“My caveman.”
Smirking, he shakes his head.
I press my lips against his ear. “You know what you can do to shut me up, don’t you?”
Endo gives me a side-eye. “Talking dirty now, are we?”
“We are.”
Endo crosses the threshold and puts me down. “Welcome home, Scarlett Macarley.”
Scarlett Macarley. Nice. “Thank you.”
“There is cake in the fridge,” Slada says from the kitchen before she comes out, licking her thumb. “It’s delicious.” She hugs me. “Nice to have you back, Doc.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t expect the hug. I return it warmly, and I’m surprised to notice that Slada is wearing perfume. It’s light. If it were a season, it would be spring.
When we separate, she stands back and says, “I often run on a trail in the forest in the mornings. You can join me if you like.”
“I used to run track.”
“I know,” she says.
Background checks. Right. “I’d love that.”
“Not tomorrow. Or the next few days,” Endo says, then pecks me on the cheek.
“I saved the map for you. You know where to find me.” He ascends the steps to the second floor.
At the top, he points to the east wing, the wing of the Keep I never visited.
“This way. I have guards in the west wing in case you get lost.”
Standing at the bottom, I’m left with heated cheeks while his friends and family smile knowingly.
“I can read a map,” I mumble.
Slada giggles.
“Well, now that we know Endo’s on a honeymoon in the Keep,” Marquis says, “we can all relax and go home. Finally.” He sighs. “Cass won’t stay long. He’s packing. I’ll keep the housekeeping light. Phillip will send food. Is there anything you’re craving?”
“Croissant?”
“I’ll tell Mary.” Marquis waves goodbye.
“Hey.” I turn to Slada. “Did Mary ever see a doctor about her indigestion?”
“Nope,” she says.
“Oh no. Is it worse?”
“Much worse.”
I throw up my hands. “Well, she ought to have seen someone.”
“You.” Slada taps my shoulder. “She won’t see anyone besides you.”
I sigh. “I’m flattered, but if she needs a specialist, she will have to see someone else.”
Slada pins me with a scary glare. It’s like there are two parts of her.
This one and the one who smells like springtime and giggles.
“Doc, listen, people here barely trust their own shadows. They’re not gonna go off to see strangers about their health.
It doesn’t matter if that makes no sense to you or not.
This is how things are. We almost had a riot when you left.
The staff from the clinic and your patients organized a town hall where they voted you in as the mayor and demanded that Endo bring you back at all costs. The dungeons were full.”
“Oh no. Not the dungeons.”
“Hell yes, the dungeons. I imagine if we hadn’t locked up the group that threw rocks at our boat in the harbor, we’d have people coming here with pitchforks.”
I’m looking forward to getting to know her and putting together the parts of her that make her whole. She seems like an interesting woman, to be sure. “That’s crazy.”
“I guess you made an impression. If Endo weren’t in love with you, he would have had to bring you back if only to prevent the townspeople from turning on us.”
She thinks Endo is in love with me. It’s one thing to speculate whether he loves me since he rescued me from a very bad arrangement by marrying me right next to the corpse of the groom-who-never-was, and quite another to have a woman, who I believe Endo regards as his sister, say he loves me.
“I love him back,” I tell her.
“Be sure to tell him that. Endo needs you to tell him that. Do you understand me?”
“I think so.”
“If you don’t understand…anything that’s going on around here, ask me. Just ask me. I’ll be around.” With that, Slada closes and locks the front doors.
My heels click over the red wooden floors all the way to the kitchen. I open the fridge, look for the cake, bend, and peer into the back. No cake. But when I close the fridge, I spot it and gasp. My hands fly to my heated cheeks.
Mary placed a five-foot-high wedding cake inside a tall glass refrigerator. Decorative dim lights cast a soft glow on the diamond-shaped sugar crystals that bedazzle the frosting.
There’s no way I’m cutting into this piece of art before I take a picture.
I snap several images and send them to Charlotte.
We dropped her off at Josh’s parents, where Beatrice had stayed during the wedding.
I didn’t want Beatrice to see me walk down the aisle in the mourning dress, and I asked Charlotte if it would be okay if we didn’t tell the child I was marrying Wilfred.
She would find out eventually, but by then, she would be older and I would have a chance to explain myself.
I didn’t want her to see me cry at my wedding.
I didn’t want to have to lie to her about why I was marrying a man I didn’t care about.
I didn’t want to lie to her at all, and I hope someday, my sister tells her the truth about her biological father.
My sister is sleeping, but she’ll see the pictures in the morning.
I look for the map Endo drew for me so I could find his room.
It’s still where he left it before, on the tray on the counter.
A slice of cake sits next to the steak knife.
No fork. I cut a piece and eat it straight from the blade, catching my reflection in the window.
Obsidian wedding dress. A knife in my hand.
I lick the blade.
I can have my cake and eat it too, Mommy.
Someday, when my new therapist and I unpack all the truth bombs my dad dropped on me during the most stressful time of my life, when I feared for my life and the lives of people around me, I’ll visit my mother’s grave and talk to her, to get my grievances off my chest. But for now, I don’t want to think about her.
Or my dad. Or anyone other than the man who has been honest with me from the start.
Endo never pretended he was anything other than who he is. And he’s my husband now.
I fist the knife, grab the map, and follow it to his bedroom.