Chapter 14 Avery
AVERY
I avoided going downstairs the 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 about that anytime 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.
I’d never wanted someone so badly before and I knew it wasn’t just the kiss that did it but the press of his dick (sizable by the way) against my stomach. The urge to pull him on top of me right there in the foyer had been almost undeniable.
I was more than a little breathless by the time I reached the bottom of the staircase, and I was relieved that the house was quiet.
I was hungry and desperate for coffee, and while it was possible Noah was in the garden, I wasn’t going to risk a run-in with him by heading for the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure I could hide the truth of what had happened between Beck and me (oh god, had Beck told Noah about it?).
Instead I grabbed my bag off the coatrack by the door and stepped outside.
It was like stepping into a fairy tale. The sun shone from a cloudless sky and the blossoms in the flower beds along the porch basked in the warm light.
Birds chirped from the trees around the house.
A spring breeze caressed my bare arms and legs, and I sighed with happiness as I walked down the driveway.
Spring was nice in the city but it wasn’t like this.
I hit the sidewalk, hooked a right, and headed toward Main Street.
Bastien wasn’t hosing down the sidewalk — probably too late in the morning — but another man sat on the porch, one elegant leg crossed over the other in neatly pressed trousers. His posture was impeccable, his black-and-silver hair swept back from his angular face.
Despite the warmth of the day he wore a patterned sweater vest over a button-down shirt, and his polished loafers gleamed even in the porch’s shadows.
That must be Gabriel, Bastien’s husband. He wasn’t at all what I’d expected after chatting with the earthy guy in jeans and work boots who’d been washing down the sidewalk the morning before.
I lifted a hand in greeting and he did the same. I was relieved that he didn’t call out. I hoped to meet him eventually but I really needed some coffee before I did any serious socializing.
I turned onto Main, then hesitated. I was committed to a caffeine hit but I wasn’t at all ready to face Beck at the bakery. I went the opposite direction — toward the lake — instead.
I lifted my gaze to the distant water as I walked, tracking the boats gliding along its surface: no motorboats today, just a handful of sailboats, their sails rising toward the clear blue sky like white towers in the distance.
I passed the Brass Key where a woman with long black hair and an array of dramatic scarves draped over her shoulders rearranged a tableau in the window. She was moving a dainty writing desk closer to a tapestry-upholstered armchair when she glanced up to meet my gaze.
She met my smile with a mysterious duck of her head, then turned away.
Ooookay then.
A few steps farther and I was opening the door to the Common Ground.
The tinkling of a bell on the door announced my arrival and two young women about my age looked up as I entered a large wood-paneled room, soft jazz playing from unseen speakers.
Clear pendent lights cast a cozy glow over the baked goods in the glass case, and I recognized Beck’s lemon-lavender cookies by the dusting of sparkling sugar on top, a tiny lavender flower at the center.
There were a few other pastries too: chocolate croissants and pistachio muffins studded with chunks of chocolate and mixed-berry turnovers. I recognized them all from the Golden Crumb, which meant we — and by we I meant Beck — were supplying the Common Ground with their pastries.
I filed the information away with everything I’d learned about Evelyn’s business the day before. Eventually I’d have to confront the sale of the bakery just like the house, but I was dangerously close to overwhelm, which seemed understandable considering all that had happened in the last two days.
I tried to stay grounded (no pun intended) in the moment, inhaling the scent of coffee greedily, like I might be able to get an energy boost from the smell alone.
I’d only taken two steps toward the counter when a flash of black fur careened around the corner from the back of the shop. The fur ball sped toward me like a runaway train, barking madly, then jumped on my legs with surprising force for such a small dog.
I stumbled back and tried to regain my balance as a small woman with curly red hair emerged from the back room on the dog’s heels.
“Mayor Biscuit!” She clapped like a kindergarten teacher trying to get her class’s attention. “You know better than to greet a new guest that way!”
The dog sat in front of me, playing innocent, and looked up at me, dark eyes pleading under bushy eyebrows that gave the dog an elderly, dignified air.
I lowered my hand for him to sniff. “Hi, Mayor Biscuit. I’m Avery.”
“Oh, you’re Avery!” the woman said, her eyes shining with something that seemed weirdly like anticipation.
She was in her thirties, bright pink glasses resting on a pert nose.
She wore a dark green apron over jeans and a graphic T-shirt with words and a logo I couldn’t read.
“We’ve been waiting for you to get here! ”
“You… have?” I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or creeped out by the thought that someone I didn’t know (multiple someones? who was we?) had been waiting for me. And did she mean here at the Common Ground or in Blackwell Hollow?
She smiled like a one-woman welcome committee.
“Totally! Mayor Biscuit!” The dog spun on his heels as she barked his name.
He trotted after her as she headed for the counter, keeping up a narrative patter.
“Although not at first. But that was Lyle’s fault.
He said Evelyn had sold the house — and the bakery — to Hearthstone before she died.
But I knew that wasn’t true. Evelyn would never have sold to Hearthstone. ”
I approached the counter, my caffeine-deprived brain struggling to keep up. “Nope, she left them to me.”
“I knew she would.” The woman rolled her eyes. “Lyle’s wrong at least sixty percent of the time. I’m Rosie by the way.”
“Nice to meet you.” Tell her you want coffee! “Who’s Lyle?”
“Lyle Merrick. Runs the Steep.” She tipped her head at the front of the shop.
“The Steep?” I felt like I’d landed in a foreign country where everyone else spoke the language and I was fumbling with my internal Google Translate trying to follow along.
“Tea shop across the square.” She sounded almost offended, and I followed her gaze to the shops that ran along State Street on the other side of the green space that was the town square. “What can I get you?”
“Iced coffee with cream and sugar please.”
“Coming right up.” Rosie went to work behind the counter.
A stack of flyers next to the tip jar screamed with the headline Stop the Hearthstone Gated Community.
“So yeah, Lyle said Evelyn sold, but I knew that was wrong right away. Then he said Evelyn had left the house to the historical society. I always knew it would go to you though.”
She was clearly proud about her victory over Lyle.
Her certainty threw me. After all, I hadn’t been back to Blackwell Hollow since I’d left with my mom. “Why me?”
“Evelyn couldn’t stop talking about you!” She said it like it was obvious. “She was always talking about how smart you were and how proud she was of you, living in the city and having an important job and everything. She even showed us pictures!”
“Pictures?” I hadn’t sent Aunt Evelyn any pictures.
“From your socials,” Rosie said, pouring coffee over ice.
“My… socials.” Okay, I know I sounded pretty dim here, but who could blame me? I didn’t even know Aunt Evelyn had had social media, let alone that she’d been following me. Then again, I didn’t pay much attention to my social media accounts, and I only posted a picture once a month at best.
“Yeah. Congrats on the job by the way.”
Wow, this small-town thing was wild.
“Thanks,” I said weakly. I’d gotten my new job the year before, but it was the only one she could have been referring to.
Rosie poured syrup into my coffee, then added half-and-half from a silver pitcher with a printed label. “To be honest, I’m not surprised about Harold, although I’m sorry you found his body,” she hurried to add. “Obviously.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Because of the Hearthstone development.” Rosie’s way of saying surprising things like they were obvious was clearly a tic. “Everyone knows Harold was a no.”
I gazed longingly at the coffee, still on Rosie’s side of the counter. “On the town council you mean?”
Rosie nodded. “He would never have voted yes.” She glanced around the coffee shop even though no one was there but us and the two women still at the table next to the wall. “Plus there was the fight with Victor last week.”
“Who’s Victor?” I was torn between wanting to reach across the counter for my coffee and wanting to dig deeper into the mystery surrounding Harold Pembroke’s death.
“Victor Ames. He’s some kind of liaison for Hearthstone. He acts like he’s one of us but everyone knows whose side he’s on.”
I reached into my bag for my wallet, trying to give Rosie the message that I wanted my fudging coffee. “And this… Victor had a fight with Harold?”
She nodded. “Just last week on the sidewalk. Harold looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. And then, after I closed up two days ago, I passed Victor skulking around the square.”
My gaze was locked onto the coffee, still on Rosie’s side of the counter. “What do you mean ‘skulking’?”
Rosie must be a reader. I was pretty sure I’d never heard a person use the word skulking in real life.
She waved her hand in the air. “You know… skulking.” She dropped her volume a notch. “I’m not saying he’s a murderer just because he’s working with Hearthstone but…”
She was saying Victor might be a murderer just because he was working with Hearthstone.
The bell on the door rang and I turned to follow the sound.
A familiar-looking middle-aged man pushed into the shop wearing linen pants and a matching linen tunic under a patchwork vest, a leather portfolio tucked under his arm.
I recognized him immediately as the man who’d crossed the street with the hairless cat in a stroller when I’d first arrived in town.
He used his backside to hold the door open, then pulled the stroller in after him.
The hairless cat, alert and blinking in surprise, looked around the shop like he (she?) was scouting for enemies.
Mayor Biscuit, sitting on the floor next to the counter, locked his gaze on the incoming duo. His body was tense and a low growl erupted from his throat.
The cat stared back at Mayor Biscuit, although it was hard to tell if it was perturbed given its resting feline bitch face.
“Jesus take the wheel, not today,” Rosie muttered under her breath. She forced a lukewarm smile and directed it toward the man. “Lyle, this is Avery, Evelyn’s niece. Avery, Lyle owns A Goodnight’s Steep, the tea shop across the street.”
Rosie’s words dripped with mockery on the name of Lyle’s shop. Clearly the pair had quite the rivalry going.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Lyle raised his chin. “Although I think we met before when you almost ran me and Cleopatra down in the street.”
“Cleopatra?”
“Lyle’s dem— ” Rosie started to explain before stopping herself. “Lyle’s cat.”
Got it.
“Sorry about that.” I looked at the cat, whose gaze was still locked on Mayor Biscuit. “Sorry, Cleopatra.”
I wasn’t going to lie: I felt pretty ridiculous calling a cat Cleopatra, but what else was I supposed to call her?
Lyle sniffed imperiously. “It’s fine.”
He removed the leather portfolio from under his arm and opened it, then handed Rosie a flyer. I caught the headline — Just Say No to Hearthstone — as he passed it over the counter.
“I wanted to extend an invitation to the rally against Hearthstone,” Lyle said.
Rosie looked at it. “This is the same day as my rally!”
Lyle’s nose edged higher. “Is it? I didn’t know.”
Rosie narrowed her eyes. “I gave you a flyer last week.”
“I must have forgotten.”
Forgotten, my apples. Even I could see he was needling Rosie. Then again, she’d probably been needling him when she’d given him her flyer.
“You did this on purpose!” Rosie accused.
Mayor Biscuit growled, his gaze hardened on Cleopatra, still in the stroller.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lyle said.
Cleopatra stood to arch her back.
Rosie pushed Lyle’s flyer across the counter toward him, except the paper slid too far and fluttered to the ground.
“Sorry,” Rosie muttered.
Lyle glared, then bent to retrieve it, and I saw the flyers sliding out of his leather portfolio as if in slow motion.
I opened my mouth to warn him but it was too late. They slid to the floor, fanning out in all directions on the tile.
Which was right about the time all hell broke loose.