16. Silas
SIXTEEN
SILAS
I’ve been in Pine Ridge for two weeks. The wooden bear I bought in Peak Treasures sits on the windowsill of Vaughn’s guest room right next to the candle, which I haven’t burned because it smells divine as it is.
There’s soil permanently under my fingernails, and I’m invested in the growth of my own hopefully prize-winning veggie dick.
I’m sitting on the edge of the guest room bed with my phone on loudspeaker, listening to Zuza while enjoying the view of the orchard through the window and trying to remember I’m here for a reason that has nothing to do with my conflicted feelings about Vaughn.
“Draven is getting impatient,” she says.
“I know. I’m feeling it too.”
“The extension runs out in four days. And you have nothing from the house?”
“Nothing,” I say. “I’ve been through everything I can access without making it obvious. The only place I haven’t searched is the lab because it’s secure. There are cameras everywhere.”
“I can work on those. Just tell me when you want to go there.”
I sigh. “I know, but it’s not easy getting out unseen in the middle of the night. His room is right across mine. Sometimes he works late—”
“Silas, it sounds like you’re making excuses. If he was a real target, you’d have found a way.”
“That’s the thing, Zee. There’s nothing to indicate he is a target. Nothing has happened since he came back from Warsaw.”
“Honey, he is being targeted by someone. You. You were hired to kill him.”
“I’m aware.” My voice is icy, a tone I never use with Zuza.
“The client won’t wait forever,” she snaps. “Maybe we should come clean to Draven.”
“No.”
“Silas—”
“I don’t trust anyone else right now,” I say, striving for a gentle tone. “What if Draven already knows Vaughn is innocent and doesn’t care? What if the contract stands regardless of what we find? I’m not handing Vaughn’s name back to the organization until I know what we’re dealing with.”
Zuza is quiet. “The HelixGen research is drawing blanks,” she finally says. “I keep hitting walls. Shell companies inside shell companies. But I did get a name—Richard Musgrove. He appears to be the man who came to Pine Ridge to personally run the acquisition attempt.”
“Get him.”
“It hurts my feelings that you think we’d be having this conversation without me having that information already,” she says.
“You have no feelings.”
“I have at least one feeling. About coffee.”
I snort. “Tell me what you have on this man.”
“Richard Musgrove lost his job after Pine Ridge. The failure to secure the town apparently cost him his position at HelixGen.”
I sit with that for a moment. “That could be a motive.”
“It could. There’s only one thing. It takes money and connections to order a hit on someone. Not to mention the existence of the organization isn’t public.”
“Unless he has backing,” I suggest. “Maybe his dismissal is a cover. And if Musgrove is behind it personally, then why isn’t he going after the other two? The oral historian and the one who used to work for HelixGen? They were equally responsible for what happened in Pine Ridge.”
“Maybe you should ask them,” Zuza says.
“I can only do that if I tell them what I know. The real reason I’m here.”
“Maybe that’s something you should think about.”
I don’t answer immediately.
What I don’t tell Zuza—what I’m not ready to say out loud to anyone—is that the thing I’m most afraid of isn’t the contract or Draven’s impatience or even the threat to Vaughn’s life.
What I’m most afraid of is Vaughn finding out the truth and deciding he doesn’t want me in his life. Not even as a friend.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Think fast,” Zuza says.
I end the call and put my phone away.
Downstairs, the kitchen smells like roasting chicken and herbs.
Vaughn is at the oven, crouching slightly to check on the chicken through the glass door. He’s in a dark green Henley with the sleeves pushed up. The jeans he’s wearing fit him so perfectly I stand in the doorway for a moment just appreciating the curve of his ass.
“How’s it looking?” I ask.
He glances at me over his shoulder. “Twenty minutes. The vegetables need to go in.”
“I’ll do it,” I say.
We move around the kitchen like we’ve been splitting tasks for years. When I reach over to grab a kitchen towel, he goes for it too, and for a moment we stop, our hands on the cloth and our eyes on each other.
I clear my throat and go set the table in the dining room instead.
Unsurprisingly, Tess and Clayton don’t arrive empty-handed. There’s wine, more bread, and cake.
“Tess, I definitely need to go back to Atlanta before I need to buy new clothes.”
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to work out the excess energy.” There’s a tease in the way she says it, but Vaughn takes the chicken out of the oven, so we get busy serving up the food.
Dinner is excellent because Vaughn is a great cook. The conversation inevitably finds its way to the topic of the pumpkin festival.
“The organizing committee met on Tuesday,” Tess says, sounding like she has gossip she can’t wait to share. “There have been developments.”
“Do we want to know?” Vaughn asks.
“Absolutely. But first, Clay show them Brenda.”
Clayton produces his phone like a proud father showing what his newborn baby can do at three hours old, but I’ll have to hand it to him, the pumpkin is extraordinary.
“She’s magnificent,” Vaughn says.
“She’s been growing consistently since the start of August,” Tess says. “She just keeps going. Clayton has been talking to her every morning.”
“Plants respond to attention,” he explains. “As we’re heading toward the end of September, it’s important to double-down my efforts. She’ll stop growing soon.”
“They do,” Vaughn agrees.
I gasp. “I’ll remind you of that next time you’re teasing me for talking to your squashes,” I say.
“Now,” Tess says, leaning forward slightly, “I have it on good authority—and by good, I mean Maria, who heard it from David, who heard it from someone at the hardware store—that Chris from Riverside Outfitters has been growing something at the back of the store.”
“A giant pumpkin?” Vaughn asks.
“Yes,” Tess confirms. “Possibly a very large one. No one has been able to confirm because Chris has put up a screen around the growing area, which is either because he’s very serious about the competition or because”—she pauses for dramatic effect—“he’s also growing other things.”
“Like what?”
Clayton clears his throat. “You know. For the other competition. Chris is very competitive about it. Has been cross-pollinating things.”
“I definitely have a contender for the dick competition,” I say.
Vaughn turns to me. “You can’t just— The correct term is the phallic gourd competition.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said—”
“I said dick competition. Which is what everyone is calling it.”
“Not everyone,” he protests.
“Tess,” I say, getting her attention, “what is everyone calling it?”
She looks between us. “The dick competition.”
Vaughn puts down his fork.
“Where is it being held?” I ask. “Because I’m assuming it’s not next to the children’s pumpkin carving.”
“No,” she says. “What they’ve decided is that every evening during the festival, there’ll be a display at the Ridgeline—”
“That’s Dante’s bar,” Vaughn says to me. “He’s Maria’s brother.”
“The Knot Today ladies will come in every evening at seven to judge the entries for that day and select who goes through to the final. The winner gets announced on the last night of the festival.”
“What’s the prize?” Clayton asks.
“Ah,” Tess says. “This is where it gets interesting. Chris has suggested an Atlantis Cruise, and now I’m wishing I’d found a good contender in my garden, but such is luck, all my gourds are regular shaped.”
I choke on my wine.
“Sorry. I just—” I look at Tess. “Do you know what an Atlantis Cruise is?”
Tess nods. “It’s one of those Mediterranean ones, right? That go to the Greek islands?” She sits up slightly. “I’ve never been outside the US, but I read a lot, and I’m absolutely fascinated by Greek mythology.”
“Tess,” I say, trying my best not to laugh because I don’t want to offend my new carb dealer, “an Atlantis Cruise is a gay cruise. Gay men only. It’s quite famous.”
The room is quiet as Tess absorbs the information.
Then she laughs, followed by Clayton once he recovers from thinking about his wife on a gay cruise.
“That,” she says, when she can speak, “explains absolutely everything. Why Chris suggested it, and why all of a sudden the gay male population of Pine Ridge has developed a serious interest in vegetable growing.”
“How big is this community?” I ask. “For research purposes, you know?” I’m only joking, but Vaughn tenses in the corner of my eye. He’s sitting close enough I easily put my hand on his leg under the table.
I’m surprised when he puts his hand over mine and leaves it there.
Tess refills her wine glass and then shares a look with Clayton.
“Pine Ridge has always been a sanctuary for LGBTQIA+ folks,” she says.
“Our two boys are at college right now. Hudson has introduced us to various boyfriends and girlfriends over the years. Luke hasn’t brought anyone home yet …
We’re their parents. We only care that whoever they bring home makes them happy. That’s all. That’s the whole thing.”
“That’s— I wish I’d had that growing up.”
Vaughn’s hand tightens on mine.
“Well,” Tess says, simply, “you have it now. That’s how Pine Ridge works.”
Vaughn releases my hand and stands to clear the plates. I try to ignore the feeling of loss as I stand as well.
“Sit down,” I tell him. “You cooked.”
“You prepped,” he says.
“That’s not the same as—”
“Boys,” Tess says.
We look at her.
She stands up. “Clayton, take Vaughn to the living room. Silas and I will clean up.” She starts stacking the empty plates like she expects zero resistance from the men around her. “Go.”
I grab the serving platter and follow her into the kitchen. We work in silence for a moment, filling up the dishwasher and cleaning the bigger pans.
Then she says, “Is there something going on between you and Vaughn?”
The dish in my hands is suddenly in need of careful inspection. “Um … I … no.”
“Maybe it’s not my place to say, but I can feel something. Besides, I’ve never seen someone’s eyes fighting so hard to look the other way as Vaughn’s fought to look away from you. All evening.”
My head is crowded with all the secrets I keep. The ones I keep professionally, out of habit, or because the truth is too complicated to give to anyone. I’m so tired of them.
I don’t want to keep this one.
“There’s … nothing, but there’s also something. It’s complicated, because Rowan is my best friend and I’d never do anything to jeopardize our friendship, but also my life is in Atlanta.”
Tess hands me another dish. “Both of those things can be fixed.”
“Tess—”
“People move,” she says. “All the time. For all kinds of reasons. That’s not an obstacle, that’s a choice. And Rowan— Rowan is a good man. He’d be surprised, maybe. He’d need a minute. But he’d want his dad to be happy, and he’d want his best friend to be happy.”
“He’d probably want them not to be each other’s happiness.”
She tilts her head. “Probably. At first.” She hands me the last dish. “And then he’d get over it. Because that’s what good people do.”
“Maybe.”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but Vaughn comes into the kitchen.
“Kai and Atlas just showed up,” he says. “With a cake from Teresa, apparently.” He turns to Tess. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know they were coming.”
“Never apologize in the presence of cake from my friend,” she says. “Go light the firepit outside. We’ll bring coffee and plates for the cake out there.” She’s already moving toward the coffee maker. “Go on.”
Vaughn just looks at her.
“Go,” she says.
He laughs but follows her request.
I watch him leave, then turn to Tess, who’s already working on the coffee.
“That,” she says, “is how you handle a man.” She clicks the coffee maker on. “Be decisive. And if they love you, they’ll follow you anywhere.”