Chapter Twenty-Five
LILY
Iwaited, wondering if Knox would answer. It wasn't my business, but I wanted to know anyway. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his eyes on the road ahead. Reaching across the center console, he took my hand in his before he answered.
“You know who Charlie is, right?”
“That she's a Winters? Yeah.”
“So, you know her aunt and uncle, her cousin Tate's parents, died when she was a baby. Tate would have been about three and a half. Then Charlie's parents died when she was ten.”
“They were—” A quick glance into the rearview at Adam, blissfully distracted by his crayons. My voice too quiet for him to overhear, I continued, “I always heard it was a murder/suicide, but there was that movie about it being a cover-up.”
“That movie was total bullshit. The police called it murder/suicide. Both of them. But yeah, they were murdered. Tate was too young to understand that part, but his whole life changed overnight.”
“Losing a parent is tough at any age, but both? When he was so young? I can't imagine.”
“They were all close, which made it worse. I don't even remember spending time with my parents before I was Adam's age. Babysitters. A nanny. My brothers, but not my parents. The Winters weren't like that.”
I doubted Knox realized how lonely he sounded when he talked about his childhood. He was close to his brothers, but it wasn't the same as love from a parent.
My parents had walked away from me when I was an adult, but at least I had memories of a childhood filled with love. Especially from my mom.
“You were close to them, too,” I said, realizing that he wouldn't have been much older than Tate when the first set of Winters parents had died.
“Yeah. Aiden, Gage and I were pretty much inseparable. I spent more time at Winters House than I did at home. Losing them was…”
I squeezed his hand. “I'm sorry I asked, Knox. I wasn't thinking.” I didn't like that I was the reason for that somber look on Knox's face.
“Lily, you can ask me anything.” His dark eyes, sad and serious, fell on me for a moment before moving back to the road. I could feel the sincerity in them, the truth. It humbled me.
I rubbed my thumb across the top of his hand, words jumbling in my mouth, nothing coming out.
So much feeling swirled inside me for this quiet man. I was falling way too hard, way too fast, for a man I barely knew. As much as I tried to stop, I couldn't seem to catch myself.
Unaware of the struggle inside me, Knox said, “Anyway, it took Tate a few months to start sleeping well again.
The kids—Tate, Vance, Annalise, and Gage, moved into Winters House.
It wasn't that big a move. Anna and James' house was part of the estate, and they'd grown up treating Winters House like it was their own.
Olivia and Hugh were like another set of parents, but they'd still lost their own. And Tate was so little. I remember hearing Olivia talk about it, but I forgot until Charlie brought it up. I should have thought about it last night, but—”
He fell silent for a moment, his eyes on the trees lining the road as if searching for something in the dense woods. Finally, he said, “None of us likes to think about that time.”
“I'm sorry I brought it up,” I said, wishing again that I hadn't asked.
“I meant what I said. You can ask me anything, Lily. There's stuff I can't tell you—things about the Winters that are their business, and some of my time in the military is confidential—but I'm an open book for you.”
We stopped at a red light, the late July traffic in town slowing us to a crawl. I tugged at Knox's hand until he turned to meet my eyes.
“Me too,” I said, wishing I could offer more than just the truth. Wishing I could offer him everything. “I know there are a lot of reasons not to trust me. Trey and your dad. You've only known me a week. But I'll never lie to you. I promise.”
Knox pressed his mouth to mine for only a second before the light changed and the car behind us honked. Tourists. No townie would honk.
A quick glance at me, his dark eyes still serious but sweet, he said, “I trust you, Lily.”
I wanted to believe him. Part of me did.
Knox drove past the grocery store and pulled into the parking lot of the only pizza place in Black Rock, distracting me from my worries about honesty and how fast was too fast to fall for a man I'd just met.
“What are we doing here? We don't need pizza.”
“You don't have to cook for all of us, Lily. It's too much.”
“It's not too much.” I turned in my seat to face Knox. “I want to cook dinner. The pizza here is awful. Really. Your friends flew all the way up here to help—”
“Lucas flew all the way up here to help. The other two are just here to butt in.”
“You know what I mean. I never get to cook for people.
Trey and I… We didn't have those kinds of friends. Friends you invite over for dinner. And he was gone so much. I love to cook, you know that, but I never get to cook for people. I can throw together something in time for dinner that would be so much better than takeout pizza.”
Knox closed the distance between us with a soft kiss on my lips. “You don't have to convince me, Lily. I love your cooking. I just didn't want to dump a bunch of work into your lap.”
From the back of the car, Adam interrupted. “Did you kiss my mom, Mr. Knox?”
Crap. What was I supposed to say to that? I don't think Adam had ever seen me kiss any man, even his father. By the time Adam was old enough to pay attention, kisses were long gone between Trey and me.
True to form, Knox knew exactly what to say. With an easy-going smile, he turned to face Adam. “I did kiss your mom. Is that okay with you?”
Adam thought about it, his eyes ping-ponging between me and Knox. Just when I thought I was going to die of embarrassment at being caught kissing by my five-year-old, he said, “I guess it's okay. It's kinda weird, but whatever. Girls have cooties.”
“I'm glad I have your blessing,” Knox said wryly.
Adam hadn't appeared too concerned, but I knew my kid. If he didn't like it, he would have said so. Anytime Dave got close enough to put a hand on me, even a friendly one, Adam noticed and did his best to separate us.
To Knox, I'm sure he'd sounded like a distracted five-year-old, but I knew we had Adam's approval. I just had to make sure he didn't get his hopes up and start looking to Knox for something more.
Whatever Knox said, I was still a client and we were still a case. We had Andrei Tsepov and those account numbers between us. All the damage Trey had done working with Knox's father. The threat to Knox's mother.
It was all tied to me through Trey. Through my own willful ignorance. Maybe through Adam's adoption.
I wanted to believe that nothing would change once we solved our problems. I couldn't afford to be that na?ve. Not anymore.
The three of us made quick work of the grocery store. I grabbed everything I needed for seafood linguine and bruschetta.
We loaded up on sandwich makings and chips, Adam chortling with glee to see bag after bag of junk food dropped into the cart. Knox stopped us in the baking aisle, pulling up another recipe on his phone and tossing ingredients into the cart. Unsweetened chocolate. Sweetened condensed milk. Cocoa.
“What are you making?” I asked, all that chocolate making me think of what Knox could do with chocolate. I'd never be able to look at my favorite sweet again without thinking of Knox and his talented fingers. His mouth.
I missed what he said in my lust fog. “Huh?”
“I'm not making anything. You're going to make salted caramel brownies.”
“We still have the chocolate chip cookies.”
Knox shot me a sideways look. “Griffen found them while you and Charlie were in the cottage. He has a sweet tooth. Between him and Lucas, we're almost out of cookies.”
“Okay. If you think I can handle salted caramel brownies.”
Knox dropped a quick kiss on my cheekbone, sending a warm flush through my body. “You can handle it,” he said with quiet confidence. I wished I felt as sure.
As I'd promised, dinner didn't take long to throw together. We had enough cookies left to crumble over vanilla ice cream with hot fudge and cherries for an easy dessert.
We gathered around the table of the kitchen, every seat filled for the first time in memory.
My linguine was a hit. As usual, Adam picked around the seafood, eating the shrimp but ignoring the scallops and lobster.
Lucas made up for it, devouring his first plate while the rest of us were only halfway done.
He got up, returning with a second serving, piled high.
Charlie poked him in his very muscled arm. “It's a good thing you're so gigantic. Otherwise, with the way you eat you'd be as big as a house. And not in a good way.”
Lucas swallowed before he spoke. “I eat this much to stay this big, smart ass. And you'll have to forgive me, it's the first time I've seen a home-cooked meal in… how long, Princess?”
Charlie laughed. “I don't know, when was the last time we ate at Winters House? Does that count? This Princess doesn't cook.”
“No complaints here,” Lucas said with an affectionate smile for his wife. “Takeout works fine. Anyway, Mrs. W and Abel would miss us if we didn't show up to cadge dinner a few nights a week.”
“That's true.” In explanation, Charlie said, “I grew up with a cook, so I never learned how. Then I moved into our place in the Highlands—so much good takeout nearby. Plus, I was trying to renovate the house. I didn't even have a kitchen for the first two months.”
“And by the time she did,” Lucas filled in, “we'd started flipping houses together. She didn't have time to learn how to cook. Most days she's out the door before the sun is up, and she comes home exhausted. I could learn to cook, but I'd rather spend my free time doing other things.”
I did not ask what other things he meant, considering the pretty blush on Charlie's cheeks and the sparkle in her blue eyes.