Chapter 20
Twenty
The cabin felt quieter after the chaos of breakfast. I sat on one of the barstools in the kitchenette, chin propped in my hand, watching Dean work at the coffee table. He was busy pulling out files from his briefcase, movements precise and steady as he leafed through papers I couldn’t see.
For a while, I stayed quiet, content just to observe him—completely absorbed in what he was doing. But curiosity had a way of needling under my skin until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Who were those men you were talking to earlier?” I asked, my voice softer than I meant it to be.
Dean’s hand stilled on the folder. His eyes lifted to mine across the room, but he didn’t answer right away—as though he were thinking through his answer before he spoke. “Men my grandfather has business with,” he said finally.
I frowned.
His tone stayed easy enough, but his attention was far off and distant. He shut the folder and slipped it back into his briefcase with a little too much care.
“I’ll be gone for a few hours,” he said. “There’s a pool and jacuzzi a couple cabins down, hiking trails that way, or you can just—”
A sharp knock cut him off.
Dean straightened immediately. Something flickered across his face—gone almost as soon as it appeared.
He crossed the room and opened the door to reveal Trisha on the front step. Sunlight caught in her red hair and instantly made me think of a warning flair.
“Hi, Dean,” she said. “I’m here to get Vivienne. Is she around?”
Even as she asked, she leaned forward, trying to peer past him into the cabin.
Dean braced a hand against the doorframe and shifted subtly, blocking her view. For a heartbeat, I caught a flicker of unease in his profile.
“The women put together a little surprise for Viv,” Trisha added, her tone bright. “We’ll only borrow her for a few hours.”
She stepped inside before he could stop her, and her gaze landed immediately on me at the counter.
My stomach dipped.
A surprise?
I hated surprises.
Reluctantly, I slid off the stool, my eyes finding Dean’s without meaning to. I lingered there, searching his face for a signal—anything to tell me if I should stay or go.
He didn’t stop me.
His gaze held mine for a beat too long, before he gave a small nod.
Reassurance or warning, I couldn’t be sure.
Outside, Trisha slipped her arm through mine as though it was the most natural thing in the world, steering me down a gravel path that curved away from the cabins.
The afternoon was bright but cool, sunlight filtering through the trees in uneven patches.
Our footsteps crunched softly beneath our feet, the sound filling the spaces where conversation hadn’t quite found its footing yet.
We walked in silence for a moment. Then another.
“Thank you for sitting with Emma this morning,” Trisha finally said, her tone easy, like the thought had just occurred to her. “She doesn’t cozy up to everyone.”
I nodded, thinking of the freckled little girl and her unapologetic questions. “I didn’t mind. She’s… very sure of herself.”
Trisha laughed softly. “That’s one way to put it.” She shook her head. “She gets it from her father. The talking. The opinions. The inability to sit quietly for more than five minutes.”
I smiled, but something in her voice made me glance her way. “She seems happy.”
“She is.” Trisha answered quickly. “Well, most days anyway,” she added after a pause.
We kept walking, the path narrowing the farther we went. Birds rustled overhead, and the air shifted—cooler, greener, carrying the clean scent of sap and earth.
“She’s a handful, but she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Even though, between her and Thomas, I haven’t had a quiet morning in over four years.”
I laughed.
“I swear, if it’s not her singing at the top of her lungs, it’s him trying to convince me that cereal counts as a food group.”
Trisha laughed, but the sound softened as she glanced at me. “She likes you, you know. And Emma’s picky about people—it usually takes her a while to warm up.”
She nudged my arm lightly. “She’s been talking about you all morning. Aunt Vivienne this. Aunt Vivienne that.”
The word hit before I could brace for it. My steps faltered just slightly, breath catching in my chest, as something warm and unexpected spread through me. I swallowed, steadying myself before I spoke.
“Well,” I said quietly, “the feeling’s mutual.”
“Good,” Trisha said, giving my arm a playful squeeze. “That’ll make things easier when she asks if she can be the flower girl at your wedding.”
I nearly tripped over a rock. “What?”
Trisha laughed, the sound easy and bright. “Relax—I’m kidding.” She glanced at me, her smile lingering. “Mostly.”
She shook her head, still amused. “Emma’s been dreaming about being a flower girl since she found out they existed. I think she saw it in some animated movie once—a little girl in a big dress tossing petals? I mean what’s not to like about that?”
Trisha smiled to herself. “But she’s a McHenry,” she shrugged, “what else would you expect? This family has a way of romanticizing everything. Big moments, big feelings—even for the kids.”
I smiled, unsure what to say, letting the comment hang between us.
Trisha shot me a sideways glance. “Has Dean gone over the family tree with you yet?”
“No,” I shook my head. “He hasn’t.”
The look on her face told me she wasn’t surprised.
“Figures.” She rolled her eyes. “To keep things simple—there are the McHenrys and the Westons—Easy enough to tell apart—the McHenrys are pale, with various shades of red hair, and the Westons”—she flashed a wicked grin—“they’re the tall, dark, impossibly gorgeous ones. ”
My cheeks heated despite myself.
“We all sort of became united after Charles McHenry—my great-uncle—married Dean’s grandmother. That was after the trial. He helped her get custody of Dean and Blair after the accident.”
She slowed, stepping carefully over a fallen branch, then glanced back at me—like she was checking how much I already knew.
“I’m not sure how much Dean’s told you about all that.”
I shook my head, my brow knitting despite myself.
A trial.
The word settled uncomfortably in my chest. I would’ve remembered something like that.
“Dean’s parents didn’t have a will,” Trisha continued, her tone gentler now.
“Helen—his grandmother—was suddenly a widow, fighting to keep her grandchildren. She hired my uncle because he had a reputation of being good. Fair. Steady.” A small smile curved her mouth.
“They ended up spending nearly every day together. Court dates. Meetings. Long afternoons that blurred into evenings.”
She shrugged lightly. “Somewhere along the way, it stopped being just business.”
I listened quietly, the image forming in my mind—two people drawn together by necessity, then, slowly, by choice.
“Charles never had kids of his own,” she went on.
“And Helen had just taken on two grieving children—one of them still a baby. I don’t think either of them planned for love.
It just… happened. Before anyone realized it, they were married.
Raising the kids together. Building something out of what was left. ”
Something tightened in my chest as her words settled.
Suddenly, the stories Dean had shared—the fishing trips, the rebuilding of engines—had a new significance.
It was the foundation he’d been built on.
“I still remember the year we met the Westons,” Trisha said. “I was nine, I think. It was here, at Pine Ridge.
“That’s the summer I met Thomas. He was Dean’s best friend, and, well”—her smile turned wistful—“I didn’t stand a chance.”
She kept talking as we walked, weaving stories about uncles and cousins, about how one by one the family had found their way into the firm.
“Everyone sort of ends up with a role,” Trisha said with a small shrug. “We joke that the firm is less a business and more of a family ecosystem. Some people argue, some fix problems, some just keep the rest of us from killing each other—but somehow, it all works.”
I smiled, the picture coming together in my mind. “That’s… kind of amazing.”
She laughed softly. “I guess it is. But when you work in a firm like ours, it’s almost inevitable.
When you see a kid finally land somewhere safe, or watch a family find their way back to each other after months…
sometimes years… it gets under your skin.
” Her smile turned a little quieter. “It only takes once.”
My steps slowed without me meaning to.
Something about the way she said safe lodged in my chest. I started thinking about the small details I’d glossed over before. The language everyone used at the banquet where I first met Dean. The way kids seemed woven into every part of their life. Not as an afterthought—but as the point.
Trisha didn’t seem to notice my shift. She kept walking, her voice light, threaded with an easy kind of pride.
“We even run a small daycare through the firm for families going through the system. One of my cousins manages it.” She shrugged.
“Between her and my uncle Henry, everyone ends up involved somehow.”
She said it like it was nothing special.
But this didn’t seem like it was just work—but a way of life.
She smiled to herself. “It’s messy at times, but it’s the good kind of messy.”
We walked a few more steps before she spoke again, like the thought had been trailing her for a while. “Dean’s been around longer than most of us. Not officially, of course—but he grew up in it.”
I looked at her, curious, but silent.
“He used to hang around after school. Always watching. Always asking questions. By the time he was sixteen, he was drafting documents, helping with research, sitting in on depositions like it was the most normal thing in the world.” She laughed, as though thinking back on him then was heartwarming.
I tried to picture him like that—young, serious, already carrying more responsibility than most adults—and it fit almost too easily.