Chapter 3
Kari
The neighborhood finds out about Liam before I've finished my first cup of coffee.
I'm on the porch in Margit's old rocking chair, barefoot, watching a cardinal fight its own reflection in the window of Nina's shop across the street, when Nina herself steps outside with a broom she has no intention of using.
She sweeps exactly three strokes, eyes locked on the Foxglove's front door, then abandons the pretense entirely.
"Morning," she calls.
"Morning."
"Interesting evening?"
"A deadbolt got installed."
"Mm-hm." Nina leans on her broom handle. She has the posture of a woman who once ran a boardroom and now chooses to run a coffee counter because it gives her better access to gossip. "And did the deadbolt spend the night?"
I open my mouth. Close it.
Because the front door behind me opens, and Liam walks out in the same dark henley from yesterday, hair slightly damp, looking like he slept in a chair and somehow emerged more alert than most people manage after a spa weekend.
I know he slept in the parlor chair because I heard it creak through the floor at odd hours — the particular rhythm of someone who doesn't sleep so much as take shifts against consciousness.
He's carrying his own mug — one of Margit's — and he stops next to me on the porch, scanning the block with those methodical gray eyes.
"Morning," he says to no one in particular.
Nina's broom clatters against the brick facade of her shop.
"Good morning." Her smile is the kind that should come with a terms-and-conditions page. "I'm Nina. I own the coffee shop. You must be — "
"Liam," he says.
"Liam." She repeats it like she's filing it. "And you're staying at the inn."
"Correct."
"With Kari."
"In the same building as Kari."
Nina looks at me. I take a very large sip of coffee.
"I'll bring scones over later," she says, and disappears inside.
That's the first domino.
The second falls when Oren Dietrich materializes on the sidewalk in his corduroy jacket and flat cap, holding a Tupperware container of something that smells aggressively of cinnamon.
Oren is built like a retired middleweight and has the conversational approach of a man who has already decided what's happening and is merely informing you.
"You're the boyfriend," he says to Liam.
Liam goes very still. "I'm — "
"Oren. Two doors down. I knew Margit for forty years. You like coffee cake?"
He holds out the Tupperware. Liam takes it because Oren isn't really offering so much as placing it in his hands.
"I'm not — "
"Good. Dinner's always at six. I do a pot roast every week that'll make you weep. Kari, tell your boyfriend about the pot roast."
"He's not my — "
But Oren is already walking away, one hand raised in a wave that does not invite further discussion.
Liam stares at the Tupperware.
"Is it always like this?" I ask. "People just... assign you things. Dinner plans. Relationship status. Baked goods."
He looks at the coffee cake, then at me, then at Nina's shop where I can see her silhouette watching us through the window.
"Is there a point at which they stop?"
"I've been here one day and I've already been assigned a boyfriend and a dinner reservation, so my guess? No."
By noon, it's a settled fact.
Del calls me in all caps — not texts, actually calls, which means the situation has exceeded even her keyboard's capacity for alarm.
"I called Nina's shop looking for you because you weren't picking up, and she said — and I quote — your boyfriend is still here and he looks like he could bench-press the porch. End quote. What is happening."
"He's from HPG. The security company you hired."
"I know who I hired. I hired someone to check your locks, not move in."
"He's doing a full assessment. He says the property's a disaster."
"The property is a disaster. Why does the neighborhood think he's your boyfriend?"
I press my thumbnail against my teeth. "Because he walked outside this morning and Nina drew conclusions and Oren drew a dinner invitation and I couldn't get a correction in edgewise because Oren moves at the speed of a man who has already decided what reality is."
Silence. Then: "Is he cute?"
"Del."
"It's a yes-or-no question."
"It's an irrelevant question. He's a security consultant. He installed my deadbolt and told me my windows are a liability."
"Romantic."
"I'm hanging up now."
"Don't you dare — I'm calling HPG."
She hangs up first.
I stand in the kitchen with my phone pressed to my chest, looking at the ceiling medallion I haven't cleaned yet.
"He's not my boyfriend," I tell it.
The medallion offers no opinion.
Not long after, I'm stress-cleaning the kitchen counter for the second time when Liam appears in the doorway.
"We need to talk," he says.
Nothing good has ever followed that sentence. In the entire history of English-language communication, those four words have preceded exactly zero pleasant conversations.
"About?"
"Vance called. Your friend called him."
"Del."
"She explained the situation. The neighborhood's assumption."
He's leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed — his resting state. Not hostile. Just contained.
"We're going to use it," he says.
"Use what?"
"The assumption. That I'm your — " He pauses. The pause is physically painful. " — boyfriend."
The word comes out of his mouth like he's defusing a bomb and the boyfriend wire might be the one that detonates it.
"Vance's recommendation," he continues. "A cover story explains my presence without revealing the threat. If the neighborhood thinks I'm your partner, no one questions why I'm here. Why I'm checking locks. Why I'm staying."
"So your boss wants us to fake a relationship."
"My boss wants a plausible reason for extended proximity."
"That's what I said. Fake relationship."
His jaw tightens. "It's a tactical cover."
"It's a fake relationship. You can call it tactical all you want, but at some point Oren's going to ask you how we met and tactical cover is not going to cut it."
He stares at me. I stare back. The ceiling medallion mediates in silence.
"Fine," he says. "How did we meet?"
"Through Del. She hired your company for an event. We met at the event. You asked me out. I said yes because — " I wave a hand at him. At the general situation of him. " — reasons."
"That's vague."
"Romance is vague. Nobody grills you on the specifics. They want the feeling of the story, not a timeline."
He looks like I've told him gravity is optional.
"We need to go to the hardware store," I say, because I need more wood filler and the distraction seems merciful. "You can do your perimeter thing. And we can practice."
"Practice what?"
"Being a couple. In public. Around humans."
Something behind his eyes shifts — a flicker of what I'm almost certain is dread.
"I'll get my jacket," he says, and leaves the doorway like the kitchen has caught fire.
The hardware store is four blocks away. Four blocks of cracked sidewalk, warm streetlights that come on too early, and neighbors who wave.
We make it half a block before the problem surfaces.
"You're scanning rooftops," I tell him.
"I'm aware of our surroundings."
"You're aware of our surroundings like a Secret Service agent. Normal boyfriends don't check sightlines on a walk to buy wood filler."
He lowers his gaze from the roofline of the dry cleaner's. It's marginally less conspicuous but still carries the energy of a man who knows where every exit is and has ranked them by tactical viability.
"You could look at me," I suggest. "Occasionally. Like I'm a person you voluntarily spend time with."
He looks at me. It's clinical. An assessment.
"Less like you're evaluating a structural weakness."
His jaw works. He looks at me again, and this time something softens — barely, like a lock clicking half a turn.
"Better," I manage. "Not great. But better."
Crossing the street, we pass Nina's shop. She's at the window with a cappuccino, watching us with the expression of a wildlife documentarian who's just spotted a rare mating ritual. I lift my hand in a wave that I hope conveys everything is normal and there is nothing to see here.
Nina sips her cappuccino. She is not convinced.
"We should hold hands," I say.
The words leave my mouth before the rest of me has agreed to them. They just escape. Like they've been waiting behind my teeth and saw an opening.
Liam's stride doesn't break, but his right hand twitches against his thigh.
"For the cover," I add quickly.
"Right."
"Nina's watching."
"I'm aware."
Neither of us moves.
Then his hand finds mine.
Not tentatively. Not gently. He takes my hand the way he does everything — directly, without preamble.
His fingers close around mine and his palm is warm and dry and enormous — my hand disappears inside his like a set of keys dropped into a coat pocket — and every nerve ending from my wrist to my shoulder lights up like a circuit board that just got plugged in.
My breath catches. Just barely. A small hitch I cover with a cough, which I then have to commit to because he glances down at me with something that might be concern.
"Fine," I say. "Just — dust. Or pollen. Seasonal."
His hand stays. My hand stays. We walk. We are two people holding hands on a sidewalk and it is completely, entirely, one hundred percent an act.
My pulse is doing something inconvenient in my wrist, right where his thumb rests against it. I'm almost certain he can feel it. I'm almost certain this is some skill they teach at security school — reading someone's heart rate through their skin — and mine is telling him things I don't want told.
"Relax your grip," I murmur. "You're holding my hand, not a weapon."
His fingers ease. Fractionally.
"And maybe don't walk in formation."
"I'm not walking in formation."
"Your shoulders are squared, your stride is exactly even, and you haven't blinked once."
He blinks. Deliberately. It's the most aggressive blink I've ever witnessed.
"We'll work on it," I say.
The hardware store is small, overcrowded, and smells like sawdust and machine oil — two of my favorite scents in the world. The owner, Walt, knows me by name and by project.
"Kari! More wood filler?"
"And caulk. And a new putty knife — I bent the last one."
"How do you bend a putty knife?"
"Determination and poor technique."
Walt spots Liam examining the exit locations with barely concealed professional interest.
"This your guy?" Walt asks.
"This is Liam."
"Handy?"
Liam, who installed a deadbolt yesterday with surgical precision, says, "Somewhat."
I grab his hand again. This time I initiate it — thread my fingers through his like it's muscle memory and not a detonation. His fingers tighten around mine. Automatic. Immediate.
That current again. That low hum of contact I feel in my teeth, my collarbone, the backs of my knees.
I let go when we reach the caulk aisle. He lets me. We don't talk about it.
The walk back is quieter. No hands. The performance is over, Nina's shop closed for her afternoon break, the sidewalk empty. But the space between us has changed. Gotten smaller, or denser.
He carries the bags. I didn't ask him to. He just took them at the register, and I let him because my hands were still buzzing and I needed them empty so I could think.
Back at the inn, he sets the bags on the kitchen counter and stands there, looking at the window over the sink.
"You're good at that," he says.
"At what?"
"The cover."
"I used to plan events. Making strangers comfortable in unfamiliar situations was literally my job description."
He nods. Heads for the hallway.
"Liam."
He stops. Turns just enough to give me the edge of his profile — jaw, cheekbone, that impossible stillness.
"We should have the story ready. For Oren. For Nina. Through Del. Her company catered a security firm event. We met. You were reserved. I was persistent. It tracks."
"It does."
"A few months in. New enough that you haven't met everyone. Established enough that you staying here isn't scandalous."
"Fine."
"And you should probably learn to smile. Once. At some point. In public. Near me."
The look he gives me is so deeply unamused that my stomach does a small, stupid flip.
He walks down the hall. His footsteps are even and measured, the sound of a man who moves through the world like it's a series of rooms to be cleared.
I turn to the kitchen sink. Run the water. Stare at my hands under the stream.
My right palm is still warm where his fingers were.
"This is fine," I tell the faucet. "This is a tactical cover. Temporary and practical and I'm a professional at making people comfortable, that's all this is."
The faucet drips.
I dry my hands, toss the towel over my shoulder, and start unpacking the caulk and wood filler, slotting each thing into its place.
Order. Tasks. Tangible problems with tangible solutions — that's my territory.
Leaky windows, cracked molding, a B&B that needs to be ready by fall.
I know how to fix things. I know how to make broken spaces beautiful.
What I don't know is how to hold a man's hand like it means nothing when every nerve in my body is cataloguing the exact width of his palm and the way his thumb settled against my pulse point like it belonged there.
The problem — the specific, inconvenient, already-growing problem — is that my body didn't get the memo about the performance.
And I have a terrible feeling it's not going to.