Chapter 6 Willow
six
Willow
The rain stops, wind clearing the skies. It’s a short drive to the Callaways’ home, up through The Green, left on Elm, then right on Callaway Lane.
Bathed in pale moonlight, Lilyvale stands tall, secluded from the village, opening to the river.
The main house is an austere three-story federalist brick framed by a pair of white columns and topped with a gabled roof.
Beyond it, a white clapboard aisle with an oversized verandah overlooks the river and ends with a white turret.
Unkempt bushes grow too high, threatening to overtake the first-floor windows. Since Noah’s father died, there’s an air of sadness about Lilyvale that I hadn’t fully realized.
It’s entirely dark save for a rectangle of light pouring from a window near the front of the house.
From the coffered ceiling and the top of a high bookshelf, I’ll take a wild guess that this is an office.
Feeling drawn to it, I push through the hedge.
But the windowsill is higher than my eyes, and all I can see from where I’m standing is a ceiling, gleaming like a coffin.
I jump up and catch a glimpse of Noah hunched over a massive desk, his head in his hands.
I pick up a couple of pebbles and throw one at the window.
Nothing.
I throw another.
Still nothing.
Is he wearing earbuds? I grab a handful now, swing my arm back, and throw with all my might—right as the window opens.
I gasp. Too late. Mortified and helpless, I watch as Noah rears back while I’m temporarily petrified, hiding in the darkness of the bushes.
“Jesus Fucking Christ!” Noah brushes his face and leans on the windowsill. “Show your face, you motherfucking coward!” he hisses.
I step in the light and look up. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you—”
“Willow? Was that you?” he asks softer, astonishment in his tone.
I writhe. “I was trying to get your attention.”
“You have it.”
“I need to talk to you.”
He pauses, his eyes narrowing. “I’ll meet you at the front.” He closes the window and disappears inside.
The massive front door opens with a creak, then closes on a thump after Noah lets me in.
I’m familiar with Lilyvale’s gardens, but it’s the first time I’m inside the mansion.
The faint scent of old wood and dust greets me like a favorite sweater.
In the darkness of the night, the house seems even larger than I imagined.
Noah guides us past a large staircase, its polished wood gleaming.
“Sorry about the pebble attack.” My words echo up the walls.
He glances at me and lifts a shoulder. “It’s fine; you throw like a girl.”
“I do not!”
He chuckles. “Whatever you say.” He pushes a side door and lets me into a massive kitchen. “I was going to have a glass of… something. You care to join?”
“Water is fine. I just came back from game nights.”
“Late night house visits typically call for something stronger than water, but okay. Water it is,” he says.
He pours two glasses from a pitcher in the fridge while I look around.
The kitchen is almost as big as Mom’s house.
The length of one wall, there’s a huge range with an overhang mantle, two ovens, a gigantic double stone sink, a microwave, and old-style wood cabinets.
Off one side, a door leads to the garden, if I have my bearings right.
On the other side, a double door fridge commands a large, empty space.
In the center of the room, eight chairs line one side of a massive island boasting a grill and a second sink.
My gaze is drawn upward to the pots and pans hanging from the ceiling like this is a freaking cooking show.
Except, of course, for a cooking show they’d get rid of the cobwebs, but hey—who cares?
This is the real deal.
I would hate—hate—to see this house bulldozed down in favor of vacation cottages or a motel.
Noah hands me a glass and is about to clink his to mine when Lane pads in.
She rubs her eyes, clearly blinded by the overhead lights. “Don’t!” she whisper-screeches.
We halt mid-air. “Don’t what?” Noah asks.
“Unless it’s vodka. Don’t clink with water. Hey, Willow.”
“Hey, Lane.”
Turning to her brother, she adds, “Clinking with water brings seven years of bad sex.”
“How d’you know that?” I ask while Noah says, “You shouldn’t talk about S-E-X. Or Vodka. Why are you up?” He asks this while Lane pours herself cereal, then adds milk a little too quickly, the white liquid swirling partly out of the shallow bowl.
She rolls her eyes behind her brother’s back, winking at me.
I bite my lip to avoid giggling.
“Let’s take this to the office,” Noah tells me.
Lane laughs out loud. “Oooh, brotha.”
He squeezes her nape playfully and smiles at her. “Go back to bed.”
“Isn’t she like… twenty-two now?” I ask as we walk down the dark hallway.
“Precisely,” he answers as we enter the office he was occupying when I interrupted him.
He closes the door softly behind us, then gestures to a pair of deep leather armchairs, the kind that has little holes with push pins in the creases.
He sets his glass of water on a table between the two chairs, then presses on a button and—voila!
nice roaring fire in the fireplace. Just like in the movies.
“You don’t like real fire?” I ask. “Or is it like—a hazard or something?”
“Look, Willow, I’m really tired,” he says, stifling a yawn. His chest expands and trembles, his eyes water behind his glasses as he struggles to keep his mouth closed. The man isn’t tired.
He’s exhausted.
And I just threw a handful of pebbles right in his face, and not like a girl. There are a couple of red blotches on his cheekbones. Then I denied him the drink he clearly was craving.
He lifts his water to his lips.
“Sorry.” I gather my hands on my knees and take a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.”
He full-on chokes on his water, liquid spurting from his mouth. “Sorry, sorry,” he says, wiping his mouth and setting the glass down. “I—I just wasn’t expecting that.”
I frown. “Why d’you think I’m here?”
He shakes his head. “Y-yeah. Nothing. I wasn’t thinking anything. It’s been a long day.”
Clearly. “Okay,” I say, standing. “So we’re good? You wanna hash out the details later?”
He removes his glasses slowly. “Sit down,” he orders me. I’m taken by the seriousness of his tone. By how it’s contrasted with the vulnerability I see every time he’s not hiding behind his glasses. “Why the change of mind?” he asks when I’m back in my seat.
“It’s the right thing to do,” I blurt.
“Was that the hot topic at Gossip Night? What, did they send you here as some kind of sacrifice?” The bitterness in his tone is hard to miss. “Let me guess, they’re worried about the store?”
What’s with him? “Get over yourself, will you. We’re all in this mess together.
No one wants the general store sold to some chain, or this house turned into god knows what.
The Callaways are part of Emerald Creek.
Why didn’t you tell me the other night what was at stake?
I would have said yes right away. So yeah, thank god for Ms. Angela.
And she spoke to me privately, if gossip is what you’re worried about. ”
He rubs his eyes. “After you left the wedding, I realized how messed up it was to ask what I asked from you. It feels wrong, and I’m sorry.”
I sit up straight in my armchair. “What’s wrong is that stupid, antiquated will…
or trust—whatever. What’s wrong is that you’re left fending for yourself, this whole estate, your siblings, the Callaway name and influence, and yet your stepmother is going to swipe it all from you from the comfort of her tropical island.
” Heated by my own arguments, I stand and start pacing the room, the oriental rug muffling my steps.
“What’s wrong is that since your dad passed away, you’ve done a great job at keeping it all together, and now it’s going to be taken away from you because you’re not married. That’s insanely absurd, and I just can’t stand there and do nothing about it.”
Noah rubs his face again, then his gaze falls on me. He should stop doing that, because each time he does, there’s a flutter in my stomach that feels an awful lot like the crush I used to have for him. And if I’m doing the fake marriage thing with Noah, I absolutely cannot have a crush on him.
I have my limits, and here they are.
“The man who will have you as his wife will be a lucky bastard, and I hate to be doing that to you.”
That stupid stomach flutters again from the compliment. “Doing what?”
“You said it the other day. The being divorced.”
“I’m never getting married for real, remember? Besides, that’s something that matters in your world, Noah. Not in mine.” I’ll be lucky if I find a guy decent enough to stick around if he knocks me up. Not that I plan on letting that happen to me, but just as a figure of speech.
“Now how’s that for antiquated talk? We all live in the same world, Willow. There’s no right or wrong side of the tracks anymore. No family where divorce is more or less frowned upon.”
I snort, stop my pacing, and plant myself in front of him, arms crossed, shaking my head. We do live in different worlds.
He studies me, a question in his eyes, then defiance flickers in his gaze. “How much?”
I turn to face him. “How much what?”
“You must have a number in mind.”
My skin goes numb. Surely I heard him wrong.
“Fifty thousand? A hundred? I’ll need a little time to free up more than a hundred K if your price is higher.”
My stomach bottoms. I didn’t hear him wrong. For a heartbeat, I’m a kid again discovering the ugliness of adult life. “I’m not for sale.” My words come out wooden.
He pales and stands, moving to a darker corner of the room, where a glass-and-brass cart holds several expensive-looking bottles.
He pours himself a generous amount of amber liquid in his now empty glass of water.
“That’s not how I meant it. But we’re entering an agreement.
Unless we both benefit from it, it’s not a contract. ”
“I’m not gonna walk away from it.” Voice shaky, I add, “You think money will tie me down?”
The shadow of a smile plays on his face. God he’s handsome, even if I feel like slapping him right now. “Clearly not. I was wrong again when it comes to you. Guilty as charged.”
His words settle me down, but I’m still rattled. This is exactly what I didn’t want, but it’s too late to back away.
He swirls the alcohol in his glass. “Then what’s in it for you, Willow? Besides all this nonsense about saving Emerald Creek. What do you want?”
“It’s not nonsense! I don’t do things because I want something in return.
I do them because they’re the right thing to do in that moment.
Is everything in your world transactional?
” If I can’t bring myself to ask for money, how do I convince this hot nerd to fake marry me in order to save my hometown, if he doesn’t think that’s a valid enough argument?
He’s quiet. Not a good sign.
I change tactics. “Oh all right, then. Truthfully? I just want the vampire room.”
He takes a deep breath and narrows his gaze on me. I expect him to laugh me out of here. Or to tell me that his family is sick and tired of all the rumors; that he should have seen me coming.
I expect to have to report back to Ms. Angela that my mission aborted.
“And what makes you think that’s not where I sleep?” he asks.