6. Devon
DEVON
Walking into the house relaxes my shoulders, like getting a hug from your grandma.
Kids growing up in Harvest Falls spread rumors about ghosts and murders.
I spent many nights walking by the house with my friends, scaring ourselves half to death only to run home by the bouncing flashlight stream dancing ahead like a crazed lightshow.
Old Man Lewis loved showing off his house though.
After a string of nightmares, Mom brought me down here and knocked on the door.
Mr. Lewis walked me from room to room, showing off his antique collection and proving that no ghosts lived in his house.
Mrs. Lewis stayed in the parlor, knitting, and when I was satisfied, she gave me a hard candy that tasted so bad I spit it out on the way home.
They were good people.
If the kids of Harvest Falls could see the inside now, they might actually believe this place is filled with moaning ghosts and clanking chains. A house that’s been wrought with murders. Cursed by evil, or something like that.
“Have a seat.” Ember gestures toward the settee, a deep plum color. The very one that Mrs. Lewis sat on to knit that day. “I’m afraid it’s the only place I’ve cleaned up so far. Got distracted by a not-so-hidden hidden door.”
The tone in her voice is half reprimand, half teasing as she leaves the room.
Both make me uncomfortable if I’m being honest. Teasing makes it seem like we’re friends.
A reprimand makes it sound like I’m doing something wrong…
and I’m not fully convinced of that either.
The thing is, I don’t have to help out someone who scooped up my dream from underneath me, even if I am the only game in town.
I couldn’t buy the property before. Never been able to scrape the money together, and the investors who picked it up after Mr. and Mrs. Lewis wouldn’t split the house from the rest of the acreage to make it easier to purchase.
Ember walks back into the room. I expect her to have an ancient-looking bandage and some sort of miracle cure in a bottle left over from the Lewis’s, but instead, she’s carrying a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and Band-Aids. “I scraped myself, too.”
Okay, now I feel like shit. If I’d known she was hurt, I would’ve helped her.
Probably.
Maybe.
“It’s nothing,” I tell her, lifting up the back of my pants to take a peek. The blood has run down and stained my sock crimson.
Ember kneels before me. My heart skips a beat, sending a direct line to my cock. “What are you doing?”
She gives me a half smile. “Trying not to get sued, remember? Just hold your pant leg up.”
She holds a cotton ball over the hydrogen peroxide and then tips it upside down to soak it. I expect the cleaning of my wound to be clinical, but she takes her time, her touch soft and gentle.
“So, why Sleepy Hollow Manor?” I find myself asking.
Not surprising. It’s the question that kept me up all night.
Of all the broken-down Victorian houses, she’d have to find mine.
I kept racking my brain, and I can’t find a connection with Ember O’Malley and Harvest Falls at all.
I asked a few people, too. Mainly my mother, who knows just about everything there is to know about this town, and no one knows her or of her or why she would be here.
She smiles wistfully, then it suddenly drops off her face, and she peers at me warily. “Why? Will this be used against me in a court of law?”
“I’m not going to sue you.”
Some tension falls from her shoulders as she applies the Band-Aid to the scrape and then pulls my pant leg down. “Believe it or not, I found it through an internet search.”
I can’t help but snicker. “Falling down Victorian houses?”
She smiles dryly at me. “Falling down Victorian houses in the northeast.” She gets up and sits on the mahogany coffee table in front of the settee, a huge tank of a piece of furniture that she’s probably not strong enough to move herself.
She peers around, her face morphing into one of peace and contentment.
“Actually, it went something like beautiful Victorian houses for sale in small town Vermont, then beautiful Victorian houses for sale in small town Massachusetts. Wouldn’t you know people have social media pages designated to old Victorian houses on the market?
I saw Sleepy Hollow Manor in a picture, researched the town, and…
” She shrugs, joy making her eyes shine. “…fell in love.”
If she came here by any other circumstances, I might actually like this woman. We have a few things in common. Apparently, some things that are too close in common… like wanting this property.
“Did it show the interior pictures?”
“Oh, it showed everything. Every last sordid detail. Then I looked up the town and found the Fall Spectacular, and things just clicked into place. Did you know Harvest Falls is considered the top destination for fall fun in this state? Well, Harvest Falls and—.”
“Don’t say Heritage. My mother will blow a fuse.”
“Your mother the mayor. Thanks to everyone who failed to mention that.”
“Can’t help that I was born into political royalty.”
“Let’s hope she doesn’t play favorites.”
I nearly choke on a breath. She would never think of it, but I’m not going to tell her that. Let Ember think Mayor Lachey could walk in here at any moment and somehow decree that the manor is mine. That would certainly be something.
A silence follows. I know I should leave, but my mouth has other ideas. “So, what are your plans?” I hold up a hand because she looks so happy. “I’m still not going to help you, but call it morbid curiosity. Or more like rubbing salt in a festering wound.”
She presses her lips together, and when she releases them, they bloom a beautiful dusky pink color. Not that I should notice something like that.
Fuck. I really should leave.
“I’ll start with the ballroom first. If I want to have the Fall Ball in there, it needs to be spruced up.”
I peer that way, and she follows my gaze. “You know you want to see it.”
I do. Fuck.
She gets to her feet without waiting for an answer, and I follow her back through the foyer, past the curved staircase, and on into the ballroom.
The doorway is at least ten feet tall, then the ceiling itself is another few feet more, molded decoratively around the huge chandelier in the middle of the room.
She clears her throat. “I thought I’d paint the walls white, lay down LVP over all this tired, dated tile.
Maybe take the ancient, ornamental, hideous molding off the walls.
Replace the gothic chandelier with something more modern.
Have you seen those lights that look like sputnik?
Just a bunch of bars of metal jutting out everywhere?
Really bring the place into this century. ”
My heart drops into my stomach. I can barely breathe.
Sweat beads over my forehead, and a rush of wooziness presses into me like the walls are closing in on all sides.
She’s going to ruin the house. Of course, she is.
She’s not from around here. She has no idea the history she has.
She’ll probably bring a sandbox into the corner and plop a beach chair onto it.
“The fuck you will,” I splutter out.
A noise that can only be described as a baby whale pushing air through its blowhole escapes her mouth. I peer at her and find her hand covering the lower half of her face. As soon as our gazes latch, she dissolves into laughter. “You should’ve seen your face.”
My tense shoulders tighten a fraction before they relax. It’s a joke. Thank fuck.
“Damnit,” she cries. “I really tried to keep a straight face.”
She’s still laughing so obviously she sucks at it.
“I thought maybe if you believed I wanted to… oh God.” She sucks in a breath, glistening tears cling to her lashes.
“I thought if you thought I wanted to modernize everything you’d step in to help, but damnit.
I couldn’t keep a straight face when you got so mad.
The fuck you will,” she mocks, deepening her voice again.
I try to smile, but I’m pretty sure it comes off as a sneer. My brain is still on high alert mode. “Ha. Ha.”
She wipes the tears off her cheeks, some chuckles still escaping here and there. “Man, you just can’t relax, can you? Have you ever tried removing the stick from your asshole?”
“I think it says more about you that I believed what you were saying.”
“Me? You don’t know anything about me except that I bought this house and…” She throws her hand out, gesturing wildly behind me. “…love pumpkin spice lattes. Which, I’m going to drink now before it gets cold.”
She leaves me in the ballroom and heads for the porch. I follow after her, my mind still furiously racing. Before she can get to it, I jump over the hole in the porch, grab the cup she placed on the railing, and dump it into the yard below.
She gasps like I kicked her non-existent puppy.
Her accusing glare slices through me, and honestly, she’s right to look at me like that.
It’s not my fault she brings out the absolute worst in me though.
I’ve turned into an immature toddler. I pull my shoulders back.
“That’s what you get for teasing me about ruining a historical masterpiece. ”
She leans over the porch like she’s going to be able to recover the lost liquid. “That was the best pumpkin spice latte I’ve ever had!”
I shrug, bounding down the steps toward my truck. I close my eyes, not even believing that I did that. Stupid. Childish. I really do have a stick up my ass when it comes to her.
It’s all for the best, though. I was feeling way too comfortable talking to her in there. I let my guard down. Her fake monologue about all the changes she supposedly wanted to make brought me to my senses.
“Unforgiveable!” she calls out.
If she thinks a small thing like me dumping her coffee is unforgiveable, then she should find out what it feels like to have someone swoop in and take your dream right out from under you.
I get in my truck and pull away from the curb, driving slowly past the land she now owns that leads out of town.
Somewhere in that thicket of trees is a Harvest Falls treasure. She doesn’t know what she has. She couldn’t. She’s an outsider. And that’s the real tragedy of Ember O’Malley owning Sleepy Hollow Manor.
If she ever joked about destroying the Wishing Well, I’d probably have a stroke on the spot.