Chapter Twenty-Four
I pulled on my favorite pair of faded jeans, an old, worn t-shirt that had Fashionably Late and Questioning Everything scrawled across the front in faded script. As I headed for the bedroom door, my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
A text from Halle.
You left without telling me bye
I typed back. You were in a lip lock with Luke
Her reply: And you were on the dance floor with a certain charming someone. His truck is still in the bar parking lot. Care to share details?
I stared at the text for the longest time. Then, Absolutely not
I closed the messenger, but she was still typing back a reply, so I pocketed the phone to deal with her later.
I started to leave the room when I halted, thinking about the scrap of paper I’d found in the cash register drawer.
I retrieved it from where I’d tucked it into my wallet.
Maybe Owen could help me figure out where it came from.
Downstairs, the smell of bacon, eggs, and coffee permeated the air. In the kitchen, fun-size Tani lounged against the kitchen counter on her stomach, her chin in her hands, giving Owen moon eyes as he cooked.
He was at the stove in his rumpled clothes from yesterday—I’d given him back his shirt before my shower—a dish towel slung over one shoulder looking like a Food Network chef. Barefoot. Far sexier than he had any right to be. In my kitchen.
I paused there, watching this quiet domesticity with my heart in my throat.
“I like your rumpled appearance,” Tani was saying. “Very morning after chic.”
Owen smirked, amused. But I was scandalized.
“Tani!” I admonished.
He chuckled as he scooped eggs onto a plate.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said, never taking her eyes off Owen. “Your boyfriend is sexy when he’s cooking.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. Owen froze long enough to give me a sideways look of mild curiosity. Like he was waiting to see what I’d do with that word—but he didn’t rescue me.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, too quickly.
And I wasn’t even sure what we were other than in serious like with each other.
Owen’s smirk deepened. Still not helping.
“Sure,” Tani said brightly. “Whatever you say, chica.”
“Don’t you have some place to be?” I snapped.
She huffed. “Fine.”
And then she was gone in a puff of pink fairy dust.
“Sorry about my fairy,” I muttered.
He handed me a cup of coffee. “She doesn’t mean any harm.”
And we both avoided the word boyfriend like it was a loaded gun.
Willow sat at the kitchen door, her tail curled around her, like she was waiting for her next meal. Owen grabbed a box of cat treats and shook several into his hand. The cat was on her feet, tail flipping in the air. He put them in front of her.
I dropped into a chair at the table.
“What do you have there?” He eyed the paper in my hand as he placed two plates. One in front of me. One next to me.
I slid it across to him. “I found this in the cash register. It’s Alice’s handwriting.”
He sat, leaned back in the chair with the paper in his hand as he studied it.
“Alice wrote this?”
I nodded. “I don’t know where it came from.”
I watched him with an ache in my chest I hadn’t expected. Like this could be any normal morning between the two of us. If there was an us.
“But this isn’t English,” he said.
“You noticed that, too, huh?” I scooped up eggs with my fork.
“Bring it to Mrs. Rollins. Maybe she can read it.” He slid it back toward me with his calm efficiency.
I nodded. I broke a piece of bacon in half for something to do with my hands. But that word kept turning over in my head—boyfriend. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t ready for that. But I wasn’t ready to let him go, either.
When I moved to New York, I was prepared to leave behind everything.
The town, my parents, Alice. Him. I’d had a long stretch of homesickness as I poured my heart and soul into the magazine job.
I had friends, yes. I had a live-in boyfriend, too.
But it all felt… empty. And now, here, back in town sitting with Owen at my breakfast table it felt… different. Warm. Happy.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that.
“What is it?” he asked, as though he sensed my internal spiral.
I stabbed eggs with my fork, gave him a weak smile. “Nothing.”
He reached for me, placing his hand on my wrist. I met his gaze and my heart turned over.
“Do you regret last night?” he asked, low, serious.
“God, no,” I said on a breath. Then, “Do you?”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “No. Never.”
We stared at each other in silence.
“Is it what Tani said?” he asked.
Everything inside me froze.
“Because we don’t have to name anything, Piper,” he said, steady and clear. His fingers tightened a little on my wrist. “I want to be with you.”
Oh.
Well, that did terrible things to my insides.
“And,” he added as an afterthought, “I want you to come to dinner tomorrow. Mom wants to see you.”
Rylyn’s voice boomed in my head. Mr. Perfect ask you out? Because he was. Perfect. In every way. With a charming smile.
“Okay,” I said finally.
His response was to kiss my fingers.
And then I knew—something was happening between us.
And I was going to let it.
***
After breakfast, I grabbed the grimoire and we left. Owen wanted his truck, so I drove us back to Neon Cowboy.
In the car, he said, “I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
“At your parents’?” I asked.
He grinned. “No. I have a place. A cottage.”
I gripped the steering wheel. “A cottage?” Like the words were foreign.
“The old caretaker place. It’s been in the family a few generations,” he said. “Near the woods.”
“I didn’t know you had a place.”
“It didn’t seem relevant until now.”
I glanced at him as he reached for my hand, his fingers wrapping around mine.
“Follow me there? We can drive together to see Mrs. Rollins.”
He had a place. A cottage near the woods. I don’t know why but it settled somewhere deep and quiet inside me.
“Okay.”
In the empty parking lot, I watched him climb into his truck and then he was off back down the highway. I followed close because I hadn’t a clue where we were going. He turned down a one-lane tree-lined road and then slowed as he came to a driveway that was practically hidden between the trees.
I turned, following him up the dirt road. In the distance, trees from the distant woods rose up behind the white-walled cottage with the wraparound porch. It was simple and well-cared for. Like someone spent a lot of time and effort on upkeep. It was smaller than the monstrous house I’d inherited.
And it was delightful.
I loved it on sight.
I parked and got out and paused there beside the old Caddy. The air here was clean, fresh. Full of pine and earth and something that seemed wholly his. Like he’d conjured this perfect little place from his own breath and magic.
“You live here?” I asked.
He nodded.
It was well off the beaten path. Far from town. On the edge of the woods where the old hickory tree was gasping for life. Where the Crossroads came to an intersection.
“You didn’t tell me you were so close to the Crossroads,” I said.
“It never came up in conversation.” He gave me one his winning grins as he headed to the steps of the wood porch.
I followed, clutching the grimoire against my chest. He opened the door and stood aside for me to enter.
Inside, it was no bachelor pad.
It was decorated with the same care as the outside upkeep. Quiet. Beautiful. Bamboo floors covered in a plush jewel-toned rug. Comfortable furniture that looked almost new. It smelled like cedar with traces of coffee and some citrus cleaner lingering in the air.
A small kitchen with a dining table and chairs. One hallway that led to the bedroom and bathroom.
He was tidy.
Not a speck of dust. Not a pile of clutter anywhere. Only a stack of books on the coffee table. One with a bookmark sticking out of the top. Boots lined up at the door. The mantel hosted family photographs. His mother, father, brother.
It felt like stepping into someone’s private, personal space and I wasn’t sure I was worthy.
He dropped keys in a bowl on the table by the door, then caught me staring.
“It’s not as big as yours—”
“It’s perfect,” I said.
He kissed my cheek. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be ten minutes.”
And then he disappeared down the hallway. A few minutes later, water came on.
I was in his cottage. Tucked neatly into the side of the woods. And it was charming, like him.
I wandered the living room looking at family photos.
One of young Owen when he was twelve, maybe thirteen, and his older brother, Colt, when they were on a fishing trip with their dad.
Owen proudly holding a string of perch like he’d caught a great white shark.
A family photo with Colt in his high school cap and gown.
Owen’s graduation photo with his parents, but without his brother.
Everything about those photos said family, warmth, love. Everything about the photos on the mantel at my house said I was the center of Alice’s universe.
She had me and no one else. And something my dad said came back to me. She hid you because she was afraid your father would find you.
She hid me. Kept me close. Loved me from a distance.
Who was he? Where was he? And why did she hide me from him?
For half a second, I wondered what it would be like to be part of a family—a real one.
“Hey.” Owen’s soft voice pulled me back to the present.
I turned to see him standing in the middle of the living room with damp hair smelling clean and looking rakishly handsome in faded jeans, a navy t-shirt and boots. Like he’d stepped off the cover of Casual Cowboy.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes.”
But I was still distracted as I followed him back out the door. He locked up and then we were in his truck.
“You okay?” he asked.
He sensed my distraction.
“I keep thinking about something my dad said when I talked to him,” I told him. “He said Alice hid me because she was afraid my father would find me.”
I paused, glanced his way. His hands were tight on the steering wheel.
“My biological father,” I said. “What does that mean, Owen?”
“I think it means she was afraid of him for some reason,” he said.