16. Tessa
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Tessa
The Long House has a way of holding its breath.
Not the whole house, Grandma Nell’s kitchen still smells of bergamot and toast, still feels like warmth made physical, but the edges of it.
The hallway that leads past the sitting room nobody sits in.
The heavy oak door to Thomas’s office. The quiet corners where family history doesn’t creak so much as watch.
That’s where my nerves live.
So when a truck rumbles to a stop outside and a familiar knock hits the front door, firm, impatient, possibly McCoy, I go still with a teacup halfway to my mouth.
Grandma looks up from her book, eyebrows lifting.
“Expecting company?” she asks mildly.
“No,” I say, which is true and also absolutely useless.
The knock comes again. Whoever is on the other side is debating whether politeness is worth the effort.
My stomach drops in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with Nash McCoy showing up at my home in broad daylight like we have a plan, when today we most definitely do not.
“I’ll be back,” I tell Grandma, already moving.
I cross the hall before she can ask a follow-up that would make me admit how fast my pulse is going.
I open the door, and there he is: jacket zipped, hair damp because he didn’t bother drying it properly, cheeks pinked by winter. He looks too awake for mid-morning. Too keyed up for someone who’s been pretending to be engaged without dying of embarrassment.
His gaze flicks over me, and then sharpens when he remembers he’s not here to flirt. He’s here because something has shifted under his feet.
“Hey,” he says evenly.
“Are you lost?” I reply automatically. “Because I don’t recall inviting you today.”
He huffs a short laugh that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Can I come in?”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want him inside. Because I can hear my uncle’s silence. Even when he isn’t in the room, it haunts the hallways like a shadow you can’t shake.
Thomas has ears. Thomas has timing. Thomas has a way of appearing exactly when he’ll cause maximum damage.
And if he hears Nash in this house without him having prior knowledge…
“Two minutes,” I say, stepping onto the porch and pulling the door behind me so it clicks softly. “Say what you came to say out here.”
Nash’s eyebrows lift. “Afraid I’ll steal the silver?”
“I’m afraid you’ll breathe,” I say flatly. “This house reports back to my uncle.”
He glances at the windows like they might be listening. “That’s… normal.”
“It’s Long,” I correct. “Different breed.”
Fire shifts behind his eyes. A flicker of understanding, maybe. Or at least recognition that my sarcasm isn’t the point today.
He pulls a folder from under his arm and holds it up as evidence.
“I found something,” he says.
My spine goes straighter before I can stop it. “What kind of something?”
“The kind that made my mom pull out the binder she only touches when she’s about to start a war.”
That should not sound the way it does. That should not make a tiny cold line form in the middle of my chest.
And yet.
I glance toward the street, empty, thank goodness, then step closer so he can’t be overheard by anyone with a porch and too much free time.
“Show me,” I say.
Nash flips the folder open, the paper edges fluttering in the cold. Deeds. Old photocopies. A map that looks like it’s been scanned too many times. A handwritten note in the margin that makes my stomach drop before I even read it.
Nash points, finger tapping a line that cuts along the creek.
“Mayor Caldwell said there were Long concerns,” he says. “I thought it was your uncle stirring the pot. Then I got home, and my mom showed me this.”
His finger slides to the margin note.
Long Extension Property — check access rights before development.
He swallows, throat working, the words still taste wrong. “My dad wrote it. He knew. Which means… our families have known longer than we have.”
I don’t respond immediately, because my brain is doing that thing it does when it’s trying not to panic: turning facts into neat stacks. Filing them. Cross-referencing. Finding the angle that makes them make sense.
Long Extension Property.
Juniper House.
Old Mill Road extension.
The place that lives like a ghost in the back of my uncle’s mind.
The place he said was vulnerable.
The place he never wanted touched.
I look up at Nash. “Your cabin sites are on the east parcel.”
“Yes.”
“And the creek line runs along the edge.”
“Yes.”
“And your proposal says no construction near the creek.”
“Yes,” he says quickly. “I set it back. I was careful.”
I believe him. Annoyingly.
That’s what makes the knot in my chest tighten.
Because if Nash was careful and this still exploded, then this is bigger than a setback line and a zoning meeting.
This is history.
Nash watches me, jaw tight. “So do you know about it?”
My mouth goes dry.
Because I do know the property.
Not intimately. Not in the way Thomas does. Not in the way Grandma’s stories have hinted at, always stopping short of names and dates. But I know it exists. I know it’s on the outskirts of town like a piece of the family that was cut away and left to weather.
“I know of it,” I say carefully.
Nash’s gaze narrows. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one,” I snap, then immediately clamp down on the edge in my words because the last thing I need is my uncle hearing tone through the walls.
Nash’s mouth tightens. “Tessa. If your uncle is filing concerns and my dad’s notes say check access rights and the mayor is talking about boundaries like they’re disputed… what is this?”
I stare at the papers again, my mind flipping back to Founders’ Day. Virgil Tucker’s warning. Dottie’s speech about hunger and pride and choices you don’t talk about later.
And suddenly, my uncle’s obsession with the McCoys doesn’t look like paranoia.
It looks like preparation.
“I don’t know,” I admit, and the words taste of failure.
Nash’s eyes flash. “That’s terrifying.”
“It is,” I agree.
He exhales a hard breath, then looks past me to the door. “Can we go inside? It’s freezing.”
“No,” I say immediately.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Why are you allergic to warmth?”
“I’m allergic to my uncle,” I hiss.
Like he’s been summoned by the word, the floorboard inside the house creaks. A single, quiet complaint.
I freeze.
So does Nash.
We both stare at the door because it might open and reveal Thomas with his calm smile and his knives hidden behind paperwork.
Nothing happens, but my heart keeps sprinting anyway.
I make a decision.
“We’re going,” I say.
Nash blinks. “Going where?”
I lift my chin. “To Juniper House.”
The name drops between us like a stone in a well.
Nash’s gaze sharpens. “Right now?”
“Yes.”
“It’s…” he glances at the sky. “It’s Saturday.”
“I have no work,” I say, already pulling my coat tighter. “If there is something there that explains any of this, I’m not waiting for my uncle to curate the truth.”
Nash’s mouth quirks, but there’s no humor in it. “And you’re bringing me.”
I look at him. At the tension in his shoulders. At the way his hands grip the folder like it’s the only thing keeping him anchored.
He’s scared.
Not of me. Not of gossip. Not even of the council.
He’s scared of building his future on something rotten.
And despite every instinct that tells me to keep him at arm’s length, I hear my own voice say, “Yes.”
Nash’s eyes flicker with surprise.
Then he nods once, decisive. “Okay. Let’s go.”
I turn, open the door just enough to slip inside, and shut it quickly behind me.
Grandma looks up from her chair. Her gaze drops instantly to my face.
“What’s happened?”
“I need the keys to Juniper House,” I say, moving too fast, voice too calm, the way it gets when I’m trying not to break.
Her eyes narrow gently. “Tessa.”
I stop. Because Grandma doesn’t do commands without context.
I force a breath. “Nash found something. About the land. About Juniper House.”
The needles still.
A pause, heavy and quiet.
Then, “Oh,” she says, and it’s the same kind of “oh” my mother used to say when she saw storms coming.
I swallow. “We’re going out there. Just to look. I need clarity.”
Grandma’s gaze flicks to the hallway. To the door of Thomas’s office, measuring distance and consequence.
Then she nods once. “Alright.”
Relief hits so fast it makes my knees weak.
“And,” I add quickly, “please don’t mention it to Thomas.”
Grandma’s mouth tightens. “He’s been tense all week.”
“That’s his natural state,” I mutter.
Her eyes soften. “Tessa.”
I hold her gaze. “Please.”
Grandma studies me for a long moment.
“I won’t,” she says simply. “But be careful.”
She stands, crosses the room, and touches my cheek.
Behind me, the front door opens and closes with cautious quiet.
Nash steps into the hall, shoulders slightly hunched, entering enemy territory, eyes scanning as if he expects a trapdoor under the rug.
His gaze lands on Grandma.
He stills.
“Mrs. Long,” he says politely.
Grandma smiles. “Nash McCoy.”
He glances at me, silently asking if this is safe.
“It’s fine,” I say. “She’s not my uncle.”
“That’s comforting,” he mutters, and Grandma’s eyes twinkle.
“I expect you’ll bring her back in one piece,” she says to him mildly.
Nash straightens like he’s been given an order. “Yes, ma’am.”
Grandma lifts her brows. “Good.”
I grab my bag and keys and move fast, before my nerve evaporates.
As we step outside, Nash falls into step beside me.
Which is ridiculous.
And also… oddly reassuring.
The drive out of town is quiet for exactly two minutes.
Then Nash clears his throat.
“So,” he says, eyes on the road, “you’ve been holding out on me.”
“I haven’t been holding out,” I snap. “I didn’t know anything useful.”
“You knew there was a creepy Long House in the woods,” he says. “That feels like information.”
“It’s not in the woods,” I say flatly. “It’s on the outskirts.”
“That’s worse,” he replies. “Outskirts is where horror movies start.”
“It’s an old property,” I say. “It’s isolated. It’s been… kept.”
“Kept how?” he asks, too casual for how sharp his eyes are.
I don’t answer immediately, because the honest answer is: kept away from me.
Instead, I say, “My uncle doesn’t like people asking questions about it.”
Nash lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Your uncle doesn’t like people asking questions about anything.”
“That’s not true,” I say. “He loves questions as long as he gets to answer them.”
Nash’s mouth tilts. “That is the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’m full of joy,” I reply.
His gaze flicks toward me. “You’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” I lie.
Nash taps the folder against his knee. “You’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“The one where you pretend you’re calm and your jaw locks like you’re about to go to war.”
I grip the steering wheel tighter. “Stop watching my jaw.”
He huffs a laugh. “Hard not to, considering it’s doing calisthenics.”
I shoot him a look. “Focus on not dying.”
“I’m not the one driving into the middle of nowhere to confront a family secret,” he points out.
“I’m not confronting anything,” I say. “I’m… observing.”
“Monitoring,” he supplies, smug.
“Don’t,” I warn.
He grins, but it fades fast. “Tessa… if your uncle’s been keeping you away from it, there’s a reason.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
Silence settles again.
The road narrows, snow piled at the edges. Trees lean in, bare branches scratching gray sky. The farther we get from town, the less Buckhorn feels like a cozy storybook.
My throat tightens. My hands go colder on the wheel.
Nash watches me from the passenger seat without saying a word, which somehow makes it worse.
Then the turnoff appears.
A faded wooden sign, half buried in snow: OLD MILL RD EXT.
The tires crunch onto gravel.
And the nerves I’ve been tamping down like a controlled burn surge all at once, hot and sharp.
Because I recognize this stretch.
Not from memory, Thomas never brought me here, but from maps. From old plats. From the way the name sits wrong in my mouth. Something I’m not supposed to say.
Juniper House.
The trees open up, and it appears at the end of the drive, a held breath made physical.
An old house, dark and still. Paint weathered, porch swept clean enough to prove someone comes here. The windows stare back blankly.
The air feels colder here.
I park and cut the engine. The sudden silence presses in.
My pulse is loud in my ears.
Nash doesn’t move right away either. He stares at the house like it might shift.
“Well,” he says finally. “That is definitely a horror movie house.”
I swallow. “It’s not haunted.”
He glances at me. “That is exactly what people say right before the door opens by itself.”
My hands are shaking. I hate it.
I force them still and unbuckle my seatbelt. “We’re just looking.”
Nash’s gaze sharpens. “We?”
I open the car door, cold air biting my cheeks like a warning.
“Yes,” I say, stepping out. “We.”
Because if this house holds answers, I’m not walking into them alone.