Chapter Fifteen Reese
Fifteen
Reese
The dining room was packed, twenty people crammed around a table that had probably seen a century of meals just like this one.
Abe and Margaret had suggested the guests all sit together.
The old windows rattled with each gust of wind and outside the world had gone dark and violent.
In the dining room, though? Warm and solid, with candlelight everywhere because the storm had knocked out power to half the building.
The flames snagged on brass candlesticks, flickering across bowls of miniature pumpkins and wax candles that decorated the center of the long table.
A fire crackled in the stone hearth at one end, throwing shadows across walls lined with family photos and antique maps.
The air smelled like woodsmoke and cinnamon, that particular autumn scent that reminded Reese of his mother’s kitchen back in Thunder Bay on Thanksgiving.
Real cozy. The kind of place that made you want to hunker down and wait out whatever nature was throwing at you.
It was a place that had weathered worse and would weather worse again.
“All right everyone,” Margaret announced, standing.
“Grace and Reese have prepared dinner for us. For our wonderful guests who aren’t aware, they’re vying for ownership of this inn and this will be part of our decision-making.
You’ll get half a portion from each of them, so you can judge fairly.
Welcome to our very informal, very storm-bound cook-off. ”
“Finally,” Caleb said, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve been preparing my palate for the past couple of hours. By wine, mostly, but still.”
“Oh my God,” Ella said as she took in the dishes. “This all looks incredible.”
Abe picked up his fork. “Let’s see if they taste as good as they look.”
The room went quiet except for the storm and the sound of forks on plates.
Reese watched faces, reading reactions. The scatty history-buff woman, Ella, closed her eyes on her first bite of venison.
Caleb made a noise over the ravioli that was borderline obscene.
Zach was demolishing both dishes with the focus only teenage boys could muster, not caring about the competition, just about the food.
“All right, moment of truth,” Grace said, cutting into Reese’s venison as she sat next to him. The first bite made her close her eyes involuntarily. “Hmmm,” she breathed.
“That good?” he said in a low voice so the others wouldn’t hear.
“Absolutely not,” she whispered back, continuing to chew with delight as she winked at Reese.
Reese picked up his own fork and tried Grace’s ravioli. Damn, it was good.
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Well?” she said quietly.
“Tastes like someone bottled the best parts of October and put them on a plate,” he admitted.
Her mouth curved slightly, satisfaction mixed with surprise. Like she’d expected him to find fault, to diminish what she’d done.
They all ate in comfortable silence for a while as the fire crackled and popped, sending shadows dancing across the walls.
More food appeared, plates passing, people commenting, wine flowing, voices rising over the sound of rain hammering the windows.
Reese found himself relaxing in a way he rarely did.
Usually at dinners like this—business dinners, networking events, meals where everyone was performing—he was calculating.
Reading the room, looking for angles, staying sharp. This felt different.
He looked out the window toward the town’s lights spread out across Solace Lake.
It reminded him of his childhood town. The way people came together even when there wasn’t much to go around.
His neighborhood had been rough: half the dads on shifts at the mill, half the moms pulling doubles like his own.
Come October, folks would drag whatever scrap wood they had into a bonfire, fry fish if they’d been lucky at the river and tell stories loud enough to drown out the worry about bills.
They didn’t have money, but they knew how to make it feel like something anyway.
Later, a different kind of community. The house he’d built with his wife in West Vancouver, perched high with glass walls looking over the ocean.
For all its gloss and money, there’d been a real sense of community there, too.
Neighbors who organized street barbecues, who turned out with casseroles when someone’s kid landed in the hospital, who showed up at one another’s houses with bottles of wine just because the view was too good not to share.
That was why he’d chosen it. Community. For the first time in his life, he’d thought: This is it.
Not just a house, but a place where people knew his name. A life that felt rooted.
They’d hosted their first fall gathering there, catered canapés and pinot poured like water, neighbors wandering in and out of the house under strings of lanterns as if it had always been that way, as if he really belonged.
And then it had all blown apart. Fast, brutal, final. One night he’d gone to bed believing he’d found home. The next, it was over…and the idea of home with it.
Never again, he’d told himself.
Reese watched as Grace refilled water glasses, making sure everyone had what they needed, falling naturally into the role of host even though technically she was just as much a guest as he was.
This was what she’d been doing her whole life: taking care of people, making sure they felt welcome, creating these moments of warmth and connection.
He felt an urge to see her waited on instead of waiting. Pampered instead of serving.
An image hit him with unexpected force then: Grace in a hotel somewhere, her hair spread across expensive pillows.
That body—the slight curves he’d been trying not to notice all night—relaxed instead of tense.
Every inch of her soft and cared for instead of wound tight with responsibility and stress.
Christ.
He took a drink of wine, trying to redirect his thoughts, but they weren’t cooperating.
Instead, he found himself imagining what sounds she’d make if someone concentrated on her pleasure instead of her always focusing on everyone else’s comfort.
You’re supposed to be competing with her, he reminded himself. Not fantasizing about getting her horizontal.
He swallowed, turning to Zach, looking for a way to drive the images from his mind. “So Zach,” he said, “you into gaming?”
“Yeah,” Zach replied. “Mainly RPG stuff. Just been playing Skyrim.”
“Classic. One of my buddies up in Edmonton back home works at BioWare.”
“No way!” Zach replied, eyes lighting up at the mention of the company who owned one of his favorite games, Mass Effect. “That’s what I want to do, game development. I’ve been working on this indie game with some guys online.”
Reese noticed Grace look over, listening with interest.
“Yeah? What kind of game?” Reese asked.
The question seemed to unlock something in the kid. His shoulders relaxed slightly, his voice got more confident. “Survival horror. But like, set in the Pacific Northwest. Lots of forest atmosphere, rain, fog.”
“Is it based on this island?” the teen girl across from him asked in a German accent.
Zach’s cheeks flushed. “Kind of.” He shrugged, trying to play it cool. “The environment design is pretty influenced by it. Lots of water, abandoned structures, that whole vibe.”
The girl smiled. “I like the sound of that.” Zach’s blush deepened.
“So, Reese,” Ella asked, “I imagine you travel a lot, for your business?”
Reese nodded. “I do.”
“That must be sick,” Zach said. “What’s the coolest place you’ve been?”
Reese considered. “Torres del Paine in Chile. Mountains that look like they’re from another planet.
Or maybe Iceland, the waterfalls there are unreal.
Though honestly, nothing beats canoeing in Algonquin at sunrise.
But that’s the Canadian in me talking. Or there’s this village in northern Thailand where they—” He stopped himself.
“Sorry, get kinda excited when I talk about traveling. You travel much?” Reese found himself asking the kid.
“Seen other places besides Solace Springs?”
Zach’s expression shifted. “Farthest I’ve been is Disneyland for my tenth birthday.”
“That was a good trip,” Grace said from down the table.
“Yeah, it was okay,” Zach said with another shrug. “But like…Disneyland’s not real travel, you know? It’s not like we left the country.”
Reese noticed Grace’s expression fall. Damn, kids could be brutal.
“Folks hear ‘travel’ and picture champagne in first class,” Reese said. “Most of the time it’s long flights, jet lag that knocks you sideways and eating whatever mystery meat the hotel buffet’s serving. Sure, you get moments that are worth it, but most of it’s just logistics.”
Zach didn’t look convinced. “I’d still take it. Better than being stuck here forever.”
Abe raised a bushy eyebrow.
“Hey now,” Grace quickly said. “Here’s pretty spectacular too if you look out the window instead of at your phone.”
“I agree,” Abe said. “Your generation doesn’t appreciate the world around them anymore.”
“Oh God, here we go,” Caleb said under his breath.
“I appreciate it,” Zach said. “I just also want to see other stuff. Nothing ever happens here. It’s true.”
“Nothing ever happens?” Caleb clutched his chest dramatically.
“Darling, we have an entire festival dedicated to fish. We have theater. And by theater, I mean just last month, Jean Hobsen accused Davis Milton of stealing her parking spot at the grocery store and there was a full confrontation involving a shopping cart with some very creative language.”
Everyone around the table laughed, except Abe who was standing now and walking to the fire. “Sounds like your son doesn’t match your enthusiasm for the place, Grace,” he said. “And yet you’re proposing to move him on to the more challenging, most remote part of Solace Springs?”
“With the patchiest Wi-Fi,” Mikkel added, then grimaced as he looked at Grace.