by Susan Sey
But if she had done something to Eli, something that eased his terrible burden of guilt and grief and lord only knew what else, he’d done something to her as well. He’d seen through the jeans and the caps and the dirt and the silence straight to the heart of her. He’d brought her a mouse nest made from tampons and his favorite hiking socks without a single doubt that she’d love it. And she did. God, she did. She loved it, and she loved him for knowing she would. For knowing her. For seeing her, in spite of everything she’d done to prevent it.
And that was dangerous. Because if Eli could see her, maybe other people would start to see her as well. She’d realized this as she’d stared at that lopsided nest sitting on her counter. She’d thought about Addy and those impulsive hugs she tossed at Willa with bewildering regularity. She thought about Georgie’s astonishing ability to buy her pretty clothes that fit perfectly. And she knew with grim certainty that there was no maybe about it. Whatever Eli had done to her, it was unraveling her. It was revealing her, and she couldn’t afford that. Not now, not with Matty due home any day.
Matty. Oh, God. Her lungs locked up and she had to press a hand to her chest to breathe. This was why Bianca was threatening to upend their arrangement, the one that had protected the boy for so many years. This was why she was considering revealing the boy’s true parentage to him. If she didn’t do it, surely somebody else would. Because Willa was coming undone. The realization pushed the remaining air from her lungs and she leaned her forehead against the door.
She’d never hated the Davises for taking Matty from her, or for keeping him from her. But they’d hated her for letting them, or so Willa had assumed. They’d spent years judging and dismissing her, as if they needed to prove to themselves that they’d done the right thing. As if they needed to prove it to her, too. Why they’d bother, Willa didn’t know. She agreed. Matty was better off never knowing who his mother was, or what kind of family he had.
But now she wondered if Bianca hadn’t hated her at all. What if she’d simply been creating a social gulf between the Davises and the Zincs so wide and so deep that people could look straight at those Zinc eyes in Matty’s face and never see them?
If that was the case, Willa had to give Bianca props. She’d played a long, deep game that would’ve put Willa’s own mother — a master manipulator if ever there was one — to shame. A game that Eli, by unraveling Willa against her will this way, threatened to undermine.
She didn’t know how long she’d stood there, staring dismayed at that damned nest on her counter, but by the time Eli and Brett pulled up, she’d known what she had to do.
So she’d done it. And she’d been right to, because good God, he’d given Brett a job. She didn’t imagine for one second that Eli particularly wanted to hike all over creation in the company of a barely-dry ex-con, but he’d taken one look at her situation and stepped in with a magical job offer. Which wasn’t a job at all, but a gift. A gift for her.
There was nothing Willa could do about the job — that was between Eli and Brett— but she could make Eli understand that she didn’t want his gifts. That she wouldn’t accept them. That he’d gotten everything she was willing to give him, and it was time for him to go away. It had hurt like hell, but she’d done it. And he must’ve gotten the message because Willa finally heard his little car trundle away up her drive.
Suddenly the house felt too small. There wasn’t enough air, enough light. Willa’s lungs constricted and her skin itched and she wrenched open the door to let the outdoors in. She needed to breathe before her heart simply broke. Or maybe she needed to breathe while her heart broke. She gripped the open door frame with both hands and leaned out, desperate for oxygen. Then she stopped breathing altogether.
There, in the center of her porch, sat the perfect mouse nest.
He’d left it for her.
CHAPTER 18
GEORGIE DROPPED HER purse on the sideboard at the end of a very long day and headed for Hill Top House’s great room. Aside from the four years she’d spent at college, she’d never lived anywhere but Hill Top House. Unlike her brothers, she’d never wanted to live anywhere else, and walking into the great room reminded her of exactly why that was.
Sun spilled fiery and golden across the endless glitter of Lake Superior, and Hill Top House framed the cliff-top view within a towering wall of windows. Narrow panels ran through the glass from floor to ceiling, supporting the soaring peak of the roof without detracting from the view. And, God, that view. It just grabbed you by the throat. It had nothing on the paintings hanging on the narrow walls between the panes, though. Inside those frames, her brother Diego’s violent brush strokes masterfully echoed the lake’s brutal beauty.
The sight of them had Georgie lifting a hand to her own throat and she smiled. Diego had always gone for the jugular, in art and otherwise. She still missed him. Even knowing exactly what he’d been capable of, she still missed her brother.
She drifted into the room, found the sunniest corner of the massive white sectional facing the view and sank down into it. She toed off her ballet flats, curled her legs under her and laid her head on the cushions to think about Diego, and about Willa Zinc. About the conversation she’d had with Willa earlier that day.
“Georgie?” Her mother’s voice came down the stairs, interrupting the kaleidoscope of colors shifting behind Georgie’s closed lids. “Are you home?”
“Hey, Mom.” Georgie hauled herself upright and wondered if she’d drifted off. She eyed the sunset bleeding ever redder and deeper into the water. No more than a minute or two, if that. Georgie had a habit of getting lost in her thoughts. A consequence, she figured, of her face. People freaked out over beauty, and tended to talk to you like you were stupid. Slow pace, small words, limited range. Georgie’s interior landscape was vastly more interesting than that sort of limited interaction, and as people tended to give pretty girls a pass on holding up their end of the conversation, she’d gotten into the habit of drifting off sometimes. “Yeah, I just got home.”
Bianca sailed down the stairs with her usual regal air, her silver-streaked blonde hair just skimming her shoulders, her eyes dark and bird-bright over the same cheekbones Georgie saw in the mirror every day.
“Did you speak with her?” Bianca settled onto the end of the sectional nearest the view, still wiping her hands on a paint-stained rag. A waft of turpentine and wildflowers reached out to Georgie, her mother’s signature scent. “With Willa, I mean?”
“I know who you meant, Mom.” Georgie yawned. “And yes, I did.”
“Well? What did she say?”
Georgie shrugged lightly. “Not much.”
Bianca leaned forward, pinned Georgie with that gaze, sharp and dangerous. “Did you tell her I was considering telling Matty who his mother is?”
“No, Mom, we had coffee and chatted about the weather.” Georgie rolled her eyes. “Of course I told her. Just like you asked me to.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing.”
“The girl doesn’t ever say anything.”
“And that’s how it’s going to stay forever, according to her.”
“I see.” Bianca narrowed her eyes and studied Georgie closely. “How did she react otherwise?”
Georgie sifted through her impressions slowly, savoring the weight of her mother’s attention. Bianca was one of the very few people — aside from Addie and maybe Jax — who treated Georgie like there was a brain inside her head.
“She was…I don’t know, honestly,” she said slowly. “When she first came in, it was just business as usual, you know? A couple good insults both directions, a little posturing on both sides. Then I told her that you were thinking about getting the jump on the gossips and telling Matty everything, and whoosh.” Georgie drew a flat hand over her own face. “She went blank. Like an emotional black hole opened up and swallowed her reaction. I could almost feel it trying to suck me in, too, like some weird dementor.”
“Dementor?”
> “The soul-suckers from Harry Potter?”
Bianca flicked an impatient hand. “I never read those.”
“How can you claim to be culturally literate and not know Harry Potter?”
“How can you claim to be culturally literate and still reference children’s books in your conversation?”
“I’m a Davis,” Georgie said airily. “I don’t follow culture; I make it.”
Bianca smiled. “There’s my girl.”
“Anyway.” Georgie rolled a lazy shoulder. “Whatever’s going on inside Willa’s head? She’s not going to share it. Not with me, not with you, not with anybody.”
Bianca considered that. “She’s never been one to seek out attention.”
“Or even human contact,” Georgie pointed out. “When’s the last time you saw her with anybody? A friend, a date, a family member?”
“I haven’t,” Bianca admitted. “Although I hear her father’s home.”
“And living with her at their little cabin in the woods,” Georgie said. “I spoke to him the other night.”
“You did?”
“I did.” Georgie wrinkled her nose. “He wasn’t nearly as big and scary as I remember. Then again, when I was a kid, we were all convinced he’d murdered his wife and was just waiting to do one of us next.” She shrugged that off. “He was still tall but he’s…smaller now. It’s hard to describe. He’s wary. Hesitant.” She frowned. “I think it might be the first time I ever saw him completely sober.”
“Why on earth were you at the Zinc place?” Bianca frowned, too.
“It was an emergency. Addy asked Willa to stand up in the wedding—”
“Oh, lord, she really went through with that?”
“She really did. We went over there to assess the wardrobe situation and ended up staging a mini-intervention.” Georgie’s lip curled involuntarily. “It was awful, Mom. Willa’s closet is as bad as she is. I hate her and her clothes.”
“I know, darling.” Bianca gave her a sympathetic pat. “You’ll just have to get over it.”
“Why should I?” Georgie was perilously close to pouting. “Just because Addy likes her, the rest of us have to like her, too? What kind of madness is that?”
“Georgie, please. Use the perfectly serviceable brain God gave you. Willa’s the only person outside our family — besides Peter, of course — who knows that Matty’s the Arsonist of Devil’s Kettle.”
“He’s not an arsonist,” Georgie snapped. “He was blackmailed into arson, and by my own ex-fiancé.”
“Who will, I’m sure, keep his mouth shut about the whole affair,” Bianca said placidly. “As much as I’m sure Peter would love to see us squirm, he must know that going public with Matty’s involvement in those fires will hurt him far more than it would hurt us. But why would Willa hold back? One conversation with the appropriate authority, and Willa could not only embarrass us tremendously, but maybe even put her brother in her father’s old jail cell.”
“Let her do it. Peter can go straight to hell for all I care.” Georgie discovered her hands in hard fists on the soft suede beside her knee. She loosened them deliberately, and gave her hair a lazy toss. “And since when are we afraid of a little scandal? I’ve been staring down gossips since I was fourteen and people decided Matty was my love child.”
“And you do it brilliantly. You get that from me.” Bianca gave Georgie another fond pat. “But circumstances have changed.”
“Addy’s changed,” Georgie said darkly. “We could change her back, you know. She thinks Willa’s some kind of hero just for keeping her mouth shut about Matty.”
“Addy told me Willa also took the blame for the Davis House fire the other day. Gerte was blaming some poor man who used to work for her, but it was only a matter of time — or so Addy claims — before she circled back around to accusing Matty again. Evidently, Willa scotched it right there.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” Georgie set her jaw. “Which is why she thinks Willa’s such a hero. But what if we tell her the truth? What if we tell her how we really got Matty? How Willa and her family sold him to us like he was a farm animal or something? Addy loves Matty like he’s her own kid. Surely, she’d be horrified, and start to see that Willa’s nothing but a—”
“Georgie, stop.” Bianca sighed. “It isn’t just Addy driving this decision.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s just time, darling. All lies have an expiration date, and I’m frankly surprised this one has lasted so long. I’d hoped to wait until Matty was eighteen before having this particular conversation but maybe it would be better for all of us if we just made a clean breast of it now.” Bianca sighed wearily, but Georgie could almost see the gears in her brain turning dangerously. “It’s just…I don’t want to drop this bomb on Matty without knowing exactly how Willa’s going to respond.”
“Mom.” Georgie waited until Bianca looked up. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Those dark, shrewd eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Georgie grinned. “God, I love it when you do that stare-down-the-upstart thing. I’m good but you’re in a league of your own.”
She gave a haughty sniff. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now tell me why you’re suddenly so hot to tell Matty a secret we’ve kept from him for fourteen years. Because I believe that it’s not only to make Addy happy, but I’ll be damned if I’ll buy that it’s just time.” She leveled her own version of the stare at her mother and waited.
Seconds ticked by, taut and unrelenting, while Bianca held that stare and considered her.
Finally she said, “Come upstairs. I want to show you something.”
CHAPTER 19
ELI HELPED HIMSELF to a table in the sunny front window of the Devil’s Taproom. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since Willa had given him the kiss off, twenty-four hours during which he hadn’t slept for shit and had lost another pair of hiking socks to the mice along with a tube of toothpaste. The socks he understood, but toothpaste? What the hell did mice want with his toothpaste? Clearly their teeth were already in top condition.
He should ask Willa. She’d know, and she couldn’t blow him off because it would be a purely professional question. And if Eli was desperate enough to ask about such a thing, surely she’d be professional enough to answer. It wouldn’t be the conversation he wanted to have with her but it would be a start. And he had to start somewhere because sometime before dawn, between thrashing around on his skinny, lumpy bed and listening to the mice laugh at him and chew shit with their obscenely healthy teeth, Eli had reached a decision: He wasn’t letting Willa blow him off.
Whatever had bloomed between them, whatever it was in her that spoke to him? It was too important to back away from. Because he’d thought about it. He’d had plenty of time over the course of a long sleepless night for thinking and he’d arrived at a startling conclusion. Whatever magic Willa worked on his soul? He must work some kind of corresponding magic on hers. Because if he understood correctly, Willa didn’t sleep around. She didn’t even date. From what he could see, she barely spoke to people who weren’t him. Human connection wasn’t her thing, either by choice, by nature, or because she’d learned the hard way that life was cruel and people were shitty. But she’d connected with him, and in every possible way.
That kind of miracle didn’t come along every day. Eli had been in a tough spot these past few years but had been generally a lucky guy before that. Good family, stable home, plenty of friends. Clear goals, plus the brains and strength to achieve them. Mentors who paved the way when they could, beat his ass when they had to, and pushed him farther, longer and harder than he believed he could go. He’d been an arrogant son of a bitch, sure, but never so arrogant that he imagined he’d achieved success on his own. He’d been lucky in innumerable ways. Which was probably why it had felt like such a betrayal when that luck had run out.
Which was probably also why he recognized luck when it dropped bac
k into his life. Why he recognized Willa for the gift she was. Eli wasn’t about to shrug and let her toss what was between them in the trash. He didn’t believe she really wanted to for one thing, but even if she did, she’d be wrong. He wasn’t about to drop to one knee and beg for her hand in marriage either — did people even do that anymore? — but he was definitely grabbing hold and not letting go until he understood the mysterious forces at work here. Until she did, too.
He wondered what Willa would say when he informed her of this development. He smiled just thinking about it.
He was still smiling when Paul O’Malley of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and his uncle Ben’s worst nightmares walked into the bar. Eli stopped smiling and lifted a hand to the guy.
O’Malley walked to the table, a solidly built man in his early-to-mid-seventies, with a full head of white hair and big-knuckled hands that spoke to a lifetime of working with them. He also had small, darting eyes that spoke to a life lived in a defensive crouch. Eli wondered briefly if he’d been born that way or if some tragedy had taught him to be afraid. He rose and extended a hand.
“O’Malley,” he said as he gripped that wide palm. “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Walker,” O’Malley returned, those eyes darting and dipping.
Eli gestured him to the chair across the table and sat. “So I’ve been spot-checking your fuel load in the region.”
“Yes.” O’Malley’s lips compressed into a flat line. “I know.”
“What you might not know is that I also spent the spring through-hiking the Superior Hiking Trail.”
A waitress appeared at their table with bright purple hair spilling from the top of her bandana turban and a Devil’s Taproom tank top showing off the impressive sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. “Hey, Paul,” she said to O’Malley, and turned a friendly smile to Eli. “Eli Walker, isn’t it?” Her smile brightened. “The guy Gerte slapped before he could even put his bags down?”
“That was me.”