He smiled at her reaction. “Believe it or not, I have fond memories of the place. My great-aunt used to take me there when I was a kid.” He loosened his tie. “So, how was your day?”

“The same. Until I got home this evening.” Paxton hesitated. “I think my brother is interested in Willa Jackson.”

He raised a single brow. “And you don’t approve?” His tie hissed as he pulled it off. Maybe it was because she was already on edge, but she thought it was a seductive sound. It made her skin prickle.

“No, it’s not that. I’d love her forever if she made him stay.”

“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.

She hesitated, still bothered by it. “He seems to think I should have invited her to participate in the restoration of the Blue Ridge Madam.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“It didn’t occur to me,” she said. “Do you think I should have?”

He shrugged. “It would have been a nice thing to do.”

“That’s what Colin said. I didn’t mean to slight her.”

“I know you didn’t. You like being in control. It never occurs to you to ask for help.” He smiled and put a hand to her cheek. “But some things are worth asking for, darling.”

“Easy for you to say,” she said miserably.

“No, actually, it’s not,” he responded. “I’m going to change. You haven’t seen the upstairs since I redecorated my bedroom, have you?”

“No.”

“Come on, then.”

She knew where all the rooms were—the guest room, the room with expensive exercise equipment in it, the empty room he said he had vague plans to turn into an office, and his master suite. He’d mentioned having his bedroom painted last month, but she wasn’t prepared for the major overhaul he’d done. The gray walls had a metallic sheen, and the furniture was all black lacquer now. He’d spent most of his time when he first moved back decorating the downstairs and ridding the house of medieval décor left behind by the previous owner. She’d loved watching the transformation, watching it become more like Sebastian. This, though, wasn’t anything like what she thought it would be. Dark, moody, stark, masculine.

She started to leave so he could change, but he told her to stay, and disappeared into his dressing room.

“Why did you choose a house this big, when there’s only you?” she called as she walked around his bedroom. His bed was king-sized. There was room for someone else there; he just seemed to have no interest in issuing any invitations, though there was plenty of interest, from men and women alike.

“Every life needs a little space. It leaves room for good things to enter it.”

“Wow, Sebastian. Profound.”

She heard him laugh.

She walked by his bed, trailing her fingers along the silken black cover. She stopped to look at a painting over his bureau. She’d never seen it before. It was cracked and dark, obviously old. It looked like something that should be in a folk art museum. It was of a red bowl filled with ripe red berries. A black-and-yellow bird was perched on the edge of the bowl, looking out angrily, as if daring someone to take a berry from him. The tip of his beak was red from berry juice, or maybe blood. It was a little disturbing.

“That belonged to my great-aunt,” Sebastian said. She could feel his chest brush the back of her arm as he came to a stop behind her. “She loved it. It hung in her living room, next to her woodstove. It’s all I have by way of family heirlooms. I had it packed away for years.”

“Why didn’t you bring it out before now?” she asked, still staring at the painting.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to stay.”

“In this house?”

“No, in Walls of Water. I didn’t know if things would work out.” He paused. “But they did.”

Her scalp tightened, as though she was in a barely avoided collision. She hadn’t known she’d almost lost him. What was so wrong with this place that people wanted to leave it? What was so wrong with home and history and family, even if they got on your nerves? Her back still to him, she said, “You’ve mentioned your great-aunt twice tonight. I don’t think you’ve ever talked about her before.”

“She was the only person in my family I knew loved me without reservation. But she passed away when I was ten.”

Sebastian didn’t talk much about his family, but from what little he had told her, she knew his father was verbally abusive, and that he had a much older brother who now lived in West Virginia. They had lived in a trailer park on the west side of town, near the county line. She guessed she’d answered her own question. Maybe there were some things you simply had to get away from. She could understand it from Sebastian. She still didn’t understand it from her brother. To change the subject, she smiled and turned around and said, “Dinner?”

She didn’t realize how close he was. “Unless there’s something else you want to do up here,” he said.

She wouldn’t touch that. She couldn’t. “Are you implying I need to use your workout room?” she joked.

He lowered his eyes and turned away. “Never, darling. I love you just the way you are.”

FIVE

Unearthed

It was hard to believe on a day like today, when Willa and Rachel were so busy their lunch consisted of only filched cappuccino doughnuts and iced coffee from the café, but business on National Street actually fell off sharply after Thanksgiving. They could go days in the gray winter, sometimes an entire week, without a single customer. There was always a slight upswing in February, the town’s coldest month, when out-of-towners liked to hike into the national park to see the famous waterfalls when they froze, like bridal veils, against the mountains. But mostly, from December to April, those who made their living off tourists just suffered through, dreaming of warmer months, of kingfisher-blue skies and leaves so green they looked like they’d just been painted, as if the color would smear if you touched it.

It was those slow months leading into spring when many transplants got restless and decided to leave. Willa had seen it happen time and time again. Rachel had lasted here more than a year, but Willa could see how hard the cold months were on someone as hyper as she was. Willa was dreading this coming winter. She was afraid she was going to lose Rachel to it. And Rachel and her coffee and chocolate were the only things making life here bearable, the only things she really looked forward to now that the restoration of the Madam was almost complete and she didn’t have an excuse to drive up Jackson Hill every day to see how it was going.

“Willa, look,” Rachel said at about four o’clock that afternoon, when they finally had a quiet moment in the store. Willa turned to see that Rachel had stopped restocking the snack case at the coffee bar, and was looking out the window. “Tall, dark, and rich is heading this way.”

Willa looked up to see Colin Osgood walking by the store window, heading for the door.

“Oh, crap. Tell him I’m not here,” she said, and turned to the storeroom behind the counter.

“What is the matter with you?” Rachel called after her.

Willa disappeared, closing the door behind her, just as she heard the store bell ring.

What was the matter with her? That was a good question. But it was hard to explain, especially to someone like Rachel. The winters were tough on Willa, too—maybe even more so, because she knew she couldn’t leave. That was the big difference between Willa and Rachel, between Willa and all the other transplants. Her grandmother was here. Her father’s house was here. Her history was here. Sometimes she would lean against the front counter, chin in hand, and stare at the snow, craving something else, something different from life, which made her feel that nervous pull in her stomach, like how she would feel when weeks would go by in school after she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do anything stupid again. The feeling would just get worse and worse, until she found herself hanging a rope of leotards out the dance tower window at two in the morning, just so everyone coming to school would think that a group of dancers had gotten stuck up there and had to tie their clothes together and climb out naked.