Page 81 of Tessa and Nash

I flip another page. Another note. Another reference. Old county filing numbers.

It’s enough to make me feel sick.

Because the more I see, the clearer it becomes: The town taking sides isn’t about me and Tessa being engaged.

It’s bigger than that.

It’s about who people believe. Who they’ve believed for years. Who they’ve built their own identities around.

And the engagement?

It doesn’t cancel it.

It complicates it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tessa

January 15th

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…