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I called to let him know I was on the way.
“Hey,” he answered breathlessly. “How’d it go?”
“Fine. They said whoever set the fire didn’t enter through the back of the shop. The business behind yours has cameras. That was the only thing I was able to learn. How’d it go with finding someone at the state level to get help with the hit-and-run?”
His voice lowered until it was a soft whisper. “I didn’t tell Mikey and Tiller yet about what happened back in December.”
My heart nearly broke hearing the nerves in his voice because I knew he was terrified Mikey and Tiller were going to be upset with him. He didn’t know them well enough to realize they’d understand.
“It’s okay. You’ll tell them when you’re ready.”
“But Doran is putting out a call to a contact he has with state law enforcement from when he had a security issue at one of Gent’s concerts.”
“Good. Listen, I’m almost to the lodge, and I wondered if you wanted to go over to the farm. You can take some time to think about how you want to approach it, and I can work on a few repairs I wanted to tinker with.”
Truman let out a breath. “Yeah. That sounds good. See you soon.”
When I got to the lodge, I noticed several cars out front. I loved knowing Mikey and Tiller already had a community here despite living in Aster Valley such a short time.
I walked into the kitchen and spotted Truman immediately through the window. He was standing outside on the deck close to a sexy-as-fuck blond man, and they were both belly-laughing about something. As soon as I saw Tiller and Mikey’s friend Gentry gazing at the blond man like he was the second coming of Christ, I realized he was most likely Gentry’s husband, Winter.
Sitting next to Gentry at the kitchen island was an older man with thick white hair.
Gentry spoke up. “I don’t think you’ve met my uncle Doran yet.”
After greeting the man with a handshake and a few pleasantries, I asked where our hosts were.
“Uncle Doran decided to share a particularly racy porn clip on his phone, and suddenly the two of them claimed they needed to fix some kind of gate,” Gentry said. “I think that’s some kind of weird Texan euphemism.”
Doran muttered, “I offered to help hold someone’s pole, but they didn’t seem to want a third in their gate efforts. Shame.”
I barked out a laugh and felt my face heat. Gentry shushed his uncle through his own laughter.
The two of them were sitting at the island in front of a laptop while an abandoned cutting board sat with a half-cut pile of onions on it. Nearly one whole countertop was covered with mismatched vases of wildflowers, tins of fudge, and several kinds of homemade baked goods that Mikey said Mia, Bill, and even Barney had apparently brought by that morning.
Music played softly from the speakers around the big TV in the kitchen’s comfortable sitting area, and through the giant picture window past the kitchen table, I could see the burgeoning yellow green of the aspen trees blooming between the wide expanse of the lodge’s backyard and what would soon become a ski slope again.
This town—this property—was poised on the edge of something exciting and new. I kept trying to remind myself that I actually had a life and a home back in Houston, a business that needed to be moved which would require any number of time-consuming steps and critical conversations with loyal clients, crews, and vendors I’d used over the years.
I didn’t even want to leave Aster Valley long enough to do any of that. This place, this very kitchen, was so welcoming, so comforting and exciting all at once, that I wanted to settle in and make a little part of it my very own.
Truman and Winter came back inside at the same time Mikey and Tiller returned. Mikey called out my name and asked if he was going to have to come bail me out of “fire jail” later or if it would be traffic jail instead. Everyone glanced over at me, and Truman nearly knocked Gentry’s husband over as he raced over to say hello.
Halfway across the kitchen, he remembered himself because he came skidding to a stop in his socks about three feet away from me.
“Oh, hi,” he said awkwardly as if I were delivering a package he’d forgotten he’d ordered.
I smiled at him. “Hi.”
A tiny tremor shook its way through his body, but he tried ignoring it. “So, you’re… not arrested? I mean… no… fire jail for you or anything? That’s good, because jail in general is a very unhealthy place to spend time. Unfortunately, people in jail experience more disease. For instance, incidence of sexually transmitted diseases is significantly higher among…” His eyes widened, and he cut himself off with a choking sound. “Of course, I didn’t mean to imply that you…” He stopped and swallowed, his face becoming a little blotchy. “Help,” he squeaked.
