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Dev shook his head. “Who’d take care of the place then? My ancestors sacrificed to make the town a safe and welcoming place to anyone who didn’t fit anywhere else. These days, it seems like we need that more than ever.” He smiled wryly. “And it’s up to me as the last Harrison in the line to figure out some way of saving Home.”
With an eyebrow quirked and his head tilted, Casey looked like one of Ty’s inquisitive rescue pups. “Two questions. Why does it need saving, and why is it all on you to do it?”
Dev scrubbed his hands over his hair. “I shouldn’t gripe or make it seem like nobody else steps up. There’s a three-person Selectboard. A town clerk.”
“Then why not let them carry some of the weight?”
“They do. Kenny’s the clerk. Kat and Pete are on the Selectboard, and they wrangle business and maintenance issues, respectively.”
“What about the third person? Don’t they do anything?”
“He… ah…” Dev cleared his throat. “Well, there are issues. We’re all family, really, and everyone does their best. But when Persistence founded this town, he promised that he and his would always take care of it.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a law, right? What’s the population?”
“Including the outlying properties that are still part of the town, about five hundred, give or take. It’s been quadruple that in the past, before we started bleeding residents in the last couple of decades.”
“Regardless of what it used to be, that’s still five hundred people who could step up to the plate rather than let you carry the can for them.”
Casey sounded so indignant on Dev’s behalf that Dev couldn’t suppress a smile. “Tell me something. If someone you were fond of, someone you’d known all your life, was in trouble and needed help, would you tell them to suck it up and deal?”
Casey’s gaze slid away, pink flagging those high cheekbones. “No. Of course not.”
Dev winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that as a dig at you.”
“I know. But me helping my uncle with his dream isn’t quite the same scope as five hundred people expecting you to… to…”
“Be a good town manager?”
“Fix everything for them.” He gestured to Tomato. “Although I probably shouldn’t talk. You swooped in and fixed things for me, after all.” Casey sighed as he stared mournfully at the blackened saucepan in the drainer. “I doubt even you could save that pan, though.”
“If it can’t be saved, Sylvia can replace it. Just like she could replace anything in the summer kitchen, because they’re just things. It’s the people who are irreplaceable. The people who are important.”
“Dev.” Casey laid a gentle hand on Dev’s arm. “You’re a person too. You’re important too. Who takes care of you?”
Dev was about to spout his usual denial, the one he’d become so practiced at in the last year and a half, but the look in Casey’s hazel eyes, the concern in his expression, stopped him. God, I want to kiss him.
Casey was such a sweet guy, loyal to his family legacy, to the point of learning to cook even though he had zero aptitude, just to make his uncle happy. If anybody could understand Dev’s drive and determination to keep Home afloat, it was Casey.
I really want to kiss him.
His gaze riveted to Casey’s, Dev leaned forward. Casey’s eyes widened, lips parting as he sucked in a sharp breath. Yes! It was going to happen. Dev’s chest felt twice its usual size but light, buoyant, as though he could drift up to the ceiling and float there with Casey, leaving all their problems below them. When Casey swayed toward him, Dev reached out and—
Beep beep beep beep
Both of them jerked back at the timer’s shrill alarm. Casey licked his lips. “That’ll be the tarts. I guess we should check on them. I mean, two kitchen fires in one day are a little much, even for me.”
The sudden return to reality made Dev almost dizzy. Yeah, kissing Casey would be a bad idea. They both had responsibilities, and it wasn’t as though Dev would ever leave Home or Casey leave Manhattan, especially once he was planted in Chez Donatien’s kitchen.
“Right.” Dev flinched at his own over-hearty tone. “Well then. Take a look through the window. How do they look to you?”
Casey bent over—gah! That ass!—and peered through the glass. “They look kind of like the plaster of paris hand print I made when I was in kindergarten.” He glanced up with a crooked smile. “I don’t mean in goopy clumsiness. But they’re kind of uneven and hand-shaped.”
“They looked like that when we put them in.”
“Oh. Heh. Yeah, I guess they did.”
“How does the crust look?”
