“It was five years ago. She’s done a real nice job keeping it going, though.”
“That’s good. We, um, used to play together when we were kids.”
He nods without looking up. “Elspeth mentioned that, too.”
“Did she talk about the orchard a lot?”
We loved outings to Mirabelle when the blossoms turned the air soft and sweet. But most of the time, my grandmother preferred staying northside, where the inn’s quiet magic suitedher better. It’s a good thing the rest of the town was more than happy to come to her.
“She talked about a lot of things,” he says, still focused on the next board. “But yeah, the orchard came up. Mostly in reference to you and your penchant for fruit. Said you could eat your weight in plums before lunch and still ask for jam on toast an hour later.”
I smile, and for a heartbeat, I want to ask. About Willa and Walter Mott, who used to leave scones on the porch in spring. About the Ashbys and the Langfords. Whether their kids still bicker over tree houses like they did when we were eight.
But asking would mean opening a door I’ve been trying to keep closed.
I don’t need to fall in love with Blue Willow again. I need to sell this place so I can afford to rest for a while. I need to leave. And learning how everyone else stayed—how they made it work, made it matter—will only make it harder when it’s time for me to go.
So, I pivot. “What about you?”
He glances up, wary. “What about me?”
“You live here now. People seem to like you, but that’s all I know.”
He shrugs. “There’s not much else to know.”
“You just showed up out of the blue one day and decided to stay here forever? There must be another reason you’re here.”
“No.” He shifts his weight back and looks at me. “Elspeth offered up the space. She wanted a steadier handyman around, and I stayed because I told her I would.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Okay,” I say, letting the word fall like a pebble into still water.
He stands, brushes sawdust from his jeans, and glances back toward the house. “Sun’s going down. We can finish this up tomorrow. You still want to learn about gutters?”
“Depends,” I say, standing, too. “Are you gonna be gentle with me?”
“Not a chance.”
He walks ahead without another word. I follow a beat behind, my fingers curling tighter inside my sleeves. Maybe I asked for too much, too fast. He doesn’t want to talk about why he chose Blue Willow over anywhere else.
Was it the magic, the people, the house itself? Something he doesn’t want to name for fear it’ll disappear? Or maybe, like me, Wells Rourke knows what it’s like to love something that was never quite yours.
It’s easier, when you do, to make a habit out of holding back.
6
WELLS
The first night,she was quiet and contemplative. Curious enough about the house—or maybe just the weight of being back in it—that she wandered into Elspeth’s room and slept in the recliner no one had touched in over a year.
Tonight, she’s a fucking hazard.
She’s been stomping around upstairs for the past hour, slamming doors and muttering under her breath. I’m haunted, it seems, by the thud of her clumsy boots. The scrape of furniture on her bedroom floor. The distinct sound of a drawer being yanked open too hard and then shoved closed again.
I press the heel of my hand to my eye and exhale.
