“Because my dead cat just walked out of a cupboard.”
“Correction,” I say, standing and brushing my palms against my jeans. “Your immortal cat. There’s a difference.”
I don’t know if it’s him or the magic in the house that holds on to what it loves. That refuses to let go of the things that belong to it. If that were the case, surely Elspeth would have lived forever, too, and every Hart would be eternal.
But that’s not the way of things.
Her smile wobbles. She cradles Hemingway against her chest. I watch her, and the knot in my stomach doesn’t untie so much as shift into something else. Relief. Wariness. Something else I don’t want to name.
“Why didn’t you welcome me home?” she whispers to the cat. “I missed you.”
Hemingway blinks at her. She nuzzles his nose.
I force myself to turn back toward the parlor, but the echo of her scream won’t leave my ribs. It’s branded there, a reminder of how fast I moved before I even knew if she was hurt. A reminder of how much I’m starting to care.
No. I don’t care abouther, specifically. It’s the trauma of watching Elspeth fade and being helpless to stop it. It’s the thought of someone getting hurt under my roof, under my watch, and not being able to do a damn thing.
Elsie gathers Hemingway into her arms. She carries him back down the stairs with small, uneven steps. I trail after her, watching the sway of her braid, the way her cheek presses against orange fur.
In the parlor, she sinks into the recliner again. The cat curls immediately across her lap, purring loudly enough to rattle the springs. I climb the ladder, put my hands back on the fixture. It’s to keep busy.
Unfortunately, my heart is still a step behind.
For a moment, it’s Elspeth I see there. Elspeth with a quilt across her knees, with a cat tucked under her palm, with astorybook open in her lap. My chest pinches. The room used to glow with her presence, and losing her left a hollow that no amount of patchwork could mend.
But Elsie isn’t Elspeth Sr.
She’s sharp where her grandmother was soft, restless where Elspeth was patient. She doesn’t fit into the silence; she scrapes against it, unsettles the dust and the memories both. And yet—watching her with the cat, so undeniably herself, it hurts in a different way.
I told myself not to be baited. Not to bait her. We need to keep the peace inside these walls, at least until the meetings can decide the rest.
Outside of this house, I’ll fight her with everything I’ve got, make her hate the idea of the sale, drag her through every argument about what this inn means to the town. That’s my duty, to Elspeth, and to Blue Willow.
But here? Watching her thumb circle Hemingway’s ear, watching the tension bleed out of her shoulders, I don’t want her to hurt. I want her to see things the way I do.
The inn is special. This town is alive in a way most places aren’t. Selling shouldn’t be an option, and the thought of her letting it go makes something in me snarl.
If she could see it—really see it—maybe we wouldn’t have anything to battle over at all. Maybe we’d be fighting for the same thing.
12
ELSIE
The stackof papers in front of me is thinner than my nerves. Three stapled pages make up my grandmother’s will. One half-crumpled sheet of notes I started last night and abandoned before it could make sense. That’s all I have to bring into tomorrow’s committee meeting.
No deed or official records. Not even a plot map. Nothing with real weight.
I flip the notebook open and stare at my crooked handwriting. My stomach sinks. I need to come up with property files, but Bobby’s already told me I can’t pull any permits yet. The survey, structural sign-off, and legal probate transfer are all stuck in limbo until the designation is decided.
So, what am I supposed to gather in the meantime to keep this thing moving?
“This is pathetic,” I mutter.
Across the table, Wells sorts through an old toolbox. “You said it, not me.”
“I can’t show up with nothing.”
He’s joking, but it still twists something in my chest. I haven’t stopped feeling guilty about his hand, no matter how many times he brushes it off. If I hadn’t insisted on helping with thingsI didn’t know how to do, if I’d kept to myself like I planned, he wouldn’t have ended up hurt.
