“Friendly faces,” Silas repeated, finally glancing at me. “You countin’ yourself in that number?”
My heart did that embarrassing little flutter. “Maybe.”
Willow raised her eyebrows and Delilah made a very quiet, very suggestive ooh noise around her coffee mug. Beau didn’t say a word, but I could feel the Ward brother smirk radiating from across the table.
Silas leaned back in his chair, elbow resting on the table as he considered me. “You’d help with this? The…fake church?”
I tilted my head. “You mean the very real church that exists legally and spiritually and just needs a little bit of elbow grease and strategic signage? Yes. I’d help.”
Rhett nodded slowly. “Start with something light—community garden blessing, maybe a storytelling night, hell, potluck would be easy.”
Willow grinned. “You just want June’s cornbread again.”
“That cornbreadwasheavenly,” Delilah agreed. “Praise be.”
They all laughed, and I smiled too—but I was watching Silas. Watching the way his shoulders relaxed just a little now that the problem had a shape, a path forward. Even if it wasn’t perfect. Even if it meant other people in his space.
“I’ll think on it,” he said. “Don’t like people.”
“You like me,” I said before I could stop myself.
The table wentsilent.
Beau let out a cough that might’ve been a laugh. Delilah’s eyes got real wide, like she couldn’t believe I said it out loud. Willow shot me a quick, amused glance and saidnothing, bless her.
Silas didn’t flinch.
He just looked at me, long and unreadable, and then said, voice low: “Yeah. I do.”
And then he went back to his biscuit.
CHAPTER 4
Silas
No one had steppedfoot in the Willow Grove church—besides me—in years.
I wasn’t a particularly social man (my only friends were my brothers) and we usually opted to meet at Rhett’s house or Beau’s little place behind the garage. Thus, my home was both creepy and barely used.
The church didn’t look like much from the outside—half-eaten by kudzu, paint peeled back to bare wood, windows dirt-blind. Its most striking feature was probably the stained glass window in the steeple, a depiction of the Garden of Eden, the only front-facing part of the church I actually kept clean because Amelia had always loved it.
Now, I was feeling incredibly self-conscious.
Because a girl was coming over and it looked like someone had trashed this place a decade ago and never bothered tidying up.
I saw June pull up in the driveway from where I was sitting in the loft near the stained glass window—definitely not watching for her—and I headed downstairs to let her in. I unlocked the double doors and pushed one open,hinges screaming like they were personally offended I would have guests.
June climbed out of her green SUV a moment later, then opened the back door to grab a large canvas tote. She was wearing jeans and a button-down linen tank tied at the waist, sunglasses perched in front of a messy blonde bun. She looked like she’d just wandered off the pages of Southern Living, right down to the plain, unassuming silver cross at her throat.
She looked…effortless. Casual.
Not like an exorcist. Definitely not like an ordained minister.
“I see you hung extra ivy for me,” she teased, glancing at the church as she walked up. “Thanks for that.”
“I try to be a good host,” I replied.
June stepped over the threshold like she belonged here, warped floorboards and musty air not fazing her at all. Her eyes flicked up toward the vaulted ceiling, then across the rows of disorderly, half-broken pews.
