I asked her only once why that date. Why not his birthday or their wedding day? Or any other date that wasn’t associated with blood and a dead body?
Well, no one will ever guess that date, will they, my darling? It’s too morbid, so it’s the last thing anyone would think I’d use.
Sitting at her dressing table in her room, slathering her hands with some fancy cream that arrived by courier every six weeks from France. I’ve never smelled it before or since, but I bet it still lingers in the rooms of Ashby House. Sharp lavender, so astringent it almost made your eyes water, and some other scent underneath, woodsy and rich.
I’d been ten, maybe? Something like that. Too young to point out the obvious alternatives.
No one would guess random numbers, either. Or digits from a phone number you barely use. Or my real birthday since you just told everyone it was the same day as yours so we could celebrate at the same time. So why the fuck is it this day? Why do you want to remember that date every time you go in and out of those gates? Why––
“Cam?”
I blink, and realize Jules is looking at me, her hand on my arm. I’ve stopped the car without realizing it, and the gates to Ashby House rise up before us.
There’s a wrought iron fence running out in either direction from the granite columns, but—family secret here—it doesn’t enclose the whole property. A section fell down about twenty years ago, and Ruby never bothered to get it fixed.
If I got out of the car right now, I could walk along this fence with my eyes closed, and I’d know exactly where that hole was, and I fucking hate that.
I hate that this place still lives inside of me.
“Sorry,” I tell Jules now. “Zoned out trying to remember the code.”
Her eyebrows draw together, concern puckering her lips. “The code?”
“To open the gate.”
Now she’s openly frowning. “Camden,” she says slowly. “It’s … it’s already open, babe. See?”
In my mind, the gate loomed up to the sky, bars thick and black, locking McTavishes inside, locking anyone else out.
But now I see that if you were in decent shape and had stretched first, you could probably climb the gate with no problem. And the bars are thinner than I remembered, flecked with rust now, some of the filigree details almost eaten through with it.
And Jules is right—one side of the gate hangs half open.
Stepping out of the car, I get my first deep breath of that North Carolina mountain air, feeling my chest expand with it. Pine, the loamy smell of damp earth, the slight chemical tang of a thunderstorm not too far away.
It smells like home.
Because, like it or not, that’s what this place is.
I push the gate all the way open and get back into the car.
Next to me, Jules is still looking a little worried, so I throw her a quick smile and make my voice as cheerful as I can. “You ready for this?”
“Are you?” she counters, and I laugh, but it’s a weak sound, more like a huff of air than an actual chuckle.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
And then I put the car in drive, and let Ashby House pull me back in.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jules
Before Cam, I’d never been in love before. And before you’re like, “Well, that’s sad,” let me remind you that we met when I was all of twenty-one years old, so pump the brakes on throwing me a Sad Spinster Shower, okay?
And naturally, given that I’d married the love of my life, I assumed I’d never fall in love again. One and done.
That was before I saw Ashby House.
I could tell as we drove up the mountain that Cam was tense, his jaw clenched, his fingers doing that nervous drumming thing. It made me feel shitty, sitting there with champagne bubbles in my veins while he seemed to sink further and further into misery, but I couldn’t help it. We were so close, and I knew that once we were there, once Cam had me in Ashby House, he’d understand that it wasn’t the place. It was the people.
The place could be amazing. The place could be ours.
It already felt like ours as we climbed into the clouds, the trees forming a protective arch overhead, shutting out the light and the rest of the world.
Even the gate, sagging open like a mouth, covered in red spots of rust, was beautiful to me, that’s how much I was prepared to love everything about Ashby House.
But I still wasn’t ready for the way my heart lifts and my stomach swoops when the house itself finally comes into view.
I don’t see the sunflowers Cam had mentioned, but maybe that’s for the best because it means there’s nothing else vying for my gaze as I drink in the home in front of us.
The pictures I’ve seen on the internet don’t do it justice. It looked gorgeous in 2D, and I could tell it was impressive in scale, but those Google images can’t capture how perfectly the house seems to nestle into its surroundings. The way it looks eternal, immovable. A fortress on a mountain made of thick gray stone and tall windows, surrounded by trees on three sides and behind the house, nothing but treetops and clouds and sky.
The gravel we’d been driving on turns to stone, too, a smooth gray ribbon that makes a graceful arc at the front of the house. Wide steps lead up to a wraparound porch. I see a swing in one corner, rocking chairs lining the wall on the other side of the front door.
Big planters sit on either side of the steps, overflowing with dark purple mums, and I spot several hanging ferns in the shadows under the porch roof.
In the driver’s seat, Cam gives a sigh that seems to come from the very bottom of his soul, and I turn to look at him, hoping that maybe he’s realized he was wrong about this place after all. That he can see the beauty that is so plainly in front of him.
But he just seems tired. Wary.
He does smile, though, a little bit, when he meets my eyes. “Home sweet home,” he says, his voice flat, and I lean over to press a kiss on his cheek.
“Thank you,” I say. “For bringing me here. I know you didn’t want to, but––”
“I want what you want,” he replies, and if the words sound a little rote, I’m okay with that. We’re here, aren’t we?
I turn back to the house. The front door is actually two doors, big slabs of dark wood that look like they could withstand a battering ram.
Tall, narrow windows frame the entry, and I think I catch a flicker of movement on the left, the briefest flash of a face, too quick for me to see if it was a woman or a man.
As I open the car door and step out onto the drive, I keep my gaze on those doors, waiting for them to open. Someone’s there, clearly, and has seen us, and I move around to the trunk to get my bag, expecting to hear the clicking of a lock, a greeting.
Cam comes up next to me, reaching for his bag as well, and I nod toward the house. “No welcoming committee?”
He snorts, throwing a quick glance at the firmly closed doors. “I’d be less surprised to walk into a firing squad.”
“It just seems like they should be nicer to you,” I say, slamming the trunk shut, “given that you own the place.”
But Cam is already shaking his head. “First of all, you need to know that the word ‘should’ does not exist to these people. There are lots of things they ‘should’ do, but if they don’t want to do something, they don’t do it.”
“Like be nice to the guy who pays the bills.”
“Or tip,” he adds, and I bump my hip against his.
“Or pay taxes?” I guess, and he makes one of those amused sounds that isn’t quite a laugh.
“They do that now, but only because I hired a new accountant. And they also clearly don’t take care of sunflower gardens.”
He points, and now I see the brown, crunchy stalks that must have once been bright yellow flowers, tall enough to hide in.
Moving closer to him, I thread my arm through his. “We’ll plant new ones,” I promise, and he looks down at me, one blue eye, one brown, neither giving away what he’s thinking.