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As expected, the interior of Jonquil and Beth’s home was a greenhouse that happened to have a few white walls. Every available surface had a potted plant on it, their vines trailing along shelves and spindles to form their own sort of decorative borders around the room. The few nonorganic items were framed photos from Beth and Jonquil’s wedding—just as outdoorsy and floral focused as Jess had secretly pictured it—and the Osbournes in happier times. Or at least, times when there had been more Osbournes at Chickenhawk Valley. And there appeared to be entire shelves filled with scrapbooks—so many scrapbooks.

Wow. For someone Jess had once suspected of being a drug dealer, Beth kept a really cheerful home.

Jess waved awkwardly to Sis as she slid onto a barstool, industrial metal painted a cheerful emerald. Sis was puttering around the spring-green kitchen, while Jonquil was clearly in charge of assembling the final touches of the meal. Sis slid a glass of deep red wine across the counter with a wink. “Don’t tell your roommates.”

Jess noted a cell phone on the counter. The wallpaper was a picture of Jonquil and Beth, grinning at the camera with their faces pressed together at the temple. Multiple notifications were popping up on that screen. Apparently, Jess’s confusion showed on her face.

“It’s a mountain, not the moon. We have a private Wi-Fi network here for family devices,” Jonquil told her, holding out a small chunk of crusty country bread soaked in barbecue sauce. Jess popped the bread into her mouth and closed her eyes to revel in the sweet-tangy-smoky taste. She thanked the universe for the healing power of carbs.

Beth told her, “The network shows up as ‘Sauna Temperature Controls.’?”

“I thought there was no Wi-Fi at the Golden Ash,” Jess replied around a mouthful of saucy-bread.

“This isn’t the Golden Ash,” Sis told her, making a wide gesture with a wooden spoon. “This is Osbourne family property. Streaming TV can exist on the Osbourne family property. In fact, it must, to fuel my awful reality show fix.”

“Ah,” Jess said, nodding and sipping her wine. It was a rich burgundy, earthy and heavy on the berry notes.

“More often than not, an emergency at Owen’s practice keeps him in town. Poppy’s at her office wrapping up some last-minute things. She’ll be along any minute,” Jonquil said as Beth spooned thick barbecue sauce over meatballs in an oversized trencher-shaped ceramic casserole dish with “The Meatballs” hand-painted in green letters on its side.

It occurred to Jess that Poppy had chosen someone who had the same instinct to help, to serve, that she had. As someone with those same tendencies, Jess recognized her own. Jess wondered how much that wore on them as a couple, whether the rest of the family was able to balance that out, to help them recharge the batteries that would inevitably run down.

“So, I have a question,” Jess said, sipping her wine.

“I’m sorry, Jess. We don’t have any more information about the Treadaway thing. Blister is still looking into it,” Beth told her. And even though that wasn’t the question that Jess was going to press, it did hurt a little bit to have it preemptively blocked.

“Oh, no—I mean, yes, I would like to know as much about Mr. Treadaway’s death as you’ll tell me, but I figured you weren’t going to tell me anything yet,” Jess assured them. “I get it. It’s family.”

Sis shot her a surprised but grateful smile.

“My question was, how did you go from scary goat farm to a luxury spot in the middle of Appalachia?” Jess asked, making Sis laugh.

“Trust me, it was not what I expected when I first landed at the Chickenhawk Valley airport,” Beth assured her. “The town gives a…different vibe.”

“Our family, with the exception of my mom, was…indulgent, I guess, is the right way to put it,” Sis said. “Trying to make sure that we enjoyed life at the hotel. They gave us room to explore our interests, which is why they were so open to offering spa treatments after Jonquil went through her super-hippie phase.”

“I’m sort of sorry I didn’t get to see that,” Jess told her.

“Me, too,” Beth agreed, only to have Jonquil smack her with a dish towel.

“Everything that could be treated with arnica was treated with arnica,” Sis said, shuddering. “ So much arnica.”

Jonquil rolled her eyes. “Our parents have retired to Florida or moved closer to town because as a group we agreed that living that close and working together was just a little too much togetherness. And I think after we changed over to the spa format, they felt a little…lost? They were used to having ownership of the business, but they didn’t know how to run a spa, and there was still this parental urge to correct what we were doing, even though they didn’t understand it, and it got a little tense there for a bit. You know how it is with parents—they never see you as a grown-up, not even when you’re fifty.”

Sis muttered something under her breath that Jess didn’t catch. Her own smile was forced. Jess didn’t know any such thing about parents, but she wasn’t about to bring that up. Her mother would never see her as an adult because she probably wouldn’t recognize her in a lineup. It was one of the reasons that Jess largely avoided social media. She didn’t want Hadley tracking her down.

Poppy bustled into the cabin. “I know, I know, I’m late. I’m sorry. Owen sends his love, but unnamed twins in town have chicken pox. Twice the itching, twice the dangerously high fevers.”

“Well, that stinks,” Sis replied, hugging Poppy to her side.

“Welcome, Jess,” Poppy said, accepting wine from her cousin.

Jess waved awkwardly from her seat on the barstool, chin balanced on the palm of her hand. She was used to quiet, orderly family gatherings with Nana Blanche. This was chaos—loud and bright and hectic. It was interesting watching each member of the family slide into their spot, serving their purpose within the group without even asking. The Osbournes belonged here, with one another, and they knew it. Jess wondered what it would be like growing up like that.

“Thank you for including me in Meatball Night Fight Club,” Jess told her, making Poppy snicker. She turned to Beth. “I get that you won’t give me the meatball recipe, but can you tell me what’s in the mud that smells like cinnamon and oranges?”

“I’d sooner tell you what’s in Nonna’s meatballs,” Beth told her as Jonquil shooed everybody toward the dinner table. “But I’m not going to do that, either. To be fair, most of the herbal recipes are Jonquil’s. I’m just mixing it together to save her time, but only because I enjoy the quiet irony of the one person in the bunch without a flower name stirring up the botanical compounds.”

“And she’s really good at it,” Poppy noted.

Jess nodded. “I guess you and Dean and Owen, kind of even things out, in terms of name averageness.”

“Isn’t your full name ‘Jessamine’?” Jonquil asked, smirking at her. “A flower name, by the way. Sort of jasmine-y and sweet-smelling.”

“Oh, right, I kind of forgot about that.” Jess waggled her head. “Jessamine was such an old lady name that I swore off it in elementary school.”

“Aw, you fit right in with the other blossoms. That’s nice,” Beth said, grinning at her. “Besides, Dean does have a flower name. Technically.”

Jess gasped, clapping her hands together and hopping up and down. “Is it Chrysanthemum? Please tell me it’s Chrysanthemum and he refused to go by Chrys. Please please pleasepleasepleaseplease !”

“I don’t know if we should be telling her this,” Poppy said, her chin retreating toward her chest. “There’s an unholy gleam in her eyes right now.”

“My brother’s name is Hemlock,” Sis told her.

“OK, that’s meaner than Narcissus,” Jess cried. “That’s an actual poison.”

“Our mom is an interesting person, and we don’t talk to her much,” Sis said dryly. “There’s a reason for that.”

“And what was he supposed to do?” Jess asked. “Go by Hemlock at school? Did she call him Lock?”

“Our. Mom. Is. An. Interesting. Person,” Sis said again, emphasizing each word.

“I identify very heavily with that. Change of subject: I’ve heard things about these meatballs,” Jess said, as Sis heaped six of them onto toasted garlic bread on Jess’s plate.

Beth waggled her fingers like a stage magician. “I put them in the smoker and slow cook them until they’re so tender and tasty that they’re practically meat marshmallows, and then I put them in a homemade barbecue sauce using a recipe that I got from a college roommate raised in Memphis—the very heart of good barbecue—which I will also not share with you.”

“Or me. I would like to point out that she will not share the meatball recipe with me,” Jonquil noted. “Despite the fact that we’re married and she knows all my herbal treatment recipes.”

“A girl has to maintain some mystery about her,” Beth replied. “Nonna would support that, even if she is deeply upset at the idea of her meatballs in barbecue sauce.”

“She handwrote a letter detailing her disappointment with the barbecue sauce treatment,” Jonquil mused, dishing up her own plate. “The whole family threatened to disown us.”

“I always thought it would be the lesbian thing that set them off, but really, it’s the barbecue sauce that got me nearly excommunicated,” Beth said. She shrugged and added, “Anyway, Jonquil’s told me all about your wedding group! Those girls you’re with sound awful .”

“Yeah, I don’t think we have the time or energy to deal with that can of worms tonight,” Jess said with a sigh, shutting herself up by shoving food in her mouth. Her fork paused midway back to her plate. She needed a minute to just be with this food experience. This was a symphony in her mouth. Bright, tangy sauce on soft, yielding savory-and-smoky meat. It shouldn’t have gone with the taste of a sophisticated burgundy, but it did. After swallowing, she reached across the table and squeezed Beth’s hands. “I know you’re taken, but can I marry these meatballs?”

The rest of the women cackled.

“I mean, Dean’s food is good, but this is…” Jess paused to eat another bite. “You can’t tell him I said that.”

“He accepts that I surpass him in this one area,” Beth said. “He’s pretty gracious about it, honestly.”

Sis picked up her own wineglass and said, “So, Jess, about Dean…”

“There’s no way for me to get out of this, is there?” Jess sighed as Poppy pointedly refilled Jess’s wineglass.

“I’m just saying, he talks to you. We like that he talks to you,” Sis replied. “But I have concerns.”

“He’s your brother,” Jess told Sis. “I don’t need you to give me the ‘if you hurt him, I will bury you in a shallow grave so the scavengers will turn your femurs into chew toys’ speech.”

Sis blanched. “Well, that was more graphic than I expected.”

Jess took another sip of wine. “I’m saying, I understand that if this flirtation goes wrong, there’s a lot of woodland acreage available to you.”

Sis looked vaguely uncomfortable. She looked to her cousins. “She’s threatening herself. It sort of takes the fun out of it.”

Meanwhile, Jonquil’s eyes narrowed. “So, you admit there’s a flirtation.”

“You forgot to say ‘Aha,’ babe,” Beth whispered.

Jonquil rolled her eyes, pointed her finger at the ceiling, and added, “Aha!”

“I’m not going to pretend Dean is unattractive ,” Jess said. “I can’t help but notice that he’s all…”

“Mysterious and broody?” Beth affected a falsetto.

Jess frowned. “I was going to say ‘unpredictably cranky.’?”

“In my brother’s defense, he has his reasons,” Sis assured her.

“We’re just gonna drop all of this on Jess on Meatball Night? Really?” Jonquil asked, glancing around at her cousins. “Meatball Night is supposed to be a safe place.”

“I don’t want his first attempt since it happened to go wrong,” Sis said, gesturing toward Jess. “If they’re gonna become a thing, it would be nice if she wasn’t walking into it blind.”

Poppy raised her hands. “Sis is right. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“Why do I need to be warned or armed?” Jess whispered. “Is Dean secretly a bank robber? Is that why he never leaves the kitchen?”

“Bank robbery would actually be a little simpler,” Jonquil said. “Readily available cash. The opportunity for fun disguises.”

“Jonquil, focus,” Beth reminded her gently.

“Right,” Jonquil agreed. She cleared her throat and made a more “serious” face.

“OK, no more coy preamble,” Sis said, turning to Jess. “Dean’s girlfriend disappeared about fifteen years ago.”

“I think I liked the coy phase,” Jess told her.

“Dean and Emma Lee were childhood sweethearts,” Poppy added. “Emma Lee was super smart. Like, ‘we kept waiting for the government to show up to recruit her for secret evil military projects’ smart. When we were still in high school, she made extra cash tutoring college students— including Sev Hardcastle, who was one of the few kids she said nice things about.”

When Jess’s brows rose in question, Poppy added, “Because Sev was always cooperative and paid on time. Anyway, Dean was good for Emma Lee. He softened her edges.”

“Really?”

“Dean was different back then. He was loud, spontaneous, and fun. But that faded away when Emma—well, we still don’t know if she left or something else happened,” Sis told Jess. “The last time we saw her, we were having a party down where we used to have a firepit. It was where the thermal suite stands now. Our shenanigans were just youthful stupidity. And by that, I don’t mean the youthful stupidity that leads to a Law & Order episode. Just a bunch of dumb kids sitting around a fire, drinking cheap beer, and telling stories about things that may or may not have happened. It was only about twenty of us. We didn’t even make a lot of noise.”

“But something happened at this party?” Jess prompted her.

“No, not really, which the police did not believe,” Poppy said. “Nobody fought, nobody argued. Emma Lee was there, and she was her usual snarky self. Everybody just sort of had their last beer and drifted off home. We woke up the next morning, thinking everything was fine, other than the fact that we needed to hide all the beer bottles before our parents saw. We started cleaning up and Blister, who was a deputy then, showed up, saying that Emma Lee’s mother had called, hysterical, because she never came home.”

“We never heard from Emma Lee again. Dean blamed himself, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. He’d been exhausted that night, worked a long shift in the kitchen and had a few beers. He kissed Emma Lee good night and turned in before the rest of us,” Sis said, staring out the window into the shadows. “And none of us noticed when Emma Lee headed home. You know how loud kids can be when they’re all together. If someone just peels off from the group quietly, you don’t even see it. And Emma Lee always walked home, so it’s not like we saw her drive off.”

Jess blurted out, “She walked? From here?”

Sis smiled sadly. “Emma Lee had this special shortcut that she used to take across the valley. She loved it, her own special secret path to us. She managed to accomplish that in a family—hell, in a town—where having a secret isn’t exactly easy.”

“She wouldn’t show any of us where it started, where it ended,” Poppy said. “She said she liked having one thing that was just for herself. And when she went missing, Dean wandered all over the woods trying to find it, find her. He was so angry with himself for going to sleep that night without making sure Emma Lee was home safe. The weeks went on, then months. Blister was no help. Dean sort of went dead inside. Emma Lee’s dad made some noises about suing our parents, saying they were negligent, letting us have parties. They said we let Emma Lee go missing.”

“It was the not knowing that was the worst part,” Sis said. “He didn’t know if she ran away. He didn’t know if she was taken by some psycho. He didn’t know if she was living or dead. And the police couldn’t help, really. They didn’t even know where to start.”

Jess thought of Susan Treadaway and her certainty that Jeremy’s death was an accident, how she seemed to take comfort in the fact that if her anguish hadn’t driven her to kill him, nothing else he did could provoke murderous rage. Even if she was wrong, according to Owen, what would it be like not to have that certainty—not to know what happened to someone you loved? For more than a decade?

“Emma Lee’s house was always such a damn mess that her parents couldn’t tell if anything was missing,” Jonquil added. “But if she ran away, I like to think she would have at least let Dean know she was OK—called or sent a postcard or something.”

“When he started making money, Dean hired a private detective to see if he could find her through tax records, legal name changes, what have you,” Sis said. “But…nothing.”

“Did people around here suspect Dean or something? Is that why he’s so reclusive?” Jess asked.

“Not really,” Poppy said. “You’d think in a town like this, that it would be something that hung over us for years, inspired a podcast or something, but people just kind of forgot Emma Lee was ever here. She wasn’t exactly beloved, and people were sort of relieved when her parents faded out of the community. And I think that made it worse on Dean, that nobody gave her that kind of attention. People assumed she’d run away, that she wanted to get away from her family, wanted that more than she wanted Dean. And if not, if it was something more sinister, well, the Redferns were always unstable, and who would expect anything else?”

“Even when he moved home, he hid away in the kitchen, and we just let him because who were we to tell him that was wrong?” Sis said. “Jamie was the only one who could even talk to him regularly.”

Jess sat back in her chair, blowing out a breath. Dean wasn’t prickly. He was in pain. Well, both things could be true. He was prickly because he was in pain. And she knew what that was like. A handful of years was just scratching the surface in terms of recovering from the uncertainty of a loved one disappearing.

Plus, it felt a little icky lusting after Dean when he was still pining for a lost love. Frankly, Emma Lee’s personality reminded her a lot of Kiki—smart, independent, ambitious, all without getting support from a family who didn’t give a damn about her.

“Well…fuck,” Jess huffed out.

Poppy nodded, lips pursed. “That just about sums it up.”

“Is he going to be upset with you for sharing all this with me?” Jess asked.

“Probably,” Sis said, jerking her shoulders. “But again, he’s talked to you more than he’s talked to anybody outside the spa family in years, so we’d like to encourage that.”

After a long, silent moment of contemplation, Beth slapped the table lightly. “To salvage Meatball Night, on to more cheerful subjects. Let’s talk shit about the mean girls you’re hanging out with.”

Jess laughed. “Oh, I don’t think that’s safe for me after three glasses of wine.”

“OK, we won’t get too hateful and detailed, but I have to ask—I know about Tillard Pecans, but how did the Helstons make their money?” Poppy asked. “Because that girl acts like her family is the backwoods Kennedys or something.”

Jess mulled this over. Did her “no shit-talking the client” policy apply to talking badly about the client’s family?

The three glasses of wine she’d consumed said no.

“I think there was only one generation of Helstons that had any money sense,” Jess said. “And that was Diana’s great-great-grandfather. Back in the forties, he started a company that made parts for rotary phones. It was really profitable for a time. The family settled into wealth pretty quickly, bought a lot of property and built big houses, but none of the generations since have had grandpa’s entrepreneurial vision. And they figured everybody loved rotary phones just as they were. After all, you didn’t have to crank it like the original version.”

Jess paused to mime turning the hand crank on the sort of phone that required you to shout into a horn while you held a cup-shaped receiver to your ear. “They thought it would stay that way forever. But another faction of the family persuaded the stodgier relatives to diversify…into phone books.”

While the other women groaned, Beth hissed in mock pain. “Ouch, sort of a postmillennial one-two punch to the generational wealth.”

“Yup. And phone technology evolved over time, without the Helstons adapting their strategies. The family coffers all but emptied. By the time Diana was born, the Helston Regional White Pages had pretty much died off. And the family was convinced that the only way to maintain the appearance of wealth was to marry it.”

“And the Tillards have the wealth,” Poppy said, nodding.

“In spades,” Jess agreed. “The Tillards are old money enough not to splash it around on big boats and cars or…basically all the things that make Diana happy, which is sort of what’s putting her on edge. I think she’s afraid that Trenton’s parents will change his mind before she gets down the aisle.”

“Wouldn’t it be—” Jonquil’s question was interrupted by Owen walking in.

“I know, I’m late again, but I was healing sick, adorable children,” Owen announced. His voice boomed so loudly that Jess thought maybe he had a career as a Santa ahead of him, once his beard went more silver than dark brown. “Can I please have forgiveness in the form of meatballs?”

Dean appeared in the door behind him. “I was not healing sick children, but I was making last-minute, late-night room service orders for whiny guests. Does that qualify me for forgiveness meatballs?”

Jess could only hope that the whiny guests weren’t part of her own group. But she was sure she was wrong.

Jess glanced at the clock on Jonquil’s wall. “I better get back. It’s getting late.”

How long had they been talking? She scrambled to pick up her dirty dishes, only to have Beth take them out of her hands.

“Put those down,” Beth told her. “Jonquil will take care of them tomorrow morning, Meatball Night rules. I cook, she cleans.”

Jonquil nodded. “It’s harsh, but fair.”

“Well, some of us have to be up early,” Dean said. “So I’m gonna take my meatballs and run. But I can walk you back to your villa, Jess, if you’d like.”

Jess nodded. “I will accept your offer, but only because the last guy who wandered around unattended—well, you know.”

She immediately felt bad for mentioning Jeremy Treadaway when they were having such a nice time. Dammit, three-drink Jess.

But Poppy merely shrugged. “I’d feel better knowing you’re safe.”

Dean accepted his to-go container from Jonquil. He grinned at Jess. “Well, at least this time you’re not trying to lure me into isolated places in the dark.”

“I lured you into one isolated place in the dark,” she retorted.

“What?” Sis asked, stopping in her tracks as she carried the meatball dish to the sink.

“Technically, he followed me with very little luring required,” Jess scoffed.

Dean said, “When I surprised her, she threw a glass water bottle at me and hit me square in the chest. If it was a sharp object, I could have died. It was weirdly alluring.”

Jess watched the Osbourne cousins’ faces shift in delight, disbelief, hope. It was a little weird how happy Dean’s family seemed that she’d hurled a glass projectile at him—but it felt like a stamp of approval. And she wasn’t sure if she was quite ready for that yet.

“And on that note, let’s go,” Jess said, slipping out the front door and dragging Dean with her.

Poppy yelled after her, “Spoilsport!”

“You are the worst,” she told Dean as they left the porch, making him snort.

“Ah, I was messing with them more than you,” Dean told her. “They’re shifting into their meddling auntie phase much earlier in life than I expected them to.”

Jess stayed mostly quiet on their walk back to the villa. With all the information that the cousins had dumped into her head, she didn’t know what to say or how to say it. If she opened her mouth, more than likely she would blurt out something horrible, or embarrassing, or horrible and embarrassing. But it wasn’t uncomfortable, sharing companionable silence like this.

“You OK?” he asked. “They weren’t too rough on you, were they? Sometimes they forget that boundaries are, you know, real.”

“Oh, no, they’ve been great,” Jess assured him. “It’s just been a long couple of days.”

He nodded. “So, between us, Owen was not in town curing sick, itchy children.”

“Was he in town curing sick, itchy adults?” Jess asked.

“He was videoconferencing the medical examiner in charge of Treadaway’s case,” Dean said. “He didn’t want to worry Poppy. She’s under a lot of pressure.”

“What did the medical examiner have to say?” She didn’t mean to pounce on that so quickly, but again, three-drink Jess.

Dean hesitated for a moment. “I understand that my family wants to keep you in the dark about this because we don’t know you very well. I’m telling you because I saw the look on your face when you found Treadaway’s body. We owe you this much. And I’m trusting you not to repeat it. Not to the people in your party. Not to anyone.”

Jess asked, “Has Poppy made it clear that I have basically no loyalty to anybody in my party beyond the financial?”

“Yes, and that doesn’t make me feel better about you spending time with them,” he replied.

“I promise not to repeat this to anybody,” she said, holding up her right hand in a mock oath. “Unless Poppy asks me directly—I won’t lie to anybody in your family.”

“Oh, no, Owen will find a way to tell her without worrying her. He just wanted to give her time to process away from everybody,” Dean said. “So, there was no alcohol or drugs in Jeremy’s system. He didn’t have any head wounds. I think Blister just assumed that. There was no obvious reason a fully grown adult man should have fallen face-first into that water and not been able to get himself out.”

“So what does that mean?”

“More tests,” he said. “Owen said the stomach contents didn’t look right, even in the photos. He said the mushrooms in Treadaway’s gut look like morel mushrooms. But I don’t use morel mushrooms. Never have.”

“Why not?”

Dean shrugged. “Personal preference? I grew up eating chicken of the woods mushrooms and like to work with them. They’re this beautiful orange color that looks really nice on a plate. I have a good local supplier. And my granny thought morels were bad luck or something.”

Jess frowned. “Do you think Jeremy picked mushrooms on his own and…snacked on them?”

She’d heard of people from the more rural areas of Tennessee foraging for food in the woods. Hell, one of Nana Blanche’s friends used to brag about earning her Christmas budget by digging ginseng every autumn on a cousin’s hunting tract. But in general, people didn’t mess with mushrooms unless they were experts. Was Jeremy Treadaway foolhardy enough to think himself an expert?

Jess mentally reviewed what she knew of Jeremy.

OK, yeah, that tracked.

“I would say only an idiot would do that, but it feels rude to speak ill of the dead,” Dean said.

“At least it’s being taken seriousl—” Jess paused as they passed the thermal suite. She tilted her head at a curious angle, watching a strange single light bounce in the trees far beyond Tranquility and Serenity.

Was she really seeing this?

Jess’s Big Book of Life Plans: Schedule optometrist exam when you get back to town. Maybe a CAT scan.

“Will-o’-the-wisps again.” She rubbed at her eyes.

“I don’t see anything.” Dean got quiet for a moment and her gaze returned to the trees. If she’d seen a light, ghostly or otherwise, it was gone now.

“So, you went to the same school as those girls?” Dean asked.

“Just Diana.”

“How did the fancy school translate into ‘proposal planning’?” Dean asked. “Don’t most people who go to that sort of place end up in…what’s a nice way to say ‘fancier jobs’?”

“I got a scholarship to Harrow based on my ‘fancy’ Wren Hill transcripts and a nice recommendation from the headmistress,” Jess said. “The wedding planning thing was one of the few paid internships I could find. My grandmother needed help with the bills. A professor helped me get it through a friend of a friend. I liked it more than I thought I could, watching an event that started as this faint idea come together into this beautiful complex thing that made people smile—even if people acted like absolute lunatics to get there. When Angenette offered me a job, the money was too good to walk away from, even as a junior planner. And then I was able to start my own business.”

“I get it. I mean, I never really wanted my own restaurant,” he confessed. “I know that’s the dream for most chefs, but it’s so much work that has nothing to do with cooking—paperwork, staffing, paperwork.”

“You said ‘paperwork’ twice,” Jess noted.

“Yes, I did,” he told her. “I really hate paperwork. This place is sort of the best of both worlds, because Poppy does most of that for us. And I get to control the kitchen and concentrate on what I enjoy.”

“Is paperwork the part that Poppy enjoys?” Jess asked.

“Weirdly, yes.”

They moved toward her villa but paused as they heard Trenton’s voice singing some college football fight song inside Serenity Villa at the top of his lungs. It wasn’t easily identifiable, but having attended the same college, Jess knew it wasn’t their alma mater’s. And the sad thing was, he sounded sober, just loud.

“Are you sure you’re all right with those guys around?” Dean asked, his fingers slipping around her wrist. Jess was distracted for a second by a flash of yellow in the trees behind their villa. She shook her head and squinted, but whatever it was, if it had been there in the first place, was gone. “Look, I don’t know Trenton, but the Hardcastles, they’re not good people. They think money can buy them out of anything. And the scary thing is, they’re not all wrong.”

“Sev’s all right,” Jess said, shaking her head. “Trenton’s harmless. Chad’s just an emotionally impervious man-child mess.”

Dean seemed unconvinced, and didn’t let go of her hand, even when they climbed the steps of her villa. He didn’t seem very happy when she opened the unlocked door. “Just lock up behind yourself, OK?”

Jess wanted to protest that he was being overprotective of someone he barely knew, but then she remembered, his girlfriend had disappeared. And Jess had recently found a dead body nearby. Asking her to lock up wasn’t a stretch.

“You’re very sweet,” she told him. “Sometimes, when the mood hits you. And the stars are aligned just right and the wind blows from the north—”

“Oh my God.” He snorted out a laugh, set the meatballs aside, and moved his hands lightning-quick to cup her face. He pressed his mouth to hers, tasting of spice and a special warmth that was just Dean. She melted against him and pulled him closer. She hoped no one was watching from either villa, because this was something she wanted just for herself. His hands, rough and warm, moved from her jawline to her hair and she wanted to stay there, on this porch, until the mountain fell away.

But then a noise from inside her villa startled her and she pulled back. Dean’s hold tightened on her, but when no one came barreling out of the villa, calling her a traitorous hussy, they relaxed. Over Dean’s shoulder, she noticed motion at Zephyr’s villa. The door opened and Chad crept out, shoes and pants in hand.

“Oh, ew,” Jess whispered.

Jess supposed that Chad’s late-night visit meant that Beth’s ointment had resolved Zephyr’s “injury.” Or maybe it hadn’t, Jess really didn’t want to know. She crooked her finger at Dean and they moved quietly around the corner of the villa, out of Chad’s line of sight. As they moved, Jess heard the clinking of an empty glass bottle rolling across the deck, followed by Chad cursing.

From the shadows, they watched Chad tiptoe like a cartoon villain back to Serenity Villa. He stopped, dropping his shoes and bending over into the bushes. The sounds of him piteously retching echoed across the mountain. Dean and Jess shared an anguished glance.

She sighed, “This is consistent with the rest of my stay here.”

“I don’t feel like you’re experiencing the Golden Ash at its best,” Dean whispered.

“It’s not your fault,” Jess told him. “Good night.”

“Good night. Lock up tight,” he said, giving her one last kiss that stretched a little longer than she was comfortable with, given the proximity to one of Chad’s hookups. She pulled back.

“Because of the pantsless wonder?” Dean guessed. “And the puke?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed and she edged away, waving. She opened the door, wincing at every little noise as she closed it behind her.

Touching her fingers to her lips, she wondered how long it would take Dean to get back to his house. She wasn’t sure if it was the tragedy of Emma Lee or drunken Chad’s proximity, but something felt unsafe, knowing Dean was out there alone.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought of the will-o’-the-wisp, and wondered if Dean would stay on the safe path if he saw one in the woods.