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CHAPTER NINETEEN

I smell . . . French toast.

But it wasn’t just any French toast. It smelled exactly like the kind her Great-Aunt Fern used to make before she’d passed and Lilac’s mother had taken over as the family cook. No matter how hard Peony Hawthorne tried, she could never replicate how Fern had made it. Eventually, she’d just given up, and the family had gotten used to life without.

And now Lilac was smelling it again, just as her late great-aunt had made. It was nothing less than a siren’s song, evoking the memories of Lilac’s carefree days when she hadn’t been obsessed with how she looked or what she ate. Before Grandmother had discovered her talent .

As Lilac hurried down the stairs, nearly tripping over her feet in a very graceless manner, voices drifted up from the cellar. One in particular surprised her the most.

“Rose?” Lilac blurted. “What are you doing here?”

Her sister, who never saw the break of dawn if she could help it, sat on a bar stool at the trestle table, her brown hair piled into a messy bun. Her puffy pink robe swallowed her like some kind of carnivorous pastel cloud, allowing just her head and hands to poke free.

“Uh . . ..” Rose looked up from where she hunched over her plate like she was afraid someone was going to take it away from her. Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. “Eating breakfast?”

“I mean awake. Before eight in the morning.”

Her sister ate the bite on her fork then stabbed it in Allen’s direction. “I blame him. And his French toast.”

The caretaker bustled between the trestle table and the stove, cutting and dipping more challah bread into the spiced eggy custard before laying it gently in the skillet popping with hot grease. Bacon sizzled in a nearby pan; mushrooms and spinach sautéed in another. The cellar-kitchen was a wondrous blend of scents and stirred memories, but Lilac couldn’t take her eyes off Allen.

His freshly showered hair was a collection of tiny spikes on the top of his head, and a black T-shirt fit snugly across his broad shoulders. She followed the tapered V of his back to where the red plaid pajamas began and the beige ties of his apron swung. He looked . . . homey. And after what he’d said last night . . . she wondered if home was starting to have a different meaning for her. Not Hawthorne Manor. Not the estate she grew up in. Not her biological family. But the person who saw her for who she truly was.

He must’ve felt her eyes on him, for Allen glanced briefly over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth quirking upward and his eyes crinkling with a quick smile. He was in Don’t Burn The Food Mode, after all. “I made plenty, Lilac, if you want to try some. Still working on your omelet. Though, I will confess, it will most likely end up as scrambled eggs.”

Still half in a daze, Lilac didn’t reply but slid onto the bar stool next to her sister.

“And I’ll have you know,” Rose said, the words fighting to get past the food in her mouth, “I was already up to get a dawn skating in when I got distracted.” She tossed her head in the direction of the back door to where her ice skates leaned against the wall.

“In your pj’s and robe?” Lilac asked dryly.

“Yeah. Makes going back to bed easier that way.”

Grinning, Rose hacked off another wedge of French toast and shoveled it into her mouth with a happy moan. Melted butter and maple syrup dripped off her fork with every bite. Lilac’s stomach growled violently. Allen paused in his dipping, flipping, and stirring to tong some bacon onto Rose’s plate and slide a mug of green tea into Lilac’s stunned hands.

“By the Green Mother!” Lilac exclaimed, launching off her stool. “What happened to your face?”

The caretaker’s left eye was as purple as a sugared plum.

“Yeah, I about freaked out when I saw that too,” Rose commented, crunching down on some bacon.

“Oh, that.” Allen jerked his chin to the cellar door, which was presently opening. “Ask your brother.”

“Boar!” Lilac was just about to rip into him when she noticed the bruising marring his cheekbone and the odd set to his nose.

Boar lumbered over to the stove with the armful of wood he’d lugged in from outside and rearranged the split logs so they fit neatly in their holder. Her brother wasn’t flaunting his authority but . . . hauling in wood?

“Thanks,” Allen said. “Now wash your hands before breakfast.”

He flashed Boar an impish grin. The witch replied with his own feral smirk before cuffing the caretaker on the back of his head. Then he stalked off to the washroom to do as he was told.

“What is happening here?” Lilac demanded.

“What?” Allen drawled, whisking the eggs for his attempt at her omelet. “You don’t start off your day with bare-knuckle therapy?”

When they were at Hawthorne Manor, every day began with physical training. Hawthornes were of the belief that spells weren’t the only thing that could help them in a fight. Though, with Uncle Tod and the coven in Redbud, their training had become a little lax. Boar had led them in Uncle Tod’s absence, switching out their daily combat training for a grueling weight-lifting routine none of them enjoyed.

“And you didn’t heal him?” she asked her sister. “Or you?” she hollered at her brother in the washroom.

“I told him I’d do it after breakfast,” he hollered back.

“And what’s your excuse, Rose?” she pestered.

Rose shrugged. “Too busy eating. He already had the plate ready, and once I took a bite, well, I haven’t stopped.”

“You’re going to choke.”

“Worth it.” Rose paused in her devouring to chug some milk. She had four glasses in front of her, all at various fill levels: milk, orange juice, water, and black coffee.

She’s like a cup goblin , Lilac thought.

“By the Green Mother, it’s just like Great-Aunt Fern’s. Here.” Rose thrust a steaming forkful at Lilac. “Just try a bite.”

Lilac almost reached for it. Almost. Even now, the years of denying herself were whispering in her ear not to falter. That she wouldn’t be useful if she lost her beauty by even gaining a pound in weight.

Biting down on her lower lip, she glanced from the tantalizing food to Allen. Surely her refusal to try it wouldn’t offend him? And so what if it did? By his own admission he was a man with a past, with secrets she wasn’t sure were in her family’s best interests.

Right?

“You and your family have nothing to fear from me.” By the Green Mother, he’d been so sincere when he’d said that. Could it really be as simple as that? Surely the Hall wouldn’t have accepted him as Zofia’s successor if he meant them harm. Had she pegged him wrong all this time? From the way he’d looked at her last night, and how she’d responded to his attention . . .

“He’s not on the menu, Li,” Rose said, and a bit too loudly in Lilac’s opinion. “ This is.”

“Shut up , Rose,” she hissed.

“Your loss.” Rose returned to wolfing down her breakfast.

“Allen,” Lilac said hastily, desperate for a different conversation subject, “I can, um, try to heal you if you want. Rose and Boar are better at it, but I’m not terrible.”

He winked at her with his good eye, sending a zing into her abdomen. “Save your magic. I’m a fast healer, anyway, and Boar’ll fix up what I can’t later. He owes me for being his punching bag.”

“You volunteered,” her brother said, sitting down at the table.

Not on the available stool to Rose’s left, but down on the empty stool beside Lilac. He offered her a small smile that seemed like an olive branch, but she most definitely wasn’t ready to accept it yet. If he thought he could gloss over what he had done to her the past few days with such a simple gesture, he was dead wrong.

She picked up her mug and planted herself firmly on the other side of Rose and looked anywhere but at her brother. He didn’t say anything, but when he got up to occupy the spot she had vacated, Rose swung her leg out and slammed her foot down on the stool.

“Uh-uh,” she told him around a mouthful of food. He had made her cry yesterday, too.

Boar opened his mouth to protest, but when Allen cleared his throat while sliding a heaping portion of French toast and bacon in front of him, their brother thought better of it. He mumbled a thank-you to the caretaker and dug into his food.

“So, you volunteered to be a punching bag, did you?” Lilac asked Allen. As if Boar needed to work his frustrations out on him when he had his sisters to publicly humiliate. “Whatever for?”

He set her plate in front of her—the eggs indeed bore no resemblance to an omelet, but it still smelled appetizing. Though not nearly as divine as his French toast.

“Some need a quiet little chat by the fireplace, others need comfort food, and some need to work things out with their fists,” he answered.

“As long as I’m caretaker here, you will have my care. You all will.”

His expression looked mild as he sipped on his coffee, but there was no way he could miss the stunned look on Lilac’s face. He stared back at her for a moment over the rim of his mug, those golden-brown eyes stirring that hopeful spark inside her, and something much more besides, before he shifted his attention to the group.

“Now finish your breakfasts and get out of my kitchen,” he ordered with mock sternness. “That pond isn’t going to skate itself.”