Page 166 of Morally Black Betrothal

So it followed that, after I was wrung out from laying my soul at her feet in all the ways my words couldn’t manage, I would have given Simone Bishop the fucking moon if she’d asked for it.

A trip to meet her dad seemed like a minor ask in comparison.

Maybe I thought that coming here would help me find a way to tell her what I’d done.

Or maybe it would give me an idea on how to undo it.

Woodstock was exactly the kind of town that would nurture someone like Simone. White-trimmed colonial brick buildings lined the town’s main street with restaurants and artisan shops that catered to the weekend tourists, but the rest of the town spilled into the farmland and verdant mountains, a tight-knit community that was gradually giving way to wealthy vacationers.

I knew at least five people with second homes out here. It never occurred to me that I could, or maybe should, be one of them.

Until now.

“Turn left at the end of the street.”

Simone sat in the passenger seat, drumming her fingers against her thigh as I followed her direction onto a narrow road dividing a wood of maples and oaks. Her nervous energy matched mine, though I wasn’t sure why.

“Another mile down, and then right at the fork.”

I reached over the gearshift and stilled her fingers. “All right?”

Maybe we shouldn’t have left Boston so quickly after her niece’s return. I couldn’t lie—I’d been more than happy to leave Simone’s good-for-nothing sister in the care of Ruth. But Simone had been jittery since we’d left the city limits.

Even her smile, normally so warm and easy, was tight. “It’s been a while since I was home.”

“I thought you helped to take care of the place.”

“I do. With money, mostly. It’s…hard to come back here the way it is.” The hand I hadn’t captured started drumming on her thigh. “I paid the back taxes with the money you gave me, but the mortgage company says I can’t finish paying the rest of the debt without my dad. I’m not sure why.”

Guilt churned in my stomach. I knew exactly why that was, actually. The NDAs that had gone along with the contracts with Huntington precluded communication with the owners for two weeks.

I had to tell her what was happening.

I just didn’t know how to start.

A weathered wooden sign appeared around a copse of fir trees:Dandelion Farm - Est. 1847. The paint was faded, the wood gray with age, but something about it felt permanent in a way that most things in my life never had.

Simone directed me down a gravel drive that wound between split-rail fences and pastures dotted with grazing brown cows.

“Jerseys,” Simone said as one of them gave a great moo. “They produce the most milk fat. It’s really good for making cheese.”

The drive wound in front of a farmhouse that looked right out of a Winslow Homer painting, with white clapboard siding, black shutters, and a wide porch that wrapped around the front and side. Signs of neglect blemished the place, but all of it seemed more recent, as opposed to a home that had been left to rot for decades. According to the sign, the Bishops had cared for this property for nearly two hundred years. It was only recently that the roof had been left to moss, the shutters allowed to peel, and the vegetable garden abandoned to weeds.

The result of grief, according to Simone.

And yet, there was a sense of peace here too, evident in the way Simone’s hands stilled at last.

“Home,” she said softly.

It was like someone had strummed a chord deep inside me. The same reverberation I’d felt every time I’d seen her in the kitchen or when she walked into a room.

And now here.

I parked next to a battered pickup and followed Simone toward the house. The front door opened before we reached the porch, and a slight man emerged with wispy salt-and-pepper hair and shoulders stooped from years of labor. While the remnants of his once-dark hair were a contrast to Simone’s bright halo, their eyes were the same vibrant blue, though his were lined by grief and age.

Even so, they brightened the moment he saw his daughter.

“There’s my buttercup,” he called as he held out his arms.