Page 28

Tempest left her grandfather in search of her mystery guest.

The paved path that wended across the steep hillside between the main buildings of Fiddler’s Folly didn’t stretch to the Secret Fort. The unfinished stone structure didn’t yet have a full roof either, but it now had a door.

This was the small stone building that Tempest was making into her own home. For now, the unfinished structure held both Abra’s hutch and a big table for Tempest to think through the architectural plans to expand it into a house. The hutch was bigger than the six-foot worktable, fashioned in the shape of a sprawling castle, and Abra preferred lording over his dominion more than being inside the house with Tempest, even though he was house-trained. She could tell because the curmudgeonly lop-eared rabbit had no qualms about nipping at her heels or scratching on doors when he wanted to go somewhere else.

Tempest opened the door and found Abra happily resting in the arms of her visitor—a sight that made her do a double take.

Sanjay’s bowler hat rested on his head, but this wasn’t Sanjay. Gideon looked up from Abra and smiled at her.

She lifted the hat off Gideon’s head. It looked good on him, but it was jarring to see the hat on anyone besides Sanjay.

“Thanks,” he said. “This retro hat is surprisingly heavy.”

“You didn’t mess with anything inside, did you?” She flipped the black hat in her hands, which was more difficult than it looked from how casually Sanjay spun and flipped it.

“I tried not to touch it more than necessary, in case I accidentally dislodged a secret compartment. That’s why I left it on my head. Seemed the safest place for it.”

“You came by to bring back the sacred hat?”

“I wish I could say I was being so altruistic. I finished cleaning out my rental and did my walk-through with my landlord.”

“You’ve moved out already?” Tempest knew he was leaving in a few days, but it hit her that this was the end of an era. Even though he was renting, he’d made the small house in Oakland his own, especially the backyard, where he displayed his sculpture works in progress. He’d strung fairy lights throughout the yard that made it look as if the stone creatures, imbued with such personality from Gideon’s skill with stone, had come to life.

“In an attempt to get my security deposit back, I was being overly flexible. I shouldn’t have done it. I failed anyway.”

“What was your offense?” Tempest couldn’t imagine careful Gideon doing anything to damage a rental.

“I fixed the fireplace. How was I supposed to know he didn’t want a functioning fireplace? He said now he has to pay to seal it up again before someone else moves in.”

“Please tell me you didn’t leave that gorgeous dragon mantelpiece sculpture behind.”

Gideon had carved a sculpture in the shape of a dragon’s open mouth as the mantelpiece around the fireplace. When you lit a fire, it looked as if the dragon’s open mouth was breathing fire.

“Nope.” Gideon grinned. “The fireplace in the rental is now functional but stripped bare. My dragon is in the barn now until I figure out where it’s going. My boxes and suitcases are there as well.”

“Our workshop barn here at Fiddler’s Folly?”

“Your dad came to get the mantelpiece so I wouldn’t lose it, and he saw my car filled with all my stuff, so he asked what my plan was. I, uh, hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“You’re leaving in three days, and you hadn’t figured out where your stuff was going?”

He shrugged. “My mind’s been on other things. Aside from my sculptures, most of which have already been delivered to galleries, I don’t have that much stuff, so Darius insisted on keeping it here. He knows my parents aren’t close by, so he insisted I stay in one of your guest rooms.” He scratched under Abra’s chin and smiled at Tempest. “I’ll earn my keep by feeding Abra.”

“Three days,” murmured Tempest. “I can’t believe you’re really leaving.”

“I know.”

Tempest didn’t want to think about it, so instead, she said, “Were you seriously just standing here holding a bunny, not listening to music or a podcast, not reading anything on your phone, when you had no idea when I’d be back?”

He shrugged. “Abra and the stones are good company.”

“I’m glad to see the rumors of your cell phone addiction were exaggerated.”

Gideon set Abra back in his extravagant castle-shaped hutch. “Fighting my demons is still a work in progress. It is addictive.”

“You still have it, though, right?”

He nodded. “I know it comes in handy. I borrowed three historical fiction books from the library to remind me I don’t need a phone to entertain myself. If I don’t have time to get back to my local library before I leave, I might need to leave them with you to return for me.”

Tempest laughed. “Only you would check out physical library books with historical settings to get over cell phone addiction instead of internet articles on how to get over it.”

“It’s working so far.”

“Staying off your phone is working so well you didn’t text me you were here.”

“I figure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other for a few days. I thought… Actually, I don’t know what I thought. Or rather, I guess I didn’t know if you’d like it that I was crashing at your house.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I know it’s been fine when it’s a bigger group… but I wondered if you were mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad at you?” Her words came out more defensively than she’d meant them to. She wished she could take back the childish tone.

“Because I’m leaving for France.”

“You think I’m mad at you for accepting the internship?” Now her defensive tone had crossed the line into anger. She hadn’t been mad at him before, but now she was. “I never said anything like that.”

She set Sanjay’s hat on the table where she thought about plans for building out this partial structure into a house. She didn’t want to accidentally snap it in two.

Gideon ran a hand over the rough stone wall beside him before looking back at Tempest. “Exactly. You never said anything. You never acknowledged it at all .”

“Of course I did.” Didn’t she? “I totally did. We wrapped up all your skill-specific projects because we knew you were leaving.”

“Tempest. That’s Secret Staircase Construction. Not you . You never said anything. You never asked me to stay .”

She stared at him for five seconds. He was right. But she couldn’t tell him why. That she wanted, more than anything, to ask him to stay.

“We haven’t spent time on our own since I found out I got the internship,” Gideon said. “Not just the two of us. So I thought—”

Tempest threw her arms around him and stopped his words with a crushing hug. The warmth of his body and strength of his embrace felt more amazing than she wanted to admit. Both comforting and exciting.

She leaned back and looked at him. The man who saw things nobody else did. Who carved the most magical creatures in stone she’d ever seen. Who didn’t realize he’d forgotten to eat for sixteen hours while working on a carving. Whose shoes were perpetually covered in stone dust.

“Silly man,” she said. “I’m not mad at you. I’m sad that you’re leaving, but happy for you that you got this fantastic opportunity. I didn’t want to say anything, because you’re right . I would have asked you to stay.”

“And I would have,” he said softly.

She shook her head. “I know. Which isn’t fair to you. This is a great opportunity. That’s why I couldn’t say anything. Or even suggest spending time just the two of us. Luckily, it’s been so busy that there wasn’t time anyway. I’m sorry. I should have told you I’m sad and happy and proud and frustrated. All the things simultaneously.”

The edges of his lips ticked up into a smile. “Let’s make the most of my last few days in town and solve this murder. My last three days as an Abracadabra.”

Abra perked up at the sound of his name.

“How about we solve the murder by tomorrow,” said Tempest, “so you can attend the mystery play and try your hand escaping from a fun, non-poisoned escape room before you leave.”

“Sounds good. And you know this internship is only for three months.”

“I know…” Tempest knelt at Abra’s hutch before finishing her thought. She looked up from Abra’s mini turret and met Gideon’s intense gaze. “But what if you decide to stay?”

He looked at her even more intensely. Which, for Gideon, was saying a lot. “I’m not staying in France.”

“But you could. You never expected to be solving murders either.”

He drummed his calloused fingertips together. “Turns out, I’m pretty good at helping with that, aren’t I?”

Tempest raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t finagle your way into the guest room to keep an eye on me, did you?”

Gideon held his hands over his heart. “You think I’m that clever and deceitful?”

He was certainly that clever, but she doubted he had a deceitful bone in his body. He took a step closer to her and tucked a lock of windblown hair behind her ear.

Tempest expected him to step back after he’d fixed her errant lock of hair, but he didn’t. His hand lingered on her cheek, and he leaned forward—

The door slammed shut, plunging them into darkness in the unfinished stone tower.