Page 34 of Gather the Storm

“Anyone else want coffee?” Rock asked, getting out of bed.

I raised my hand. If we were going to dredge up all the shit that had happened in the winter, I was going to need a fuck ton of coffee.

“Me three,” Drago said.

Rock pulled on his sweats and headed for the door. He looked back at Willa, tangled up in Drago and me. “Need anything else while I’m up, kitten?”

Willa fluttered her eyelashes drastically. “I think I have pretty much everything a girl could ask for.”

She was being funny but I knew she meant it too, knew she was happy, and nothing in the world made me happier than making Willa happy. It had become my mission in life to make sure she stayed that way. I was ready to put the past behind us once and for all — the missing girls included.

Which was why I wanted to get this fucking meeting with Jace, Wolf, and Otis — the fucking Blackwell Beasts themselves — over with.

Then I was going to fuck my girl.

Again.

Chapter 18

Daisy

Cantwell Holdings was set up in an old brick building on Main Street a few doors down from Cassie’s coffee shop. I’d been told by Diane Mancini, the office manager who’d interviewed me, that the location was temporary. Once the resort was built on the land Piers Cantwell had bought from my dad, the offices would move there.

Honestly, I hadn’t planned to be with the company that long. I was just doing this while I worked on the house and put the issue of Blake’s murder to rest once and for all.

But Otis was right: it wasn’t the worst spot to land an internship. Working in the planning office of a resort that didn’t exist yet had seemed light-years away from a career in interior design, but once the resort did exist, there would be tons of design work.

And okay, maybe it was a stretch to think they’d hire me, a fledgling designer with no experience and a two-year marketing degree, but at least it was a possibility, and I was in need of some possibility right now.

I parked and checked my hair and lip gloss in the visor mirror before stepping out of the car. It was just before 9 a.m. and Main Street was busy.

Halfway down the block, a couple entered Cassie’s Cuppa just as an older man came out carrying two paper cups, and a group of people I recognized from high school crossed the street and headed for Big Billy’s, the diner sandwiched between the used bookstore and the flower shop.

I turned away from the group heading for the diner, hoping they hadn’t seen me. High school had been weird. I’d had about three months of normalcy — three months when I’d just been Daisy Hammond, Blake Hammond’s little sister — before he was murdered.

No one had ever treated me the same after that, even after the Beasts confessed to doing it. Being accused of murdering your own brother had a way of sticking to a girl like a bad smell.

Talk about a reputation killer.

Anyway, the last thing I needed after what had already been a weird morning (waking up in the old house, the moment with Wolf in the kitchen, the realization that I really was living with Blake’s best friends for the foreseeable future) was an awkward catch-up with a bunch of kids who’d barely been able to look at me in high school.

Lucky for me they either hadn’t seen me or weren’t any more eager to talk to me than I was to them. They disappeared inside Big Billy’s and I headed for the brick building where I’d be working two days a week.

I’d just crossed the street and stepped onto the curb when the fine hairs rose on the back of my neck.

I turned quickly, half expecting to find someone there — maybe Sarai on her way to Cassie’s or someone else I’d known from high school — but my car stood alone against the curb, the sidewalk empty.

I hurried for the door of the brick building, suddenly anxious to get inside.

The foyer was small but clean. Two doors flanked a set of narrow stairs with the original mahogany banister. They’d probably been apartments when the building had first been built, but according to the brass plaques next to the doors, they were now occupied by a psychotherapist and lawyer respectively.

I started up the stairs and emerged onto the second-floor landing. Here there was only one door, the brass plaque announcing the tenant as Cantwell Holdings.

I straightened my skirt, took a breath, and opened the door.

The office was just like I remembered it, a generically appointed lobby with beige carpet, a couple of chairs, a fake plant, and a coffee table strewn with magazines likeForbesandFast Company.

It was quiet. Like, hello-is-anybody-here quiet.

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