The Sweetest Obsession: Chapter 14

I wonder if Grant still likes his meals slathered in sriracha.

I stand in the grocery store aisle, studying a few bottles from different brands.

Hot sauce was a staple back when we were kids. First the good old Louisiana pepper sauces, then the more exotic options that started trending and seems designed to make you cry.

Ethan and I couldn’t handle the spicy stuff—but Lord knows we pretended to keep up and gave into stupid kid food dares—while Grant could probably eat a mouthful of Carolina Reapers whole without blinking.

I remember the first time Ethan brought his new best friend home for dinner. Grant brought his own freaking hot sauce and offended my mom mightily by dumping it all over her cooking.

Eventually, she realized that’s just Grant, and the insult turned into an ongoing joke that never failed to make us laugh.

Oh, if Mom could only see me now, staring at these neon-red bottles of hot sauce and wondering if there’s anything I can cook that will be fiery enough for that giant grump.

He found you pretty fiery last night, at least.

Oh, God. That’s terrible.

Laughing at my own dumb joke, I cover my mouth with one hand.

Yeah, I’m a flustered wreck right now.

Grinning for no good reason, blushing every other minute, and all I’m trying to do is pick up groceries.

I certainly didn’t have ‘domestic goddess’ on my coming home to Redhaven bingo card, yet here I am.

Is it really just this easy? Is anything?

Grant and I just falling back into each other, only it’s ten times better than just being friends.

Because now all my girlish dreams have come true and then some.

I just wish Mom and Ethan were here to see it.

I wish they could give me endless crap about it, teasing me up and down.

I’d kill to hear them tell me my stubbornness paid off, this hopeless girl mooning after an oblivious moose of a man for a flipping decade.

That’s pretty sobering.

So is the grim fact that Mom’s more likely to see Ethan again than her waking up and seeing me with Grant.

My laughter dies and the butterflies in my stomach go dormant again.

The bottle of eye-burning sriracha in my hand blurs. With a hurt breath full of the broken shards of my heart, I drop it into my cart, turning away.

I want to believe what he said—that my mother’s too stubborn to let go when she’s beaten this disease before.

But if this round of ultra-experimental chemo and its induced coma doesn’t work, I know what’s next.

I can’t think about it.

Struggling to breathe, I turn away, gripping the handles of my shopping cart—only to draw up short as a voice behind me calls my name.

“Ophelia? Ophelia Sanderson, is that you?”

I take a few seconds to compose myself and pull on a smile for Janelle Bowden.

Such a sweet woman.

It’s been ten years since I last saw her, but she’s still the same vibrant, warm lady with a trim figure and a no-nonsense bob. Looks like the red in her hair has almost fully gone grey, but I still see a few faint ghosts among the silvery strands.

There’s something else different about her, too, I think.

Her smile looks harder to find and there’s something haunted around her eyes. Like she’s faced unspeakable tragedy over the last decade, the sort that can age a person well beyond their years.

Oh, no. What happened?

I try to remember anything Mom or Ros might’ve told me, but I’m blanking.

Her husband’s still alive, so it can’t be him.

There’s been no terminal illness, she’s been fine as far as I know.

Right now, she’s putting on a front of enthusiasm as she abandons her cart to approach me, reaching out for a hug.

“It is you! Why, you’ve grown up into such a beautiful young woman.”

Oh, boy.

I don’t try to escape.

This is Redhaven, after all.

If you’re from here, you’re always from here, and if you leave for so much as a week, you’re going to get hugged to death by the nice people when you come back.

So I just smile and pull Janelle into my embrace.

It’s a good distraction, a bit of comfort, this motherly woman holding me close for a few moments to ease my wandering thoughts.

“Good to see you, Janelle.” I pull back. “How’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know,” she says with a little cluck of her tongue. “No big changes. I’m as boring and predictable as a summer squash. But you.” Her soft sound of sympathy is twinged with pain. “Oh, sweetheart, I wish you were coming home under happier circumstances.”

“…yeah. Me too.” I swallow hard, brushing my hair back from my face, forcing my smile to hold. “But it is what it is. I’d rather be here for her than not.”

“You are a sweet girl.” Janelle cups my cheek. “Are you settling in all right? How’s Ros taking things?”

“I…” For a second, I almost spill everything.

It’s on the tip of my tongue, this rough, angsty confession, but I can’t.

Janelle is way too lovely to trouble with my drama.

So I just shrug and smile.

“I’m managing, you know? Seeing old friends helps a ton. Grant, he’s been wonderful. Ros, she’s…” I shake my head. “I think she’s just super busy. But I can’t blame her, it’s a big job running the shop.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Something strange pinches Janelle’s face with a worried look. “…about that.”

My eyebrows go up.

I hesitate.

“Is there something I should know?”

“Maybe, maybe. Honest to God, I’m not sure.” Janelle screws her lips up before she glances over her shoulder, patting my arm. “Finish your shopping first, dearie, and then I’ll treat you to coffee. What do you say?”

Janelle flies through catching me up on ten years of town history as we finish our shopping together—little things like who moved away, who came back, the new out-of-towners who bought the Yardsdales’ lovely old vacation home, the tourist who drowned in Still Lake about six years back, who adopted a dog, who had a kid, and who had three boyfriends in one year.

All those little tidbits of small-town gossip you end up steeped in day in, day out, condensed into a single hour until I’m dizzy.

I’m still pretty grateful for the distraction when her ominous little comment stoked my worries again.

But I’m patient and I wait until she’s good and ready.

I’m also not sure how to ask.

Though once we make our way to the local café and settle at the outdoor tables with our drinks, the air feels lighter.

It’s a lovely fall morning, bright and sunny and colorful. Crisp enough to make the chill a pleasant nip instead of a stinging discomfort. The light carries that gold-red tint that only comes with an autumn morning, turning the shadows into champagne bubbles.

Honestly, it feels strange to see Janelle so grey, like the light just doesn’t quite touch her anymore.

I curl my hands around the warm ceramic of my cappuccino mug, watching her as she stirs precisely half a packet of sugar into her black coffee.

“Janelle?” I murmur. “Is something wrong? You’ve seemed a little off all morning. Is something on your mind?”

“Oh—what isn’t these days?” She ducks her head, her lips curling in a dry humorless smile. “Everything’s been so strange in Redhaven the past year, you know. I suppose I’m just carrying a lot of it with me, dear.”

“I don’t follow.” I shake my head.

“Well, I’m sure you heard about what happened earlier this year, didn’t you? With Delilah Clarendon—pardon, Delilah Graves now.”

“Yep, I heard the news. Mom filled me in on some of it. So did Grant.”

“Yes, well…” She sighs. “That whole nasty business, I feel like I could’ve prevented so much of it if I just hadn’t been so naïve and trusting. Poor Delilah trusted me with a safe place to stay and I practically handed her off into danger. I sent her to that house. I told her he was safe to trust and I said the Jacobins were harmless. They weren’t, none of them. Not when she was being lured in from day one, and they would have disposed of her body in the filthiest way when they were done with her. And my useless potato of a husband, he just—”

She stops, compressing her lips and stirring her coffee fiercely. The spoon clinks harshly against the sides of her mug.

It takes me a second to absorb that from Janelle Bowden, of all people.

She’s East Coast prim and proper to a fault, never has a mean word, wouldn’t speak ill of anyone. And she and Chief Bowden have been happily married for so long.

I’m totally confused.

“Hey, I don’t think you should blame yourself for any of that. Nobody knew Redhaven had a home-grown serial killer,” I say softly. “You want to see the best in people. That’s natural, and it’s hard to believe any normal person would do something like that, killing those poor girls. You had no reason to believe it was happening. But I guess I don’t understand—what about Chief Bowden?”

Janelle stares down into her mug, her eyes glassy before she looks away sharply, staring across the street with something distant and strange in her expression.

“It just didn’t feel right, that’s all,” she mutters, more to herself than me. “He acted like he didn’t even want to investigate the entire affair, always looking the other way, dismissing disturbances, brushing them off as unimportant. It didn’t sit right with me. It doesn’t sit right with me now. Any time I mention the folks up at the big house or the hillfolk, he just glazes over and stomps off to trim his nails.”

She stops again.

Her jaw goes tight with a swallow.

“Sorry. I didn’t know I’d married such a weak man,” she whispers. “All he cares about is not rocking the boat. I realize now it’s all he ever cared about. I’m sorry, Ophelia. I’m sorry he never tried harder to find your brother. Especially with what we know now.”

Those words hit so hard they practically blow me out of my chair.

I don’t know if I fully get what she’s implying about her own husband, but…

Has Chief Bowden been complicit in covering up the Arrendells’ and Jacobins’ crimes? Or is he just plain lazy?

Does he pretend not to notice so he can claim not to know?

That fall chill in the air suddenly feels ten times colder.

Pressing my trembling fingers against my mug isn’t enough to warm my cold skin.

“It’s not your fault,” I hiss faintly, struggling for words. “I’m so sorry, Janelle. I had no idea things were so rough between you two.”

“Don’t we just look like the perfect couple? If people only knew…” she answers bitterly, then glances back at me with a hard, almost angry smile. “Well. Not that anyone sees us together much anymore. I barely know where he even goes these days. But I’m sorry. I just erupted all over you, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine,” I reassure her. “Way better out than holding it in. I know sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone who hasn’t been wrapped up in every day of your life for the last ten years.”

“Yes, well, the walls do have ears in this town, don’t they? I’m grateful you won’t be sniggering about me behind my back and gossiping over the neighbor’s fence.” She frowns. “Though lately it seems your sister’s more the talk of the town.”

“Ros?” I groan. “It’s Aleksander, isn’t it?”

She cocks her head.

“I’m afraid so, dear. Everyone’s acting like it’s our own hometown Cinderella story. I suppose they need to, seeing how we’re all still reeling over the Celeste Graves business. People want some happy news, something to redeem our local royalty.” But her voice falls flat when she says it, and she takes a slow sip of her coffee. “I wish I could say Aleksander Arrendell was our prince.”

“He’s a creep,” I snap without thinking. “Sorry. But I don’t get what Ros sees in him. He’s just weird, and she acts so different when she’s around him. I barely recognize my sister…”

“Young girls do get starstruck sometimes,” Janelle whispers. “But I hope you won’t think I’m too forward in saying I don’t like it, either. The whirlwind of it bothers me, yes. It’s not hard to see poor Ros is running away from one bad thing into another. There are far healthier ways to manage your emotions.”

“I tried talking to her.” I sigh. “We just wound up yelling at each other in Mom’s shop before Aleksander barged in. He was all over her, right in front of me.”

Janelle wrinkles her nose.

“That boy never did have manners. I think he’s the worst one of the bunch, frankly, always too focused on preening over himself.” Her upper lip curls. “I hope she doesn’t go through with it. There are things she doesn’t know.”

I frown. “Things like…?”

“Well, nothing certain. You can take this with a grain of salt and it’s just an old woman’s speculation, but this old woman has seen a lot.” Janelle watches me knowingly over the rim of her mug. “Forgive me, but I remember a time when your mother was just as bewitched by the Arrendell glamour. Always up at that house—until one day she wasn’t.”

My breath catches.

“What? Mom? But… but she practically avoided them when I was growing up. We never—I never knew she had anything to do with the Arrendells.”

Janelle looks down.

“Yes, yes, certain people do keep their business as private as possible and that’s their right.” She rubs the side of her nose with one finger. “Oh, I wish I could tell you more, dearie. But it’s been some time, and back then we didn’t have smartphones documenting everything. Much easier to be secretive in those days, too. Still, I don’t want to worry you with bad rumors and old, half-faded memories.”

“No, no, that’s… fine. I appreciate you telling me.”

It’s not fine.

I feel like I’m tied to a windmill.

What the hell did the Arrendells ever have to do with my mother?

And does it connect to Ros and Aleksander, and this bizarro engagement that’s looking more and more sus by the day?

I wish Mom was conscious enough to ask.

But it’s possible Ros knows something.

And I know one thing for certain.

Whenever I corner my sister again, next time I’m holding my ground.

I’m not letting Ros go without some real answers.

Janelle and I finish our coffees over more idle conversation before she gets dragged off by Linda Manson from the Ladies’ Aid—which I can’t believe is still a thing.

Then again, certain parts of Redhaven feel like they never left the Civil War era.

With Janelle gone, I head back home to Grant’s to putter around and unload my groceries.

I know he didn’t bring me here to play housekeeper or cook, but I need to keep my hands busy so my mind doesn’t implode.

I go to work, tidying the house up from top to bottom before tucking myself into the kitchen to prep dinner.

I’ve just gotten two meatloaves together—one normal for me and Nell, the other burning hot with chili, garlic, and hot sauce for Grant—and put them in the oven when the front door opens.

Little Nell’s happy laughter announces their return.

I wipe my hands on a dish towel and lean around the kitchen door, watching as Grant squeezes through the front door with Nell perched on his shoulders, swinging her arms everywhere.

It’s a masterpiece of strategic movement, him walking with his legs half-bent and twisting every which way. I’d say she’s getting too big to carry around, but Grant could give me a five-hour piggyback ride without breaking a sweat.

It also looks like something he’s done enough that it’s almost second nature. I can’t help smiling as I step closer.

“Welcome home,” I say.

Grant lifts his head, looking at me with a slow smile that just makes my insides twist.

Neither of us get to say another word to each other, though.

Because with a joyous shriek of “Miss Philia!” Nell launches herself from Grant’s shoulders and throws herself at me, her backpack trailing behind her like a parachuter’s kit.

“Nell!” I dart forward to put myself between her and the floor—just in time to catch an armful of hyperactive kid. “Oof.”

She’s an armful.

I don’t know how I don’t go down ass over elbows, but I catch her and hug her against my chest. She latches on tight, sealing both arms around my neck.

“Hi,” she chirps with a knowing giggle that says she knows exactly what she did.

“Hi, yourself.” I sigh, unable to help smiling. “Let’s not hit the floor face-first today, okay?”

“Oh, I knew you’d catch me,” she announces confidently.

“You have more faith in my reflexes than I do, kiddo.” I tap her nose. “C’mon. I just put meatloaf in the oven. If you help fix the potatoes, I’ll help you with homework later.”

“Deal!”

As she slips her trusting little hand into mine and marches me off to the kitchen, swinging our arms wildly between us, it feels like all my troubles disappear.

For now, it’s just me, this wonderful little girl, and the amazing man who’s stepped in as her father, watching me with something in his eyes that makes heat flash through my cheeks and stir my belly.

We trade soft, lingering smiles before Nell drags along, practically pulling my arm off.

God, this feels so different.

Like something I wouldn’t mind coming home to every day.

In another life, of course.

I’m not letting my hopes run away with my heart just yet.

I put Nell to work scrubbing potatoes while I peel and slice them. Before long, I’ve got a big pan of scalloped potatoes swimming in cheesy sauce in the oven next to the meatloaves.

By the time I take Nell to wash up, I find Grant already changed out of his uniform and sprawled out on the sofa in a pair of casually sinful jeans and a black short-sleeved undershirt that looks painted on with how devilishly tight it is.

My God.

It’s almost worse now that I have some idea what that body can do to me.

I give Nell a friendly pat on the back and send her upstairs, lingering over the back of the sofa, peering at the open folders in Grant’s lap.

“What’s that?” I inhale sharply as I see the name at the top of the cluttered page.

Sanderson, Ethan Ronald.

Holy crap.

“Old case files. Ethan’s report,” he says, flipping the folder shut and tilting his head back. A quick kiss is all it takes to distract me, so easy and familiar it strikes my heart. “How was your day?”

“Um, interesting. I ran into Janelle Bowden at the grocery store and we ended up having coffee. I’ll tell you about it once Nell’s in bed.”

Dark hazel eyes flicker thoughtfully before he nods. “Thanks for being so good with her. That kamikaze jump would’ve knocked anyone else on their ass.”

“Hey, I learned by keeping up with you and Ethan. Be ready for anything.” Smirking, I catch a strand of his hair and give it a light tug, coiling the short brown lock around my finger and looking at the silver shot through it. “But I see why you’re going grey so early.”

“That’s genetic and you know it. My old man had a silver head before he was fifty.” He snorts. “So, meatloaf for dinner?”

“Meatloaves. Plural. One normal, one spicy enough to burn down the house.”

Grant’s eyes go round like I haven’t seen for years, boyish and starstruck. “You’re telling me you made a hot one just for me?”

“…I remembered how you like your food. What?” Laughing, I tug his hair again. “Hot enough to start a nuclear reaction, right?”

“Woman, I haven’t had the patience to cook separate meals for me and Nell. Most hot grub I’ve gotten the last few years is those spicy pickles down at the corner store.” He’s looking at me like I’ve just handed him the Holy Grail. “Thank you.”

“It’s just meatloaf. Thank me when I’ve made you a five-course gourmet meal or something.”

“Don’t tease me,” he growls.

I brace my hands on the back of the couch and lean over him, stealing a quick upside-down kiss.

I’m high on the fact that I can, though just to reach I have to pull my feet off the ground.

He leans into me, catching me off guard with a sudden searing-hot rush of pressure—but I make myself pull back before he knocks me off-kilter and makes me forget dinner totally.

“Be good,” I mutter. “At least while Nell’s awake.”

“And after Nell’s asleep?” he growls hopefully.

“Then you can be as bad as you want.”

The way his eyes ignite this time when he looks at me are definitely not like a little boy’s.

They’re all man, wolfish and knowing and rogue.

And the way it tangles me up, it’s like there’s nothing else that could break the magic.

I want to cling to it.

Even as I realize it’s a bit hypocritical and maybe I have no good reason to criticize Ros for finding her own ways to hide from reality and its punches.

I know.

I know I’m burying myself in Grant Faircross and this fast-moving illusion of a life together. Probably to avoid having to face my mother and the death clock ticking down day by day.

Am I really so different from Ros? Knowing she’s hiding in the illusion of Aleksander, too.

Ugh, I hate that thought.

But this thing with Grant, it’s not dangerous or weird.

It’s not hurting me.

It’s not changing me for the worse.

What’s going on with Ros and Aleksander feels like a textbook toxic relationship.

I know it and I think Ros does, too, or she wouldn’t try so hard to bury it.

I break Grant’s honey-brown gaze just as Nell comes spilling down the stairs, brandishing her still-damp hands proudly. “All clean!”

“Right.” I force myself to look away from the handsome beast-man still watching me like I’m everything. “C’mon then. Let’s go set the table.”

It takes twice as long to put out plates and cutlery with a little girl underfoot, and three times as long with a giant lunk of a man coming to ‘help’ but pretending he doesn’t know where the forks and glasses go, just so Nell can correct him and set everything right.

My smile is glued to me, watching them together.

No, it’s not just them together.

It’s us.

This is what coming home should feel like.

Family.

I can practically hear Grant’s stomach rumbling by the time I pull everything out of the oven and fill our plates. Nell insists on saying grace—she really respects her grandparents and their traditions—then wrinkles her nose at the spicy meatloaf.

“It smells… itchy,” she complains from her seat on one side of the cozy square table. “It makes my nose scratchy.”

A second later, she sneezes into her elbow dramatically.

“Good thing you don’t have to eat it,” I tease, dropping a thick slab of meatloaf flecked with chili flakes onto Grant’s plate. “That’s all for the big guy. Let’s see if I can make him breathe fire tonight.”

I wink at him.

“You can do that without the meatloaf just fine,” Grant mutters under his breath.

Nell blinks, her little eyes rounding.

“You can breathe fire, Uncle Grant?”

I snicker and nudge him under the table. “Be nice.”

Nell’s a little too smart for her own good. Plus, if he makes me blush any harder, she’ll figure out he’s not talking about spicy food.

But my blush comes back for a different reason as Grant takes a bite, then lets out a low, pleased groan. “Oh, yeah. God damn, that’s good.”

“No bad words at the dinner table, Uncle Grant! Grandma’s just chomping at the bit for me to start that swear jar,” Nell proclaims proudly.

I smile. “One time when I went to this Podunk town in Montana, there was this little girl at the inn who was all about the swear jars. Buuut I think we can let your uncle live just this once.” I tuck into my own safely unspicy meatloaf. “Now eat your dinner, hon.”

The meal is a pretty rowdy affair with Nell dominating the conversation.

Grant chuckles more than I’ve ever seen him laugh in all the years I’ve known him.

Being a dad suits him, even if Nell isn’t actually his daughter.

It’s like all the rough edges he had as a younger man get smoothed away around this spunky little girl. He turns soft in ways I never imagined.

And I can’t take my eyes off him, especially not when his gaze catches mine across the table.

Nell pulls him back to her with another outlandish observation about her classmates and her very pregnant teacher.

But she grabs my attention as she abruptly pins me with those wickedly innocent eyes, a broad smile on her lips. “So Miss Philia, are you gonna stay with us for good? You could be an almost-mom. Kinda like Uncle Grant is my almost-dad?”

I nearly spit out my drink, going up like a five-alarm fire. Maybe I got some of Grant’s spicy meatloaf by mistake, but actually…

“Um.”

I’m speechless.

“Almost-dad. That’s what I told her to call me.” Grant smiles across the table.

I fumble, looking between him and Nell.

It hasn’t taken long to figure out that she loves putting people on the spot, but this is too much.

Because she’s not just being a brat. There’s something serious in her nosy question, considering this is the second time she’s asked me.

This isn’t just a little girl playing pranks.

It’s a lonely little girl who misses having a mom, a complete family.

“Honey…” Clearing my throat, I gather my thoughts and say, “I’m happy to stay as long as Grant needs me.”

That wins me a smile from Nell. “Then it’s settled. You’re here for good. ’Cause he’s really dumb without you, Miss Philia.”

“Is he now?” I laugh, though I suddenly feel shy enough to shrink into the floor, all elbows and awkwardness. I’m right back to being that knock-kneed girl I used to be, flustered in front of her crush. “I don’t think I know how to make Grant less dumb, Nell. He’s been like that since before you were born.”

“I’m right here, ladies,” Grant growls, scowling—and just like that, the awkward tension at the table dissipates.

The rest of dinner passes with more quiet teasing and tales from the schoolyard.

When we’re done, Grant promises to wash the dishes while I take Nell up to bed and read to her. She bounds into the bedroom after brushing her teeth like an overexcited puppy. Before I can shoo her into bed, she grabs her favorite book and jabs it at me.

It’s so weird to feel like that book is part of coming home, right down to the familiar creases in the cover, worn deeper with time.

The same pages I’ve touched lovingly time and time again.

I’m happy to sit down at her bedside and read it to her until she falls asleep. One hand stretches across the covers, quietly reaching for me.

I curl my fingers in hers and hold them gently for a while, just feeling their warmth, watching her sleep.

She’s not mine, no. A few weeks ago I didn’t even know who she was.

But I could easily see myself loving this little girl and getting completely wrapped around her little finger just like her uncle.

The door creaks open softly and Grant peeks in.

“She asleep?” he whispers.

I smile, carefully disentangling my fingers from Nell’s.

“Out like a light,” I whisper back, standing up.

He’s changed in the time it took me to put Nell to sleep, standing in the doorway with a pair of loose blue-and-white striped pajama pants straining to keep their hold on the thick breadth of his body.

The drawstring stretches to its limit and the knots in the cords barely hitch on the holes at the waist.

There’s almost no difference in the definition of his naked chest above the pajama pants and the details I can make out below them.

The ink snaking up his arms and lining his shoulders.

The hard muscle of his iliac crest and brawny thighs imprinting the thin fabric—and imprinting me as I draw closer to the doorway and he slips an arm around my waist.

He pulls me in with an effortlessness that makes me feel as light as a feather.

“We should probably follow suit,” he says with a hopeful lift of his eyebrows. “If you’d like to join me.”

I bite my lip on a smile, walking my fingers up his chest. “Is that your way of asking if last night isn’t a one-time thing?”

“Might be.” A rumble wells under my fingertips. “I could be more direct and just ask you to fuck.”

I gasp.

Just hearing him shift to something so dirty does terrible things to me.

“For the record, you don’t have to ask.” Stretching up on my toes, I brush my lips to his. “Take me to bed, Gra—ANT!”

His name becomes a squeal.

He doesn’t even let me get the words out before he’s sweeping me up in his arms, carrying me against his broad chest and the wild beat of his powerful heart.

I barely clap my hand over my mouth to silence myself, pulse pounding, before I accidentally wake up Nell. Grant’s smirk makes me want to shove him and kiss him all at once as he carries me down the hall.

But as he elbows his bedroom door open and tumbles me down on the bed, hovering over me with his body blocking out the light and the moon’s glow gliding along his shoulders, I know which one I’ll choose.

My body goes slack as his mouth attacks mine.

This time, I’m so ready with an anticipation that’s been building my entire life.

My nails rake his shoulders as I draw him in, mating my lips with his.