everyone in town knew Dev’s true calling was business,” Evie said. Shea found her tendency to cut in and half-tell both Dev’s and Delilah’s stories endearing. “He was just so smart with it,” Evie continued. “They had this little investment club, down at the high school. Every year, the kids had a pot of money to invest—each kid was responsible for a portion, then they had to decide as a group how to invest a bigger pool. That first year, Dev was just a freshman. None of the upperclassmen would listen to him. And do you know what happened?”
Shea’s eyes darted from Evie to Dev long enough to see him look embarrassed.
Evie pointed at Shea for emphasis when she answered her own question. “He doubled his money. He was like that with everything. He just had this sense when it came to economics and technology. The way he knew things, he was almost…prescient. Everything he touched turned to gold.”
“So you went to business school…” Shea took over, repeating the part of the story she knew.
“Not until I was twenty-three,” Dev answered humbly. “I majored in econ in undergrad, then spent a couple of years in finance.”
“Some part of him wanted to give all those smarts to law enforcement,” Evie kicked back in. “But he was always bigger than this town. We knew he had to leave. And we helped him do it, too…”
“Evie…” Dev started in. “I’m sure Shea’s getting bored hearing too much about me.”
“Oh, hush,” Evie tutted, swatting her hand in Dev’s general direction. “You let Mama Evie brag about you, boy.”
Shea bit back a smile when Dev raised an eyebrow and dutifully shut his mouth. Evie’s expression turned serious.
“Now, Pete and I were hard working people, but we’d never put away money for kids, and we couldn’t afford college for Dev. Colorado State, maybe, but not any of the big, private universities that wanted him. Dev was good with money, but we didn’t think it was right to tell an eighteen-year-old to start off his life with debt. So we took up a collection—you know, from people in town. To the tune of forty-thousand dollars, the people of Sapling helped.”
Shea stopped chewing and her eyes darted back to Dev, whose expression had gone from embarrassment to something complex. Forty-thousand dollars was a lot of money for working-class people to come up with in a small town.
“It’s why Dev came back,” Delilah said softly when it seemed less and less likely that he would speak for himself. “The people here believed in him—helped him become what he become. He wants to help Sapling reach its potential, just like Sapling helped him reach his.”
By this time, both Evie and Delilah were smiling proudly at Dev, as if he were some kind of saint. Shea would bet, if she could see her own face, that she was, too.
“It was one reason,” Dev said gruffly, when he finally spoke, his gaze flicking up to meet Shea’s, only for a minute before he looked first to Delilah and then to Evie. “San Francisco was too lonely without my girls.”
21
The Ride Home
Dev
“That was nice.”
Shea said it more softly than he expected a full minute after they’d gotten in the car and begun to make their quiet descent down the hill. She’d done a bit of a double-take when they’d walked onto the driveway and she’d gotten a shadowed view of his car—not the pickup she was so used to seeing him drive, the car that made him blend in with everything and everyone else—the shiny blue Tesla the color of the night sky.
“Sunday dinner’s the highlight of her week.” The car was quiet and his voice sounded deep to his own ears. “Hell, it’s probably the highlight of mine. With Pete gone, we all realized there’s something precious in the simple things.”
Shea stared out the window at the passing dark. Bright headlights flooded the path in front of the car. Yet, out her window, something magical: the night was so clear, dappled rays of moonlight shone down upon the forest floor.
“You’re lucky to have both of them…” The corner of her mouth turned up, but just a touch of something in her voice was sad. “I can tell they love you a lot.”
“You should come back next week—come back every week if you want.”
Dev's offer was so instinctual—so easy for him to say, and so right in the way it felt for him to say it—it erased whatever vestiges of constraint remained. He’d