Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen #2) - Kilby Blades Page 0,61

close to her ear: “You have no idea.”

24

The Date

Shea

“Wow, this place is...”

Shea couldn’t take her eyes off of the house that stood before her as she stepped out of the car—another tucked-away place Dev had insisted would be equally as difficult to find as Evie’s. This one wasn’t on the lake, but near the base of Caribou Hill, nestled among a complex system of creeks that fed into Grand Lake.

“I mean…when you told me you lived in a cabin, I was thinking Paul Bunyan. Not a mansion in the middle of the woods.”

Not just any mansion—one with strategically-placed spotlights on the ground to flatter the lines of its architecture. It was all stone pillars and sloped rooves and massive custom windows built in a complex chalet style. It was more than generic admiration of a well-designed exterior that prompted Shea’s reaction. She found some unexplained affinity to the extraordinary beauty of this place.

“Pete left it to me,” Dev explained. He bent his elbow and bringing his restless hand to smooth the hair on the back of his head. “He inherited it from his folks. Lived here when he was a kid but didn’t set foot back in it ’til after they died.”

“I take it they didn’t get along?”

Dev threw her a pointed look. “Understatement. They didn’t approve of Evie. Told him, if he married her, they’d cut him off. It wasn’t an empty threat.”

Dev began walking, prompting Shea to do the same.

“What’d Pete say when he found out they left it to him?”

“That’s just it—they didn’t. His dad went first. Then his mom a few years later. No one ever found a will. He was an only child and next of kin. Everyone in town knew they were estranged. But, legally speaking, the place was his.”

Shea pushed away thoughts of her own father—of what would happen when he passed—of who and how anyone would find her since she was his next of kin. She gave a small shake of her head, as if to shake those notions out. She’d looked too far forward to this night to let thoughts like that creep in. Instead, she fell into perfect step with Dev.

He took her on a slow stroll. “I guess that’s always how it is,” she said, trying to sound light. “Parents trying to control their kids. Husbands trying to control their wives. Money always pulling the marionette strings.”

“Don’t forget companies trying to control their workers…” Dev said in a way Shea could tell had to do with the mills.

“It’s a good ending to Pete’s story at least.” Shea tried to sound hopeful.

Dev smiled a bit wickedly. “Pete always said, if his father knew he ended up with the house, he’d be turning over in his grave.”

“I like it when the underdog wins,” Shea murmured as they began their slow ascent of the steps, beautiful meandering stonework that wended its way to grand double doors. “But it still doesn’t erase the struggle.”

“No… it doesn’t,” Dev agreed at the same moment they reached the landing, angling his body so that he faced her, coming close in a way she liked. “I wish you had gotten a chance to know Pete. He didn’t take shit from anyone. And he sure as hell would’ve liked you.”

When he leaned in to reach past her, it was to open the door, and she didn’t at all mind taking a breath filled with his scent. With a press of the handle, he unlatched the door. It swung open easily on his its hinges, inviting both of them to come in.

“After you,” he trailed off, allowing her to walk ahead.

Shea hadn’t known what to expect from the interior of Dev’s house—maybe a bit of a man cave like Kendrick’s, hopefully with fewer dead animals on the walls. She’d imagined his kitchen to be teeming with vegetables and his countertops to be crowded with juicers and blenders. She’d also imagined that any bachelor as well-maintained as Dev was hiding a Soloflex in a spare bedroom or a garage.

But this…this was no tricked-out bachelor pad. Dev’s house looked like a home—and a well-thought out one at that. Not some place an interior designer had gotten his hooks into, like Kendrick’s Hamren house—a place with unique, individual style.

Past a long foyer with a cozy leather bench for sitting and pulling off muddy boots, a staircase veered off to the left before the modest entryway opened into something truly grand: a courtyard-style great room with double-high ceilings that rose all the way