Chapter Eleven

Dev sprang away from Casey so fast Casey nearly face-planted next to the oven. Still dazed from the sensual onslaught of Dev's mouth and his hand on Casey's cock, it took a minute to figure out what was happening.

For one thing, his cock was jutting out of his briefs. For another, Dev was halfway across the kitchen, glaring at him with a look of near hatred. For a third, Bradley was standing in the doorway, arms crossed, his face twisted in an expression of outraged self-righteousness.

"B-Bradley? What are you doing here?"

Bradley lifted an eyebrow. "I could ask you the same, but the answer is glaringly obvious. You've clearly lost your mind."

"Excuse me," Dev muttered and practically sprinted out the door.

"Dev!" Casey called, but his forward momentum was slowed by the need to tuck his privates away—not easy, because his cock was taking its time wilting after Dev's touch—and by Bradley stepping into his path.

"Really, Casey. Consorting with the help? Have you no self-respect?"

Casey glared at him. "He's not the help, not that there's anything wrong with that. He owns this estate. Plus, he's the town manager." He propped his fists on his hips. "And anyway, where do you get off with this fiancé business? We're not engaged."

"Don't be ridiculous, Casey. Of course we are. Your uncle and I have it all planned as the second boost for the restaurant. December first, right before we introduce the new holiday menu." He peered at the tarts, distaste flickering across his face to land on his down-turned mouth. "Which will definitely not include anything this downscale." He cast a dismissive glance at Casey's midsection. "Just to be perfectly clear, I expect you to conduct your… liaisons with more discretion. Cheating is one thing, but flaunting your infidelity with clearly unsuitable partners is something else entirely."

Casey stalked back to Peach's counter and picked up the cooling rack, shielding them from Bradley's unappreciative gaze. He doesn't deserve anything this wonderful.

"Newsflash. I can't cheat on somebody I'm not even with. We've never even dated. Not," he shot over his shoulder as he set the tarts inside the antique pie safe with its pierced tin panels, "that I would have ever accepted a date if you'd asked. Which you didn't. You never ask, Bradley. You instruct. You assume. You… you pontificate." He shut the pie safe door carefully, because he wasn't mad at it. He double checked to make sure the oven was turned off. "You'll have to excuse me now. I need to go find Dev."

He marched toward the door, dodging around Bradley, who had planted himself stolidly in the middle of the room like an Armani-suited boulder. Once outside, he scanned the field for any sign of Dev.

Nothing.

He raced down the path and alongside Harrison House, rounded the corner by the lilacs, and scattered gravel under his feet as he ran down the drive.

"Casey!" Bradley called. "We have things to discuss."

"No, we don't," Casey muttered. He spotted Dev just passing the Market on what had to be an Olympic record pace, something Casey could never match even if Dev hadn't had a quarter mile head start. "Damn it." He kicked at a rock and turned around, only to come face to backside with Bradley. "Go away, Bradley. I mean it."

Bradley, as usual, ignored him, his gaze fixed speculatively on Harrison House. "Do you know the extent of this estate?"

Bradley's tone slowed Casey's headlong rush toward the front porch. When he turned back, Bradley was scrutinizing Harrison House, from its multiple chimneys and the dormers that made the third story roofline so quirky, down the scalloped shingles that gave way to clapboard siding on the second floor, to the river rock that formed its foundation.

A knot seethed in Casey's middle, because he recognized the speculative look in Bradley's narrowed eyes. He'd seen it whenever Bradley and Uncle Walt had discussed restaurant investors and possible expansion.

"Why do you want to know?"

"The place has obviously seen better days, and could use serious upgrades from an architect who could create a more"—he sniffed—"cohesive aesthetic, but there might be something…" He shifted his gaze to Casey. "We have lunch reservations in Merrilton in twenty minutes. How long will it take you to pack?"

Casey frowned. "Pack? Why would I want to pack?"

Bradley shook his head with a smile that was the definition of patronizing. "Clearly you can't stay here. I told you so on the first day. I've made arrangements for you at Green Mountain Shadows, along with a car service that will shuttle you here for your lessons. You'll share my suite—"

"Your suite? You're staying at that resort? Why?"

Bradley waved a hand, dismissing Casey's questions as he strolled toward his Lexus. "Business, Casey. Nothing you'd understand."

Casey gritted his teeth. "Need I remind you that I actually attended business school? I'm a semester away from my MBA."

"Yes, yes. But you needn't worry I'll chide you for not completing your studies, particularly since your role in our enterprises will be different."

"Our enterprises." Casey was surprised his molars weren't ground to nubs. "Our enterprises? This is exactly what I mean. I've never agreed to be a part of any enterprise."

"No?" Bradley cast a glance around him. "Then why are you here?"

Casey flexed his fingers, curling his hands into fists. "I'm here for Uncle Walt. Not for you."

"Your uncle and I are business partners, Casey, you know that. And you misunderstood. When I said our enterprises, I was referring, of course, to Walter and myself. You needn't concern yourself with the bigger picture. All you need to do is cook."

Casey growled and turned on his heel, yanking the screen door open and letting it slam behind him. As he stomped up the stairs, Bradley entered with much less force.

"Twenty minutes, Casey," he called.

Casey leaned over the banister. "I am not going to pack. I am not leaving Home. And I am not—not now, not tomorrow, not ever—your fiancé. Do I make myself clear?"

Bradley shook his head. "Stop being a child. Even you must see that this is the best path. The one that will deliver the optimal outcome for all concerned."

"It's not the optimal outcome for me."

He stomped the rest of the way up the stairs. The door to his bedroom was slightly ajar, which meant that he had a more welcome visitor: Randolph Scott was adept at operating the paddle-type door handles and had taken to napping in Casey's room in the afternoon. Good. Maybe a half hour or so of petting a cat would cool Casey's temper down to a low simmer.

When he walked into the room, the snarl in his belly eased immediately. He'd left the windows open this morning, so the breeze ruffled the curtains and the scent of lilacs filled the air. He drew his brows together as he pivoted in place, because Randolph Scott wasn't curled in the middle of the big four-poster bed, nor was he perched on one of the two wide windowsills, or basking in the sunlight that spilled across the desk in the corner.

"Randolph Scott?" he murmured. "Here, kitty, kitty."

Ty claimed referring to the big orange bruiser as kitty offended his dignity, but he always came when Casey called him. Well, until now, that is. Then he spotted a pair of ginger ears poking above the cornice of his oak armoire.

"Ah, there you are."

But as he reached up to scratch Randolph Scott's head, he spotted something else that hadn't been there this morning.

A painting hung over the desk, where this morning there had only been a framed sepia photograph of a rather severe looking farmer cradling a lamb in his beefy arms.

Casey stepped closer, the painting drawing him in. He was no art expert, so he didn't know what this style was called. It wasn't hyperrealistic, but it wasn't abstract either. He had no trouble recognizing the subject: Home's Main Street. The perspective wasn't one that Casey had seen in his two weeks of residence, though. It was as though the artist were looking down on the town from above—but not too high. Maybe a house's second or third story? But that angle—the slice of the Market's roof, the tops of the lilacs massed in the greensward that ran halfway down the street, Harrison House's chimneys peeking over the tops of the oaks and sycamores.

He peered closer. There was a figure on the sidewalk, half hidden by the leaves of a maple, and foreshortened by the angle.

"Holy crap," he murmured. "That's me." Or at least someone wearing the same trainers and whose brown curls were as seriously in need of a trim as Casey's.

"Casey." Bradley stood in the doorway. "If you don't hurry, we won't make our reservation, and as someone raised in the restaurant business, you should realize how rude that is."

Casey tore his gaze away from the painting to glare at Bradley. "I wasn't raised in the restaurant business. I was raised adjacent to it. And I told you. I'm not leaving."

Bradley, once again, ignored him. Instead, he moved further into the room, his gaze lingering on the bed—although not from any amorous intent, since he was wearing that same appraising look he got when he was reviewing the linen and tableware choices for the restaurant. His gaze shifted to the bedside table, the one Kenny had delivered Casey's first day in Home.

He ran a finger along the lustrous surface. "Who's the artist?"

"I'm sorry. What?"

"The woodcraft artist. The one who created this nightstand and the bedstead." He turned to view the armoire. "This." He nodded toward the desk. "And that."

"I don't think they were built by the same person. Or they might have been originally, but they were restored by the man who runs the repair shop here in town."

Bradley stood and looked down his nose at Casey. "I know that you're na?ve, but anyone with a modicum of knowledge about antiques could tell that these are recently constructed, and by the hand of a true master." He flicked a finger toward the window that overlooked the summer kitchen. "That oak and tin monstrosity in the cooking school was as well, unless I miss my guess, and I never do."

"The pie safe? No, Sylvia said Kenny found it at an estate sale and refurbished it for her."

Bradley's smile somehow hit an equal balance of condescending and avaricious. "If everybody in this place is as ignorant as you and this… this Sylvia, then it's clearly my duty to…"

His smile faded and his eyes widened in the closest to shock Casey had ever seen on his face. "That's a Rafe Wetherell. An original Rafe Wetherell. What in blazes is it doing here, of all places?"

Casey followed the direction of Bradley's gaze. "The painting?"

"Yes, the painting," he said testily. "Where did it come from?"

"I don't know. There's an artists' collective in town, so maybe he's part of it?"

Bradley gave him a withering look. "Really, Casey, I know you're naive, but no artist with Rafe Wetherell's stature would be part of a backwoods artists' collective. The last privately held Wetherell sold at auction last year for nearly three hundred thousand dollars. Most of them are in museums. No new canvases have surfaced for at least two years." His expression altered, turning decidedly sly and smug. "This puts an entirely different spin on things."

The knot in Casey's stomach was back, because while he didn't trust Bradley at the best of times, he really didn't trust him when he got that look—like Randolph Scott after he'd stolen a trout from Pete's fishing creel. Casey was surprised he didn't rub his hands together and cackle.

As though thinking about Randolph Scott had conjured him, the cat poked his head over the edge of the armoire and peered down at Bradley with slitted golden eyes. He reached down with one six-toed paw and slowly, so delicately that Bradley didn't notice anything, hooked a claw in Bradley's perfectly arranged quiff, and pulled up one lock so it stood like a question mark atop Bradley's head.

Casey choked back a laugh. He looks just like the Tastee-Freez guy. Should I say something?I should say something. Casey opened his mouth, but then Bradley cast another proprietary gaze around the room.

"Since you're determined to act like a child, I'll tender your regrets to the developer who's even now awaiting us at the resort and hope that I can convince him that our enterprises deserve his serious consideration." He nodded, causing the little loop to bob jauntily.

Nah.

He let Bradley parade out of the room and then grinned up at Randolph Scott. "Good kitty."