Page 49 of Wretched Thorns

Callum nodded. He hadn’t expected her here either.

She didn’t nod back.

She just looked at him.

Eli had already stripped the table down to essentials by the time everyone came inside.

The Louisiana map remained open near his hand, along with a shortened version of Glenn’s statement and a few pages of notes. Everything else had been stacked, closed, or turned facedown.

Nobody in the room knew each other well enough yet for careless trust.

Celie Toussaint sat down beside Miss Delphine and smiled for the first time since coming through the door.

“Well,” she said, “you’re still alive.”

Miss Delphine huffed out a laugh. “Spite keeps me young.”

Rowena smiled as she moved behind them toward the cabinet. Comfortable. Familiar. Like she’d seen this exact exchange a hundred times before.

“You two want coffee before you start fighting properly?”

“Too late for that,” Miss Delphine said.

Celie reached over and squeezed her hand.

Jasper watched the whole thing quietly from the table.

His mother knew these women well. Well enough that nobody bothered performing introductions or politeness around each other anymore.

Somehow, that unsettled him more than if they had.

***

Across the table, Eli pushed his glasses higher with one knuckle and reached for the map again. His left hand shook slightly against the paper. Barely there.

Tara noticed.

Jasper saw her notice it too.

But whatever question crossed her mind never crossed her lips.

Serena was missing. Everybody in the room looked wrecked in one way or another.

The screen door opened again.

Mel stepped into the kitchen, carrying the smell of coffee beans and night air with her.

Nobody questioned why she came straight in. She crossed the kitchen and took the chair beside Rowena as if she’d sat there a hundred times before.

Maybe she had.

Jasper watched his mother pour her coffee without asking how she took it.

Something about it all was more than a little unsettling.

Yesterday, Glenn had confirmed what none of them had known how to ask before: Mel hadn’t just been a woman running a coffee shop in town. She’d known their father. Worked with him. Stayed close to Magnolia Creek because somebody wanted eyes on Thornwood.

And somehow she’d spent years watching the three of them grow up from behind a counter while they got nothing at all from the man who put her there.