Discover Me & You, A Devil's Kettle Romance: Book 2

by Susan Sey

  DISCOVER ME AND YOU

  A Devil’s Kettle Romance

  Book Two

  Susan Sey

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Welcome to Devil’s Kettle, readers! I’m so glad you’re back! As most of you probably know, Jax and Addy found their happily ever after in PICTURE ME and YOU, but there’s a whole lot of story left to unpack. The scandals run deep in this little town, and Willa Zinc lives right in the heart of the biggest one.

  Willa’s not looking for love, of course. Neither is Eli Walker. But secrets don’t keep forever, and nobody escapes when true love comes calling. Willa’s a fighter, though, so pull up a chair and put on the kettle. This should be a good one.

  As always, all my love and thanks to Bryan (whose patience and support appear to be bottomless), to Claudia (who is navigating her teen years with a genius-level blend of grace and sarcasm), and to Greta (whose dinner table antics are the stuff of legend, and probably not just in our house, lord help us).

  And to Inara, of course, whose editorial eye is invaluable, exacting and — for lucky, lucky me — only an email away.

  Oh, and speaking of love and thanks...

  If you just love this book (and I hope you do), you might be inclined to tell the whole world about it. I’d be deeply thankful if you did just that. You can post a positive rating or review right here! (You could also sign up for my newsletter or follow my Amazon author page if you really wanted to super-fan out and stay in the loop on future releases.) You’re the best, thanks!

  Okay, that should do it. Get reading, you. Happily ever after awaits!

  CHAPTER 1

  WILLA ZINC PULLED her rusty old pickup into a parking spot on Main Street and let the engine idle while she considered her options. She didn’t have to do this. She could call in sick. She could make up an emergency. She could leave Bianca Davis and her precious gallery twisting in the wind a bare week before Devil Days. She dropped her elbow onto the warm ledge of her open window and pondered the thought. She could. She could turn around right now and go home.

  “I don’t have to do this,” she said to nobody in particular. “I mean, I work for myself. If a call sucks, I don’t have to take it, right?”

  Across the street, the late-summer sun had made a mirror of Lake Superior, and a handful of obscenely cheerful boats bobbed at anchor in the harbor, admiring themselves. Willa scowled.

  “What do you know?” she said to them. “You don’t even work.”

  The lake winked at her and jiggled the delighted boats. She rolled an irritable shoulder and turned her scowl on the steering wheel, which had the good sense to look as worn and dismal as Willa felt.

  “I hate my job,” she decided. But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. She actually kind of loved her job. “Okay, I hate today’s job. How’s that?”

  The steering wheel was unhelpful, the lake withheld comment, and she was clearly beneath the boats’ notice, so Willa killed the engine and pocketed the keys. But she didn’t open the door. Not yet.

  “It’s not like I won’t do it,” she muttered. Grudges went deep in small towns, and deeper yet in Devil’s Kettle. They went right down to the bone in Willa, but indulging those grudges was no way to stay in business. Plus she really did love her job, and the Department of Natural Resources had finally approved her request for licensure. All Willa had to do now was rock three supervised removals — which she felt confident she would — and give up her client list along with her permission to cold call any one of them for a reference. She wasn’t as confident on that part. Her work spoke for itself but so did her last name, and grudges really did go deep in Devil’s Kettle.

  So, yeah, she was going to do the damn job, and do it well. But first, she was going to take one minute — one small, pathetic minute — to feel sorry for herself.

  Thirty seconds later, Willa bailed out of the truck, sweating. Even with the windows down, she’d been baking like a brownie in there, damn it. No brood for you! the boats chirped gleefully. She sighed. Today was clearly out to screw her. She should probably just accept it.

  She slammed the door with heartfelt violence and headed for the equipment box in the truck bed. She didn’t bother to lock up, or even to roll up the windows. Everything worth stealing was locked in the equipment box, and she was perfectly willing to give up her empty styrofoam cups and granola bar wrappers to whatever petty criminal wanted them.

  She retrieved a black duffle bag from the box and heaved it onto her shoulder. The jangle of tools was a familiar music to Willa, a sweet reminder of why she loved her job. She was good at what she did, sure, but more importantly? She worked for herself and by herself. She had an unusual skill set and it gave her that rarest of all things — true independence. Willa decided when, where, and for whom she worked. And while her heart sang at the very idea of refusing Bianca Davis’ royal summons — and oh, lord, it was tempting, especially with Devil Days just around the corner — Willa had worked and sweated and bled for a professional reputation spotless enough to make people forget she was a Zinc, even temporarily. She wasn’t about to throw it away on a personal grudge.

  She loved her job, she reminded herself yet again, today’s job included. What she hated was the woman writing the check for today’s job.

  She hated Bianca Davis.

  It felt good to get that straight.

  She locked up her equipment box, tossed her jingling bag of tools into a more comfortable cross-body carry and headed for the Davis Gallery.

  CHAPTER 2

  WILLA PAUSED ON the sidewalk and considered the block-long stretch of glass and pine that made up the Davis Gallery. One part of her brain — the rational part — was scanning the foundation for any crack or flaw an animal could turn into an unauthorized entrance. But the other part of her brain — the part where instinct lived — was stalling. She didn’t want to go in there. Why would she? Diego Davis had been powerfully handsome, ridiculously talented and astonishingly selfish. He’d lived fast, died young and left a smoking swath of damage in his wake several dozen women wide. And Willa ought to know; she’d been one of those women. It had been a lifetime ago that a teenaged Diego had talked her out of her panties, and yet here she was, undeniably avoiding a job because her peace of mind couldn’t take the sight of his paintings.

  Either that or she was still afraid of his mommy.

  Which was stupid. She was being stupid, and stupidity wasn’t just inconvenient. It was expensive, and Willa had been poor too long and hungry too often to let a little discomfort come between her and a paycheck. She tightened her mouth, pulled the brim of her ball cap nice and low, and walked into the gallery.

  It sucked her in like a vacuum, the light bright yet diffuse, seeming to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. The floor was a pale, gleaming pine, the walls a creamy white that looked both surgically clean and somehow appetizing. Like it might taste good if you were insane enough to lick it, which Willa definitely wasn’t. It put her in the mind of vanilla lattes, that was all, to the point that she could almost smell the bitter tang of coffee and the dusty warmth of cinnamon under the cream.

  And now she was overthinking the paint, for heaven’s sake.

  “Bianca?” she called, her voice disappearing into the hushed space rather than echoing the way it should in such a big room. She studied the ceiling, wondering about acoustic panels but really just avoiding eye contact with any of the framed canvases on the walls. Diego’s paintings — much like the man — sucked you in. They grabbed you and demanded that you look and keep looking until you’d given up whatever they wanted from you. It had become a point of private pride for
Willa to refuse that demand. She couldn’t blame him for every bomb that had ever gone off in her life — she was a Zinc, after all — but saying yes to Diego had lit some of the worst fuses. So if she didn’t want to look at his damn paintings, she wasn’t going to look.

  A white curtain twitched at the back of the room and Bianca Davis swooped out like the angel of stylish doom.

  “Willa, you’re here,” she said briskly, surveying Willa with every appearance of satisfaction. “Good.”

  Willa blinked at her, startled. “Good?” Diego’s mother was tall and golden, all long limbs and elegant bones with a pair of bright dark eyes that had never looked at Willa with anything less than stone-cold dislike, even when she was paying for the privilege of Willa’s presence.

  “Yes, good.” Bianca nodded firmly. “Thanks for coming on short notice. It’s back here.”

  She turned, her hair swinging expensively, and led Willa toward the curtain from which she’d emerged. She wore a pair of slim dark pants and a striped top with a wide neckline and elbow-length sleeves that would’ve made Willa look like a demented sailor. On Bianca, it looked vaguely French.

  She followed the older woman through the curtain and into a wide, shallow room at the back of the gallery with another vanilla latte wall that ran the length of the building. A jumble of boxes and crates crouched in one corner and framed canvases were everywhere — hanging on the wall, propped on the floor, leaning against the boxes. At the far end of the room, yet another white curtain had been hitched to one side, revealing the emergency exit.

  “Sorry about the mess.” Bianca waved a hand and sighed. “We normally use this room for storage and staging but Addy insisted we house the Diego After Dark series here during Devil Days.” Her lip curled. “Heaven forbid that unsuspecting people should be accidentally exposed to actual art.”

  “Or a boob,” Willa said. She hadn’t meant to look but it hadn’t taken more than a glance. Then again… She squinted at the framed painting that had caught her eye on the wall in front of her. “Wait, is that a boob?”

  “Not the entire thing, no.” Bianca gave the painting a loving glance. “Only the aureole. And my God, just look at his use of light and color!” Grief passed over her face like a cloud over the sun, momentarily dimming the force of her presence. “In some ways, Diego was such a typical boy. He must’ve been fifteen when he did this one.” She smiled softly, and Willa tensed. The Bianca she knew didn’t smile. Not like this. Her smile was a weapon, not an expression. “I was still his primary teacher at that point and he was rebelling. Trying to shock me, I suppose.” She lifted her shoulders, let them drop. “But all he did was remind me that he wasn’t a typical boy.” Her gaze drifted over the long wall, touching on every frame, each image naughtier than the last. Her smile sharpened. “He wasn’t a typical boy at all, was he?”

  “Oh good heavens, no. Not just any boy would think to paint boobs.” Willa nodded wisely while her stomach knotted with a rage she thought she’d digested years ago. “He was clearly very special.”

  Even as the words fell from her mouth, Willa regretted them. Diego Davis had been dead for nearly four years now, but he was still the single hand feeding the entire town. Nobody was brave enough — or stupid enough — to bite that hand, especially not with his mommy looking on. Nobody but Willa, evidently, and she damn well ought to know better by now.

  “That reminds me.” Bianca smiled again, but this time it was the smile Willa recognized — sharp as a blade, twice as dangerous. “We should talk.”

  Foreboding swam greasily into her gut. “About what?”

  “Addison.”

  Willa blinked, startled. Bianca wanted to talk about Diego’s young widow and celebrated muse? Right now? “What about her?”

  “She likes you.” Bianca said this with an air of sincere bafflement, and perhaps some faint pity. Not pity for Willa, of course, but for Bianca’s poor, widowed daughter-in-law who’d clearly lost her mind if she was befriending the likes of Willa Zinc. “She seems to have gotten it into her head that Georgie and I are somehow responsible for your social standing, or lack thereof.”

  “You are.” Georgie Davis — homecoming queen, long-legged fashionista, and Bianca Davis’s pampered only daughter — had been the author of much of Willa’s high school misery.

  “Perhaps partly.” Bianca sent a pointed glance at Willa’s dirty jeans and t-shirt. “But even you have to admit, we don’t deserve full credit on that score.”

  True enough. Social status was dictated by some complicated calculus in small towns. It wasn’t good to be on the Davis family’s bad side but Willa knew it was hardly the only nail in her coffin. Just the biggest one.

  “You don’t like my outfit?”

  “Addison is important to me,” Bianca said tightly. “She’s family.”

  “Ah.” Willa nodded slowly, the light finally dawning. Addy was family to Bianca, and not just through Diego. Bianca had three other children as well, and Addy meant the world to each of them. To the youngest, Matty, she was a beloved bonus sister. To Georgie, she was a live-in best friend. And to the eldest, Jackson, she was quite simply everything. Addy might as well be Bianca’s own child at this rate, and Willa knew only too well how far Bianca would go to keep her children happy. “And since Addy and I are friends—”

  “—she won’t be happy unless we’re all friends.” Bianca’s smile was frigid.

  Willa stared at her. “You and I aren’t ever going to be friends.”

  “Amen. But we can be civil, can’t we?” Willa’s skepticism must’ve shown on her face because Bianca blew out an impatient breath. “Our history is…complicated, I’ll grant you, but surely we can agree to coexist without quite so much open hostility.”

  Willa considered that in silence.

  Bianca scowled. “I’m making an effort here, Willa. You could do the same.”

  “Why?” It was an honest question. “Why would I expend even the tiniest bit of effort to make your life easier?”

  “Because Addy is the best person we know.” She said it bluntly. “Because she’s happy — truly happy — for the first time since she came to Devil’s Kettle, and the people who love her have a responsibility to keep her that way. So we, Willa Zinc—” She bared her teeth in a brilliant smile. “—are going to get along.”

  Willa frowned. She agreed wholeheartedly in principle. Addison was the best person she knew. The girl was a stubborn bundle of freckle-faced sunshine, and the closest thing Willa had had to a friend in years. In practice, though? It was unsettling to find herself in agreement with Bianca Davis. It was unprecedented, in fact, and left her groping for an appropriate response.

  Then, inside the wall, something thumped, and the unmistakable sound of nails skittered frantically along the baseboards. Bianca whirled like a gunslinger and shot a lethal finger toward the noise.

  “But that—” She glared at Willa, a familiar glare Willa found deeply reassuring. “—is why you’re here.”

  Willa dropped her bag and pushed Bianca out of her mind. Pushed this bizarre conversation and this universe-altering proposal out of her mind, too, and focused on whatever was inside that wall.

  “When did you first hear it?”

  “This morning.” Bianca stared at the wall as if she could burn through it with her laser eyes and incinerate whatever unlucky mammal was hiding back there.

  Willa pushed a stack of cardboard boxes to the opposite wall and knelt at the baseboards. She put the flat of her palm against the wall where she’d heard the scrabble of tiny nails and tapped with the knuckles of her other hand. The wall came alive under her palm, and she could almost smell the tiny creature’s panic. It was a thin, electric scent, like bad wiring, and Willa’s heart ached for the poor thing. She rose to her feet and headed for the emergency exit.

  “Where are you going?” Bianca was hot on her heels. “It’s in here!”

  “I know.” Willa stepped into the alley and squinted at the cinderblock foundation
, then at the eaves. “There.” She pointed to a rotten spot just under the overhang. “See that? It’s an open invitation.”

  “Well close it.”

  “Let’s see if we can get your little house guest to come out the way he came in first.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll wedge a trap up there and bait it. Give it a few days — a week, tops — and I’m betting we’ll have a live mammal in custody.”

  “Devil Days is a week from now.” Bianca’s eyes were dark and calculating. “I don’t have time for manners. I want that thing out of my gallery today.”

  “Okay, but I’ll have to open the wall.”

  “Today, Willa.”

  She shrugged. “It’s your wall.”

  Half an hour later, Willa had boarded up the hole in the eaves and returned to the gallery’s back room. She had her live trap out, ready to slide it in front of the hole she was about to cut in the wall. She plugged in her reciprocating saw and gave the trigger a testing pull. The saw roared to life and Willa smiled. She did enjoy opening a wall. She turned her ball cap backward, snapped her safety glasses into place and prepared to make the first cut.

  Behind her, Bianca said, “For God’s sake, Willa, be careful.”

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” Willa said. “I’m a professional.”

  “I’m more worried about my wall than your fingers,” Bianca said dryly. “I have an important showing in this room in exactly one week. Do not destroy my gallery.”

  “Would I do that?”

  Bianca’s silence spoke volumes. Willa triggered her saw and went after the wall, hiding a smile in her shoulder.

  A few loud, dusty minutes later, Willa had her live trap plugged into the wall where there had once been a neat square of vanilla latte drywall. Bianca eyed the trap distrustfully.

  “What do we do now?”