The Ones We Buried

Chapter 3 — Charming Is a Warning Sign

Wren Ashworth found me on Thursday, which felt less like coincidence and more like he'd been waiting for an opening the way some people wait for a bus-patient, unbothered, certain it would eventually arrive.

"You survived the first week," he said, dropping into the seat beside me at a diner booth I definitely hadn't invited him into. "Statistically impressive, given my brother already tried to scare you off."

"He didn't scare me off. He gave me vague, ominous half-warnings and then ran away."

"That does sound like Caleb." Something almost fond crossed Wren's face before he smoothed it into the easy, practiced charm I was starting to recognize as armor, same as my own sarcasm. "I'm going to do this differently. Ask me anything. I'll actually answer."

"Anything?"

"Within reason." A crooked smile. "I contain multitudes, some of which are legally inadvisable to discuss in a diner."

I studied him for a moment, weighing whether this was an actual opening or just a more charming version of his brother's stonewalling. "Why does my last name make every adult in this town flinch?"

The charm flickered, just slightly, the first genuine c***k I'd seen in him. "Direct. I like it." He turned his coffee cup slowly on the table, buying time. "There was a Bellweather who lived here a long time ago. Before my parents, even. She was involved with my family somehow—I don't know the specifics, nobody my age does. But whatever happened, it's the reason this whole town still gets weird about the name twenty-some years later."

"She. Involved how?"

"That's the part nobody will say out loud." He met my eyes, and for once the performance dropped away entirely. "I'm not being cagey to torture you, Nora. I genuinely don't know all of it. My parents were kids themselves when it happened. But whatever it was, it's the reason Caleb's spent his whole life being told to keep his head down and his mouth shut about our family's history, and it's the reason you showing up with that specific last name has half this town holding its breath."

Something cold settled low in my stomach. "Was she related to me?"

"I don't know." His voice softened, unexpectedly gentle underneath the usual bravado. "But given how your face just did the exact same thing everyone else's does when they hear the name—I'm starting to think you might already suspect the answer."

I thought about my father, about a town he'd apparently talked about but never once brought me to, about Aunt Rosalind's careful non-answer in the car. About the folder of Things Nobody Is Telling Me that kept getting heavier by the day.

"I need to find out," I said, mostly to myself.

"Then let me help you." Wren leaned forward, something serious finally breaking through the charm entirely. "I mean that. Not as a line. I've spent my whole life watching my family flinch around a story nobody will finish. I'd like to know the ending too."

"Why would you help me dig into something that clearly makes your family uncomfortable?"

His smile came back, but softer this time, less performance and more something real underneath it. "Because you looked like you needed one person in this town to just tell you the truth instead of managing you. I'd rather be that person than another name on the list of people who made you feel crazy for asking questions."

I didn't trust him yet. I wasn't sure I trusted anyone in this town yet, including myself, including the growing, inconvenient warmth I felt every time either Ashworth brother looked at me like I was a person instead of a name that made rooms go quiet.

But it was, for the first time since my dad died, something that felt a little bit like a plan instead of just grief with nowhere to go.

"Okay," I said. "Where do we start?"

Wren's answer died on his lips as his gaze flicked over my shoulder toward the diner window. I turned to follow it and caught Caleb standing on the sidewalk outside, stopped mid-step, watching the two of us through the glass with an expression I couldn't read—not quite anger, something closer to a wound reopening.

He was gone before either of us could react, disappearing down the street without a word.

"He does that," Wren said quietly, something complicated crossing his own face now. "Watches. Never says anything. Never has, not about anything that matters."

"Is he going to be a problem?"

"He's never been the problem." Wren's voice had lost all its usual ease. "That's what worries me."