That was nice.
I turned the bacon again, the pan sizzling. Hazel laughed again and I heard Milo whine softly.
“No problems with the house since I left?” I asked. “Just want to do my due diligence as your resident exorcist.”
Willow snorted. “Still a few things that go bump in the night, but only things that are welcome,” she said. “You know…glimpses of strange women in mirrors—not me,otherstrange women—and the occasional blooming flower in places they don’t belong. Didn’t take any unwelcome guests home with you, right?”
I was about to answer with a definitive no—New Orleans had its own flavor of haunting, but my apartment back in the city was no such place—then I stopped short.
“Didn’t think so…but my phone seemed intent on me coming back here,” I said.
Willow cocked her head. “How do you mean?”
“Not sure if Delilah mentioned it,” I said, “but…I wasn’t planning a trip. Navigation just decided I should come here.”
Willow’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s…” she paused. “That’s actually how I got here too, sort of. My GPS rerouted me off the highway that night and sent me straight to Rhett’s driveway. I think?—”
The door swung open before she could finish her thought, and the sound of men’s voices filled the room. Milo was on his feet and ready to mug Beau in seconds, trotting over with his tongue lolling as Rhett came over and took Willow in with one arm to kiss her temple. With his other hand, he passed over a bunch of zinnias—and it reminded meof the ones I’d placed on my mother’s grave a week ago, my heart rattling.
Flowers blooming in places they don’t belong, Willow had said.
I shivered despite myself.
Silas came in last, quiet…but loud with hispresence, purely because it was impossible to ignore him. He was the tallest of the three of them, the most wild—beard unkempt, hair messy and pulled back into a topknot. He’d sweat through his shirt and I could see every hard, lean line of muscle—and he saw me looking, storm grey eyes meeting mine.
“June,” he nodded.
“Silas,” I rasped.
Delilah snorted from her seat at the table, leaning in to whisper something conspiratorial to Hazel. The baby, for her part, didn’t seem to understand a word of it—which was good, because I was sure it wasn’t age appropriate.
“Y’all wash your hands before you touch anything,” Willow announced, bending to pull the biscuits out of the oven. “I swear, if any of you start eating with construction dirt under your nails, I’ll hex you.”
Beau smirked.
“Oh, I ain’t worried about dirt,” he said, swaggering toward the sink. “After what I’ve seen happening on that table, a little soil’s the least of our concerns.”
Rhett didn’t even flinch. “If you don’t want to see things you can’t unsee, maybe you should learn to fuckin’ knock.”
I was still taking it all in, enjoying the family noise, when Silas stepped close—close enough that I could feel the Georgia summer heat rolling off his body, the clean scent of shampoo from his hair. He didn’t say anything; just grabbed a coffee mug off the shelf behind me, shoulder brushing mine.
It was nothing.
It waseverything.
My handsitched, my throat was dry, my whole body tight with the memory of his hand at the small of my back as we’d danced the last night I was here.
“Coffee?” he asked.
“Uh…I’ve already got some,” I stuttered, “but you could top me off.”
He had me so dang rattled, and Jesus…this wasn’t me. Or maybe it was—but only with Silas Ward.
I slid my coffee cup toward him and he topped it off as promised. “You take sugar?” he asked, and damn if it didn’t sound like a proposition.
“Yes please,” I murmured.
We lingered side by side as the others kept setting up the table, in our own little world by the coffee pot. To their credit, the others left us alone—even Delilah, who was constantly meddling. I watched Silas in profile, examined the stray curl that had slipped from his top knot to form a graceful spiral at his temple.
