“How long are you staying?” Eric called to him.
“As long as I need to,” Asher replied without turning around. He didn’t know the extent of the threat. He only read our anxiety and nerves, and he was here to stay as long as we needed him.
A knot loosened in my chest. The Thorne men had a way of making fear feel smaller just by being present.
Eric helped me into the truck and shut the door. The moment the lock clicked, something inside me settled. Not fully. But enough. He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and kept his hand on the gearshift for a moment before driving.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he said, wanting to be reassuring.
“You don’t know that, Eric. The kind of people we are dealing with. . .” I blew out a breath. “I didn’t want to bring this kind of trouble to your house.”
“You’re not bringing danger to me,” he said. “You’re letting me protect you.”
He said it so simply. So certain. The certainty made something warm push through the cold inside me. As we left the orchard, the headlights cut over the quiet stretch of road. Frost glimmered like scattered glass. I pressed my palm to my thigh to keep my hands from shaking.
“Whoever is doing this,” I said quietly, “they know how to get close without being seen.”
Eric gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. “Then we get ahead of them.”
“How?”
“We talk to Becket tonight. Then to my father.”
My heart throbbed once. “Pierre is already worried. I don’t want him thinking I’m a threat.”
“You’re not a threat to anyone here,” Eric said. “But you’re in danger, and that matters to him.”
I swallowed hard. “Does he know about the file I turned in?”
“He knows more than you think,” Eric said softly. “But this is different.”
He did not explain further, and I did not push. There was a heaviness in his voice I wasn’t ready to unpack.
The road curved, bringing us closer to the Thornes’ main house. Warm light glowed from the living room window. It felt like stepping toward a different kind of world, one I didn’t know how to belong in, but desperately wished I did. When Eric parked beside the house, he turned to me before I could take off my seat belt.
“You stay with me,” he said. “Tonight, and as long as you need.”
My breath caught. “Eric…”
“You can argue with me tomorrow,” he said softly. “Not tonight.”
The gentle conviction in his voice unraveled something deep in my chest.
I nodded.
Inside, the house was quiet. The soft scent of cedar and something warm, maybe spices, filled the air. Eric closed the door behind us and locked it.
“Let’s get you settled,” he said.
He led me down the hall to his sister’s room, which was vacant and had become more of a guest room, but when he opened the door, I realized he was hesitating. The bed was neatlymade, untouched. The room was colder than the rest of the house.
“You don’t want me here,” I said quietly.
“That’s not it.”
“Then what is it?” I asked nervously.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t want you alone. Not tonight.”
