“What?”
“I came home from Baton Rouge, and you were gone. You hadn’t said anything.”
She wanted to point out he hadn’t contacted her either, and she was giving him the space he’d asked for, but she’d rather get her story out before she heard his.
“Because when I woke up that night, after the ritual, I knew what I needed to do. And I realized I needed to ask for help in order to help, like everyone stepped up to help me. You know how hard it is for me to ask. So Daisy and I went. I didn’t think you’d be back so soon, not the way you said goodbye. You said you needed space.” She didn’t mean it to come out so accusing, wished she could bite the words back.
“I talked to Susan while we were there in Baton Rouge. She told me to come back, to talk to you, to tell you—” He drew in a sharp breath. “To tell you what I’m thinking.”
She leaned back against the fender, folding her arms, lifting her chin to indicate she was all ears. “What are you thinking, Sam?”
His posture was rigid, his legs braced as he laced his fingers behind his head. She wondered if he realized he was forming a pentagram with his stance. Or maybe he was trying as hard not to touch her as she was trying not to touch him.
“I was scared that day. Terrified.” His voice started out soft. “But as I think about it now, I wasn’t afraid of you, or of Millicent, or what we were doing. I was afraid for you. I was scared something was going to happen to you because you’d opened yourself to it, and I didn’t know how to help, if that was the case. And I realize, that’s what my dad feels too, about my mom’s power. He’s not afraid of her. He’s afraid for her. Does that make sense?”
She nodded solemnly. “It does.”
“And I realized something else,” he went on, faster now. “I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it. If you’d said you were moving to New York for good, I’d have figured a way to go. If you wanted to leave the bayou tomorrow and never look back…I would have found a way to be there.”
She pushed herself off the fender to stand in front of him. “And if I decide to stay here?”
He took her upper arms in his hands, the contact sending a sizzle through her that made the magic she’d experienced the other day feel like nothing.
A smile quirked his lips. “Then you better believe I’ll find a way to stay here, to keep you out of trouble.”
She leaned forward, wrapped her arms around his neck. “I have a feeling that won’t be as easy as you think.”
He was full-on grinning now as he shook his head. “Oh, of that, I have absolutely no doubt.”
Epilogue
The first fallbreeze stirred her hair as she walked down the sidewalk of Phantom Bayou. Weird, because she didn’t see any trees moving, didn’t hear the chimes hanging outside Allison’s shop. She kept her phone out as she walked, documenting the changes going on in town—the shelving being placed in the new grocery store, the pots of bright yellow mums in planters outside the front door of the diner with its shiny new windows, the long wooden sign going up over the space beside Allison’s shop.
Guillory Hardware.
Pastor Dan stood outside supervising, pride softening his expression as he leaned on his cane. He glanced over when she walked up beside him.
“Sam’s not here to see this?”
“He’s on his way, said not to wait.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Thank you for this. It’s going to be good having him home.”
“That was his decision, not mine.”
“But you gave him that option.”
Sam’s truck rumbled up. He parked on the wrong side of the street behind the crane, hopped out and pulled Erielle in for a kiss that made his father clear his throat in mock disapproval. Grinning, Sam kept his arm looped around her neck as he turned to gaze up at the sign being lifted in place.
“I like it. Nice clean lines, easy to read. Good call, Guillory,” she said.
“And it fits in with the design of the town,” he said. “Looks like it could have been here all along.”
She lifted her phone to capture it all, from the upturned faces of the Guillory father and son to the sign, recording until it settled into place.
Then she tucked her phone away and looked up at Sam. “Did the new scroll saw come in?”
“You came down to ask me that?” He feigned injury with an exaggerated frown.
“I didn’t, but I did want to see if I can get a lesson on it soon to replace the gingerbread on the porch.”
