Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Declan
The engine of my truck rumbles low as I pull up outside the Applewood Inn. Emery said she needed to grab a few things last night. I haven’t heard from her since.
Only a brief answer to one of my texts.
My unease over her silence has been riding shotgun since sunrise.
I cut the engine and sit there for a beat, watching the front door. Sunlight spills across the porch. No fog or gloom today.
Inside, the scent of coffee greets me. Mrs. Applewood looks up from behind the desk. Her warm smile flickers for a second before she schools it back into place.
“Oh,” she squeaks. “Mr. Sterling.”
My bullshit meter dings. Something’s off with her today.
“Morning, Mrs. Applewood,” I say. “I’m looking for Emery.”
She hesitates. Glances down at the papers on her desk and shuffles them around.
“Ms. Corbin checked out a little while ago,” she finally says.
No.
Why would she leave without telling me?
“Checked out? Are you sure?” I ask.
“Spoke to her myself. Watched her load all her stuff into her car and drive off.” She waves her hand toward the back door.
Emery left without saying goodbye.
I nod once, smoothing my face into a mask of indifference. I’ll deal with this information later. “Okay. Thanks.”
“But when I was cleaning her room, I found this.” She pulls a long white envelope from behind the desk and hands it to me. “It seems to be for you.”
My name’s scrawled in loopy purple ink across the front. The seal’s intact. At least Mrs. Applewood didn’t open and read it.
I take it, my fingers closing around the paper, painfully aware this is the last I have of Emery.
“She seemed tired,” Mrs. Applewood adds, then smiles. “And surprised you paid her bill.”
I don’t trust my voice, so I nod.
Outside, the cold bites at my skin but I ignore it, slide the envelope in my pocket, and get behind the wheel.
The short drive to my apartment is a blur.
She’s not waiting for me by the back door with that adorable let-me-ask-you-some-questions smile. And a quick jog to the front of the shop only shows an empty sidewalk.
I stomp upstairs to my apartment.
No room is safe. An extra toothbrush on my bathroom sink. The T-shirts she borrowed to sleep in tossed on the bed. One of her sweatshirts hanging on a hook by the door. I stare at it like it’s proof she was planning to return.
So why did she go?
Dreading the answers, I take the letter out of my pocket, drop down on the couch, and carefully open it.
Declan,
I’m not very good at saying goodbye.
Thank you for everything you did for me while I was here. I know you weren’t thrilled about me poking at the town’s past, but you never made me feel foolish for asking questions or wanting answers.
I need some distance to sort through what I learned, without either of us feeling pushed toward decisions we wouldn’t choose under normal circumstances.
None of this erases what we shared. You matter to me more than I know how to say.
You’ve carried weight that never should have been yours. Your future is yours now. I hope whatever you choose to do next feels like it’s one hundred percent your choice.
Take care of yourself.
Emery
I read it straight through once. Sounds like Emery. A little wordy but thoughtful. Kind.
She went through a lot here. Arrived in Crowsbridge Hollow as a skeptic. Then received an up close and personal education on the supernatural.
She needs some distance or time. That’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the end of us, does it?
I fold the letter and stuff it back into my pocket.
By the time I get downstairs to open the shop, irritation has crawled under my skin and burrowed deep.
Work usually settles me. Today, nothing cures my restlessness. For the first time in years, nothing extra hums under my skin. No awareness of anything watching my every move. Like the Rider and the curse my family lived under for generations never existed.
In the mirror, I catch sight of my ink-free neck and pull my collar aside.
The Rider’s marks really are all gone. As if they’d never lived in my skin.
I’m free to replace them with anything I want.
Or nothing at all. It should be a relief, so why do I feel like something was torn out of my soul, leaving a void?
I sit at my desk with my sketchbook for some pen-to-paper therapy.
All I end up drawing is a crow perched on a branch.
Still restless and annoyed, I pull Emery’s letter out and read it slower this time.
It still doesn’t answer my biggest question. Why’d she feel the need to say goodbye at all?
The bell over the door jingles and I hurry to see who it is.
Lucy.
I wipe the disappointment from my expression. Who the fuck’d I think it was? Emery? Returning to tell me she made a mistake and she wants…what?
“Jesus, you look like shit, Big D,” Lucy says.
“Thanks,” I grumble. “So glad you’re here.”
She doesn’t laugh or zing me with a snarky comment. I really must look like shit.
Lucy steps farther into the shop, her gaze scanning the space like she’s searching for burglars. She slowly walks around the front desk and drops her bag on the chair.
“Thought you’d be snuggled up with your girl all day, helping her edit her video since you cracked the curse last night.”
That was my preference. Emery apparently felt otherwise.
I grunt at Lucy in response.
Her brows knit together. “Is she okay?”
“Don’t know.” I wave the letter in my hand. “She went home. Left this for me at the inn.”
She hurries around the side of the desk, hand outstretched. “Ooo, what’s it say?”
“Never mind.” I stuff the letter in my pocket, the last place Lucy would venture. “Basically, thanks for a good time, you’re free now, have a nice life,” I summarize.
Lucy shrugs. “Not like she’s the first tourist to—”
“Don’t,” I warn her. “It’s not like that at all.”
Her forehead wrinkles in a pitying expression that agitates me even more. “Maybe she’s embarrassed? She came here to prove the legends were fake, then got jacked by a sadistic ghost and his horse.”
Lucy’s ability to distill major events into a few absurd words never stops surprising me. Today, her talent isn’t as amusing.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to do a long-distance relationship?” Lucy shrugs.
No, that doesn’t feel right, either.
Your future is yours now. What does that even mean? My future’s always been mine. I never expected it to feel this empty without her.
Lucy’s still watching me, arms crossed like she’s waiting for a big revelation. “Maybe she’s handing you an out? If she thought it was just a fling—”
“It wasn’t a fling,” I snap. I grab my keys off the desk. “And if that’s what she thinks, she can say it to my face.”