Chapter 12
Silas
The chaos had quieted.
Dinner had been loud—Hazel passing from arm to arm like she was the goddamn royal baby, Milo begging under the table with sparkling brown eyes, Holden telling some story about a local ghost down in Guatemala that had Beau nervously knocking on wood every five seconds.
Laughter, clinking silverware, overlapping voices… too much to talk to her, to apologize.
But now the sun had slipped low, the sky turning lavender at the edges.
Hazel had given into sleep, curled up on Rhett’s chest with her tiny fist clenched in his shirt.
Delilah, Whit, Beau, and Holden were on the porch, passing a joint and arguing over which Fleetwood Mac song was sexiest—though it seemed Delilah and Whit were the only ones participating at this point.
And June…
June was standing in the yard barefoot, holding a drink in one hand and my flannel in the other.
The porch light glowed a short distance away, but she was mostly backlit by fireflies—little flickers of gold rising and falling around her legs, the hem of her dress, her long hair. She wasn’t doing anything special, just…standing there.
And I couldn’t stop looking.
It had only been a week since the snakebite, and I felt like I’d been starving just for a glimpse of her.
Now, I had to drink my fill while I could, before I fucked everything up again.
I wanted to tell her I was sorry for how I’d behaved, make sure she knew she could tell me anything…
but I didn’t know the first thing about being something to someone.
She turned her head a little, just enough for the porch light to catch the side of her face—her freckled cheek, full lips, the dark line of lashes. I thought she might look back and catch me starin’. I almost hoped she would.
That, at least, would give me an in…maybe make this less awkward.
I reached into my pocket, searching for the trinket I’d brought her.
I’d salvaged a piece of old oak from one of the pews, sanded it smooth, stained it with cedar oil and scratched a hexafoil into it—an old symbol that Hazel used to scratch into thresholds and the insides of our lunchboxes.
Through that charm, I’d threaded a length of leather cord…
not because I wanted to charm her with a gift, but because I needed her protected.
If I was going to ask her to put herself at risk to be with me—no matter how superstitious that risk was—I wanted her safe.
I made my way down the porch steps, hoping none of the stoner crew would notice—and I was relieved to see they seemed fully distracted by Whit and Delilah’s verbal sparring match, or maybe just too high to give a shit.
June didn’t hear me either, only looking over her shoulder when I was a few steps away, and she didn’t stop me from coming to stand beside her.
In fact…she smiled.
“You done avoiding me, Mr. Ward?” she asked.
I smiled down at the firefly-lit grass. “I’m done avoiding you, Reverend Fontenot.”
She let out a soft hum, eyes back on the horizon. “Well, that’s a relief. I was starting to think I’d imagined the whole thing. Snakebite, flannel, heat-of-the-moment kissing, existential breakdown in a house of God…”
“Pretty vivid imagination if you did.”
June laughed—quiet, dry, like she was trying not to wake the ghosts tucked under the eaves of the Ward house. “It was vivid, alright.”
We stood there for a minute, the kind of silence that didn’t beg to be filled. The sky was purple now, almost navy, and the air smelled like cut grass and honeysuckle. I looked down at the charm still clutched in my palm, then held it out to her.
“I made this for you,” I said.
She turned, brows lifting, reaching out to take it. Her fingers brushed mine—just enough to start a low, stupid thrum in my chest.
She turned it over once, then again. “Hexafoil.”
“You know it?”
“My grandma—out in North Carolina—she had one carved into the lintel above her back door,” she said, voice dipping into memory. “Didn’t know what it meant at the time, but she always said it kept the rot out. Called it ‘ancient protection.’”
“Hazel believed that too,” I murmured. “She scratched ‘em into everything.”
June looked at me, and her smile faded.
“You’re scared I’ll get hurt again,” she said. Not a question.
“If you’re stickin’ around,” I replied, “you should know I’m always scared.”
June laughed under her breath. “I”m starting to get that about you.”
“And it hasn’t made you want to hightail it outta here?”
She looked up at me. “I don’t scare easy.”
I didn’t look away from her—I didn’t want to, when I could have looked at her for years and never gotten sick of her. Instead, I stepped just an inch or so closer, my fingers twitching with the urge to touch her.
“You seemed so damn steady when we first met,” I said.
“I am,” she said.
“But it made me think you had nothin’ in your past that ached like I did,” I said. “Made me think…two different worlds, no common ground. But you sussed me out the second you laid eyes on me, didn’t you?”
“No,” she said. “I was curious about you. Thought you were a man who’d been hollowed out by grief, and still showed up anyway.”
I didn’t say anything—had no idea where to start.
June held out the charm. “Will you put it on me?”
I nodded, speechless, and June gathered her hair in one hand to pull it over her shoulder as she turned. It bared the skin of her neck…the freckles that dusted her shoulders, the silver chain of her cross necklace.
My hands didn’t shake, but they sure as hell wanted to.
I stepped closer and gently looped the leather cord around her neck, the charm smooth against my fingertips. The knot was simple—secure but easy to undo if she ever wanted to take it off.
I hoped she wouldn’t.
When I finished, I let my hands linger for a moment, just barely brushing the sides of her throat.
“You know when I said pump the brakes…I didn’t mean get out of the car,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
I kept my hands on her shoulders as she turned around, unable to pull away now that I was touching her. She didn’t seem to mind; she stayed close, gazing up at me.
“I was…” she paused. “I really wanted you to fuck me the other night.”
The words were so forward they took the breath out me. “June—”
“But I don’t think that’s for us, huh? I don’t mean sex, just…
well, going fast. I don’t think you’re the type of man that does anything fast, are you?
” She reached up to run her fingers over the charm, the smooth wood.
“No…you’re the type to take the time. To sculpt and treat things with care. You grieved a long, long time, Silas.”
Damn if she didn’t have the power to find all the places that I hadn’t realized still hurt.
“You’re right,” I said, voice rough. “I did grieve a long time. Too long. Got used to thinkin’ I was supposed to be alone. That if I wanted somethin’ again…the world would punish me for it.”
Her hand found mine. “You know this isn’t a punishment, right?”
“I want to believe that,” I said.
June’s thumb brushed slow across my knuckles. “Did I even tell you why I came back?”
I met her eyes, cocked my head. “Figured you just came to visit Delilah after you got ordained.”
She shook her head. “Nope. I was um…at my mama’s grave, leaving flowers. And when I got back in the car…the address to your church was in my navigation.”
I blinked. “What?”
She gave a little shrug. “It was just there. I hadn’t typed it in.
It wasn’t saved, not in any list, not in any message.
I hadn’t even decided where I was going that day, not really.
I just…needed to drive. And when I looked down at my phone, that address was already in the navigation. Willow Grove. Your church…your home.”
I shook my head. “How…”
June laughed. “Who knows? Technical difficulties? Fate? Or…well, maybe my guardian angel sent me.”
“Or mine,” I offered.
She laughed again—soft this time.
“Maybe,” she said. “Either way…I listened.”
I looked down at her, the glow of the porch catching in her blue eyes, her hair haloed in gold. “I’m glad you did,” I said.
June’s eyes darted around, then, and I followed her gaze.
“What’re you lookin’ for, baby?” I asked, voice low.
And June smiled when she said, “Just making sure there are no snakes around before you kiss me.”
I laughed—quiet and breathless—because of course she’d say that. Of course she’d take all the fear and weight between us and cut right through it with something so simple, so her.
“I checked the perimeter,” I said, voice low as I took one more step closer, close enough to feel the heat of her body. “No snakes. Just fireflies.”
She looked up at me, and God help me, I thought I saw every answer I’d ever needed in those eyes.
“Then you should probably kiss me, Ward,” she whispered.
So I did.
I leaned in, slow but sure, and kissed her like I’d been waiting my whole damn life to find her. Like I’d carved her name into every pew and every prayer. Like she was the answer to a question I hadn’t dared to ask.
Her mouth was soft beneath mine, and she tasted like summer—like rum and sugar and something older than both of us. Her hands slid up my chest, curled into my shirt like she didn’t want to let go. I didn’t want to let go either.
I needed to tell her I thought the snake hadn’t been an accident…that maybe we weren’t safe.
But right here? Right now?
Nothing could touch us.
…other than my incredibly obnoxious brother.
“Y’all done makin’ out?” Whit called from the porch. “Because we’re voting on Fleetwood Mac fuckability and we need a tiebreaker.”
June didn’t pull away. She just smiled against my mouth, like she’d been expecting that interruption.
“Unfortunately, my family is kind of part of the package,” I rumbled against her lips, resting my forehead against hers.
June laughed, and her breath was honey sweet against my lips. “I consider them more of a perk.”
I kissed her again, and when I finally pulled back, she looked up at me with that same steady heat I’d come to crave.
“We’re gonna go slow,” I said, more statement than suggestion.
June nodded. “Yeah. Slow is good.”
“Like...glacial,” I added.
She arched a brow. “Glacial?”
“Snail-paced. Tectonic. One plate shift at a time.”
She laughed, full and bright, and I felt it settle somewhere deep in my chest.
“You sure you’re not just scared I’ll rock your world too fast, Ward?” she teased, voice low and smoky.
“I’m terrified,” I said. “But that’s not why.”
Her face sobered a little, like she felt the weight of what I wasn’t saying.
“You deserve more than a man who jumps into things just to feel something again,” I said. “I don’t want this to be a coping mechanism. I want it to be real. Lasting.”
June nodded. “You’re not the only one with ghosts, you know. I’m not just here for a fling either.”
I brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “So we take it slow.”
She caught my hand in hers and brought it to her lips. “Slow,” she repeated. “But not stagnant.”
“No, ma’am,” I said, lips quirking. “No stagnation allowed.”
Behind us, Whit hollered again. “Are y’all voting or what?”
June shot me one last look. “Come on, Mr. Ward. Let’s go ruin their evening with our emotional maturity.”
“Lead the way, Reverend,” I said, and followed her up the porch steps, the scent of cedar and honeysuckle trailing in her wake.
I didn’t know what the hell would come next—maybe curses, maybe ghosts, maybe worse—but I knew one thing as sure as I knew how to carve a hexafoil.
This time, I wasn’t walking away.