Chapter Nineteen #3
fully recognize. Because it isn’t fear or anxiety or worry, not really. It’s something about the green of his eyes.
And I want to keep him here, right here, in this moment. So I keep talking. And I think about Cleo’s direct, steady gaze after
Knit and Sip, and how it held me up. “We’ll just have to carry it for her right now,” I tell him.
There’s a wariness in his gaze now, but I can feel his heartbeat under my palm. Steady. Determined. Just like him.
“We?” he asks me gruffly. His gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth, and I swear he’s closer. I lean into that closeness as
something in me sighs. We.
But that’s not what either one of us is talking about right now. This is about Cleo and Virginia and demons and safety. “We’re
all a big demon-fighting team, right?”
He nods his head slowly, and he isn’t looking at my mouth anymore. He’s stepping back. “Right.” He turns from me—my hands,
my leaning into him, my everything, and starts for his bike.
I’m not sure what just happened, but I’m beginning to think all the imagining I’ve convinced myself I’m doing isn’t fully a figment of my imagination.
But I sure don’t comprehend it. Or him. Except . . . in truth, there are parts of him I’m beginning to understand. That part that helps before he thinks.
I follow him to his bike. “You jumped right out on that roof.”
“What the hell was I supposed to do? She could have lost her balance,” he grumbles. Uncomfortable, maybe, that I saw a flash
of something more in him than what he’s been showing me.
Or maybe that I’m noticing it.
Because he’s done this before. When I was sleepwalking. Even barely knowing me and not so thrilled with what he did know,
he kept me safe.
I can hear Virginia’s quavering voice in my head. They want you to think you’re safe. None of you are safe. You have to stay together in the dark to be safe.
“Jack . . .” He stops at his bike and looks back at me warily. “What are we going to do?” I ask him, because this is . . .
There is something to be done, and I do not know what it is.
But I see it on his face, a stark kind of pain. He doesn’t know what to do, either, and it’s killing him.
I want to touch him again. To reach out and be a we, but before I can, he’s speaking. Finding answers to questions. Always.
“If Virginia is right, if that warning was as lucid as it sounded,” he says gruffly, moving to the other side of his motorcycle
so we’re separated by something more than good intentions. “It isn’t safe for you—you or Logan or Nora. Not at night, when
it’s dark. She wants us all together.” When I don’t argue, he continues. “Maybe Cleo’s right and it’s just dementia, but Virginia
knew who you were. She clearly thinks Amelia sacrificed herself to get you here. That means it was already more dangerous,
much earlier than we thought.”
I don’t speak. My heart aches for a million reasons.
“I think we should all be under the same roof at night.” Jack sounds as if he regrets having to say this, but I’m not sure I disagree. “Amelia’s place is too small, and besides . . .” But he trails off.
“Besides what?”
“Maybe it’s dangerous, too.” He says that flatly, and it leaves me a little winded. Because that raccoon was on the back porch
of Nora’s store—right across from the house. Then there was the possum, in the shadows between the store and the house. Maybe
even if nothing has happened yet, even if I’ve tried to hold on to Nora telling me it’s fine because we have to live anyway,
he’s right.
“Nora’s place is too small and so is mine, but the antique store has beds,” he continues, swinging onto his bike. “We can
all stay there. Be safe, under one roof, at night when it’s most dangerous out there. You good with that?”
“I had plans to take in some community theater, actually,” I tell him. “This will really dampen my support of local artisans.”
He shoots me a doleful look, but there is almost a hint of humor in his mouth. “I’ll drop you off at the knitting shop. You can fill in your brother and Nora. It might be
daytime, but I want you three to stay together until we get a handle on what’s going on. Once the shop closes, stay put until
I come get you guys.”
I nod and slide onto the back of his motorcycle, and without the same hesitation from before, I lean into him. I close my
eyes and press my cheek to his back because I need the comfort and I think—foolishly, no doubt—maybe he does, too. Even if
he might not want it.
For a few seconds, we’re both still and quiet, breathing in sync. Like I’ve been right about our matching heartbeats all along.
He doesn’t start the engine. I don’t say anything. There’s no sniping, no pulling away. We both just let ourselves settle.
But there’s a ticking clock. Literally and figuratively. Demons and Halloween and Feeds. Danger, as warned by a not-fully-lucid woman. I glance back at the house.
“What about Cleo?” I ask him in his ear.
Jack looks at the house, too. I can’t see his expression since I’m at his back. But he pauses. He clearly thinks something
over before he fires up the motorcycle.
And he doesn’t answer my question before he drives away.