Page 63 of Her Wicker Guardian

“Not tonight.”

“The man?”

My stomach twists, but this time the feeling stops there. “No messages.”

“Good.”

“Very.”

His attention stays on me for another second. Then he points toward the house. “Sleep?”

“Eventually.”

“Without listening for footsteps?”

My breath catches hard enough to hurt. For a second, I can only stare at him.

I wish I could sleep without listening for footsteps.

He heard me say it before he came through.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Locke doesn’t tell me I’m safe. He doesn’t promise something neither of us can guarantee. He only says, “I hope.”

My throat tightens. “Me too.”

I go inside a few minutes later and lock the kitchen door. One, two, three, four.

Chapter Twelve

Rachel

Tuesday, my day off from the diner, passes quietly enough that by late afternoon I’ve started to believe we may actually make it to the next meeting before anything changes.

I’m going out to see if Locke needs another bottle of water when I see him splitting firewood. He’s pulled the large stump that was beside the shed to the corner of the house where the sun is shining. The neat pile of split logs beside the workshop has more than doubled in size.

It’s hard not to notice how powerful his shoulders are and how well he fills out his borrowed blue T-shirt. Tom must have shown him the axe yesterday. Locke handles it with the same certainty he brings to the bear, setting each round on the stump, checking the grain, and bringing the blade down with controlled force.

One of the rounds is thick enough that I would’ve expected Tom to need more than one swing. Locke splits it cleanly and reaches for the next without any sign that the first cost him much effort. Whatever his body is made to do, strength is high on the list. The growing stack beside the workshop suggests he’s taken the existence of winter personally.

Every swing lifts his arms over his head, and the T-shirt rides up with them, baring a strip of woven willow above his waistband before it settles again. I watch it happen four times before I admit I’m not counting logs. I’m thinking about all that controlled strength braced over me, careful the way he’s careful with everything, and how badly I want him to stop being careful. The thought arrives so vividly that heat climbs my neck.

I haven’t let myself picture anything like that in years. Picturing it about a man who has been alive for less than a week is a special kind of ridiculous.

Locke looks up and catches me watching him. For a second, neither of us looks away. I wonder whether he can see it on my face. Then I wonder what he would do if he could. Then he reaches for another piece of wood, and I remember I came outside to ask if he needed water.

A car turns into the driveway.

The engine is unfamiliar. Locke hears it too and lowers the axe instead of raising it again.

“Not Shannon,” he says.

“Different engine?”

“Yes.”

I glance toward the drive. “I’ll see who it is.” Locke sets another round on the stump while I head around the side of the cottage.