Page 12 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Rhett

Dark amber and gold stretched across the sky, pink clouds at the edges. The air had started to cool just enough to chase off the heat and humidity of the day, though the scent of hickory smoke and fried cornbread lingered on my clothes.

I looked over at Willow—barefoot in the grass, long chestnut waves loose around her shoulders, a pink sundress clinging sweetly and stubbornly to the curves of her hips—and I knew I couldn’t stay on that library lawn a second longer without doing something foolish.

So I touched her elbow and leaned in close. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

She blinked up at me, then nodded without a single question where we were going. She just trusted me…and that stirred something deep in my chest, want and ache and hope all tangled together.

We left the crowd behind, heading down Main Street, where porch lights flickered on and the last of the kids chased each other through the emerging fireflies. Most of the shops had shut down for the night, but the diner’s windows still glowed soft yellow, the scent of butter wafting out.

“Where are we going?” Willow asked, her fingers brushing against mine.

I took her hand and squeezed it. “You’ll see.”

The street curved, dipping past the old train tracks and the overgrown garden lot where Mrs. Calhoun used to sell bundles of wildflowers.

I walked us past the old feed store and the rusted gas pump that still bore my daddy’s initials, down the path where the honeysuckle grew thick and sweet.

I didn’t stop Willow from pausing to smell the flowers, a relaxed sigh slipping past her lips.

And then we heard it—soft at first, the babbling of the creek ahead.

It was small enough that it didn’t have an official name, but the locals called it Foxglove Falls—due to the namesake flowers that bloomed all around the small waterfall in the springtime.

People got paranoid about coming here at night as they thought the ghost of Isadora Stratham—the witch that had supposedly cursed the Ward family—haunted it… but I’d always found it soothing.

Even if her ghost was here, I figured she must like me.

Willow followed the sound, tugging me a little faster as the trees thickened and the fireflies grew bolder, blinking between the branches like the forest was exhaling light.

She caught sight of the creek just as it came into view—tucked between a mossy bank and a tumble of stone, the water ribboned silver in the moonlight, spilling over the rocks in a gentle fall that hushed the world around us.

“Oh,” Willow breathed.

I didn’t say anything—just watched her walk barefoot to the edge of the creek, shoes dangling from one hand, her sundress swaying around her thighs.

She knelt down to trail her fingers through the water, smiling like I’d shared an intimate secret with her, like this whole place had been waiting for her .

The whole town felt like that…along with my home, my heart.

Just waiting for her, for years.

I let her have the silence for a beat before she stood up, then I moved behind her to slide my arms around her waist.

“You like it?” I asked.

She exhaled a deep sigh. “Rhett…there’s not a single thing about tonight that I haven’t loved.”

I chuckled, nuzzling her temple, breathing her in. “You ever slow dance under the stars, Willow Rhodes?”

She turned in my arms, smiling up at me with that sweet, startled expression she always got when I got romantic. “No,” she said softly.

“Good,” I said, drawing her closer. “Then I get to be your first.”

We fell into the rhythm of the music still echoing from Main Street, some slow country radio hit.

She let me guide her, arms around my neck, her fingers playing with the hair at my nape like she didn’t even realize she was doing it.

Our bodies moved slow and easy, chest to chest, the hush of the falls and the whistle of cicadas settling around us.

Willow laid her head against me, right over my heart. I didn’t know if she could feel how fast it was beating, but she sure as hell could’ve guessed. Every inch of her against me felt like temptation—sweet, slow-burning temptation.

“You’re good at this,” she murmured.

“Dancin’?”

“No,” she said, lifting her head. “This. All of this. The fireflies, the secret creek…the way you look at me like I might be made of magic.”

“Maybe you are,” I said. “You ever think of that?”

She smiled—but it was softer now, like I’d disarmed her. The song faded out, and still we didn’t stop. I just held her there in the glow of the fireflies, turning slow circles in the grass with the waterfall spilling silver behind us.

She leaned her cheek against my chest again, quiet for a long moment before she said, “You really believe it, don’t you?”

I didn’t ask what she meant. I knew.

The curse.

I swallowed, tightening my arms around her. “I didn’t used to. Thought it was just Grandma Hazel talkin’. Folks say all kinds of things when they’re grieving.”

“But now?”

“Now I’ve watched Silas lose the love of his life. Watched Beau run off every good woman who’s ever looked twice at him. And I’ve seen my reflection in a window more than once and thought I saw my father’s eyes starin’ back.” I looked down at her, brushing her hair back. “So yeah. Sometimes I do.”

She was quiet again. Thoughtful.

“Would it scare you,” she asked slowly, “if I did a little witchcraft back at the house?”

My brows ticked up. “You mean…like, actual spells?”

“Not the kind with toads and eye of newt,” she said, grinning against my shirt. “Just…protection stuff. Cleanse the space. Sweeten the air. Maybe ask whatever’s lingering to let you keep the things you care about.”

My chest ached at that.

At the way she said it like I was already hers.

“I wouldn’t be scared,” I said. “Not if it’s you doin’ it.”

“You think our ghost would mind?”

“Honestly?” I kissed her forehead. “I think whatever’s in that house wants us together.”

Willow tilted her face up to mine, eyes gleaming in the dim light like dusk-swept glass .

“It does feel like fate, doesn’t it? That I ended up in your driveway. That you had a place for me to stay…”

She looked almost afraid to say the next part, but she did.

“The night we first kissed, the roses on my windowsill bloomed. It was…it was strange, they shouldn’t have done that. Not yet. You didn’t put them there…did you?”

I shook my head.

Willow breathed out, the sound catching in her throat like a spell being cast and pulled taut. “So either your ghost is playing matchmaker, or this is something bigger.”

“Maybe it’s both,” I said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “Maybe she’s just helping along what was already written.”

She shivered in my arms, but not from cold. “Rhett…”

“I don’t know what to call it,” I murmured, dipping my forehead to hers. “I just know that I want it. Want you. Ever since I handed you that cup of coffee the first morning I saw you.”

Her breath caught—just a hitch—but I felt it in the space between us, in the shift of her body as she leaned closer. Her hand curled against my chest, right over the beat of my heart.

And then she kissed me.

Soft, at first. Just the brush of her lips against mine.

But it deepened fast, whatever restraint we’d been holding onto all night had finally snapping. She rose up on her toes and I caught her, one hand at her lower back, the other tilting her chin so I could kiss her deeper. Hungrier.

She tasted like tea and pastries and…something wilder—like she belonged to this night and every dream I’d ever had about it.

Her hands slid into my hair, nails grazing my scalp, and I groaned low in my throat. The way she kissed me back…she already knew the shape of this, of us. It was like her body had be en waiting on mine just as long as mine had been aching for hers.

“Rhett,” she whispered against my lips. “Will you take me home?”

I pulled back just enough to see her face—eyes glassy in the moonlight, lips kiss-bitten and pink, breath catching.

“You sure?” I rasped.

She nodded. “I don’t wanna wait. Not anymore.”

I kissed her again, slower this time. A promise.

Then I reached down, laced my fingers with hers, and said, “Come on, darlin’. Let me take you where you belong.”