Page 25 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Rhett

The morning was too quiet.

Not peaceful. Not still. Just…quiet in that way the woods get before a storm rolls in—where the birds go mute and the breeze forgets how to breathe.

I’d been splitting logs out back since sunrise, trying to work the tension out of my bones, but it wasn’t helping.

My hands ached. My jaw hurt from how tight I was clenching it.

Willow had gone inside to steep nettle and raspberry leaf. She said it helped her feel grounded, helped her body settle after the week we’d had.

I didn’t ask if she meant Carter or the fact that we’d been making love like we were trying to carve a new world out of the old one. Maybe it was both.

I was lining the last stack of firewood when I heard it—the low hum of tires on gravel.

Then the screen door creaked.

“Rhett?” Willow’s voice called out. “There’s someone out front.”

The axe slipped a little in my grip .

I wiped my palms on my jeans and came around the side of the house—and froze.

A county cruiser was parked at the edge of the drive—the kind with a light bar faded from years in the sun, dust clinging to the undercarriage, and an officer in uniform stepping out with his hat in hand.

My gut turned cold.

It was the kind of sight that never meant anything good.

Last time I’d seen something like this was twenty years ago, when I was just sixteen…the night my parents had died. I’d been keeping an eye on my smallest brothers—Whit and Holden—and Silas was out with some Amelia. Beau was upstairs, playing cards with Delilah.

I remembered how the house had felt…wrong. Off . Like something had sucked up all the air.

It felt a little like that today.

Willow stood barefoot on the porch, arms wrapped around herself. She’d come out with a mug still in her hands, steam curling up around her fingers, but her face was pale, cautious. She didn’t look scared exactly—but she looked like she didn’t want to know.

The officer—a local named Jesse Markham that I’d known since grade school—gave her a polite nod, then looked at me. His expression softened.

“Rhett,” he said. “Hey, man.”

“Jesse,” I said slowly. “Everything all right?”

He took his hat off and held it to his chest. “Wish I could say it was. Mind if I come up?”

I held my breath. I didn’t want to ask…didn’t want to know. If it was one of my brothers…

“Before you go any further, is one of my brothers dead?” I asked.

Jesse stopped short, brow furrowing. He was confused.

I finally exhaled.

“No, no—I’m actually here to talk to Miss Rhodes,” he said. “But…you may want to sit down for this, if you don’t mind.”

I went to Willow and took her by the arm, then guided her to the porch swing. Jesse sat in a rocking chair across from us, exhaling through his nose like he hated being the one to deliver this kind of news.

“What’s goin’ on here, Jesse?” I asked. “You have me pretty alarmed.”

“I’m here about a man named Carter Thompson,” he said.

Willow went completely still.

“You were listed as his emergency contact,” Jesse said, looking at Willow. I resisted the urge to tell Jesse to fuck off; I wanted to protect her, but I knew that Willow wasn’t that kind of girl. “You know him?”

Willow bit her lip and nodded. “Yeah…he’s my ex.”

Jesse hummed, nodding along. “Well…I’ve got some unfortunate news. Mr. Thompson was in an accident late Friday night—out on 87 near Mill Creek Bend. Looks like he lost control of his car and hit a tree. He uh…he didn’t make it.”

The porch went dead quiet. Willow shifted, the mug tilting slightly in her hands.

“What…what am I supposed to do with that?” she asked. “I don’t…have his parents been contacted? Can’t say they would want to hear it from me, but I have their contact information, I could?—”

“No need,” Jesse said. “His family was already been contacted, but the department wanted to break it to ya gently since you seemed to know him and you seem to have settled in with Rhett here. If it means anything…he didn’t suffer. Coroner said it was quick.”

Willow nodded, but her face didn’t move. Her expression had gone blank, in fact, sipping her tea like she wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

That day, when he’d driven away, she’d said he could go die for all she cared.

I didn’t think she’d meant it like that.

“Thanks, Jesse,” I said, cutting in. “For stopping by. Awful kind of you to take my girl into consideration.”

“Of course,” he said, standing. “If anything comes up, or you need a copy of the report for whatever reason…just call me direct, alright? You got my number?”

I nodded.

Jesse tipped his hat, gave Willow one last look—respectful, but lingering like he wasn’t quite sure if she’d break—and turned to go.

His boots were heavy on the steps, the cruiser door groaning as he opened it.

A moment later, the engine rumbled to life, and gravel cracked under the tires as he pulled away.

We sat in silence.

Willow’s mug was still balanced on her knee, fingers curled tight around it. She hadn’t taken another sip.

I reached over and covered her hand with mine.

She didn’t look at me. Just stared out past the porch, toward the horizon like she could still see the ghost of Carter’s taillights vanishing down the driveway.

“You all right?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away. Then, softly: “I meant it, you know. What I said when he left. That I didn’t care if he never came back.”

“I know.”

“I just didn’t expect it to happen like this. I meant… my life. Not the world.”

I nodded once. “Sometimes people write their own ending long before the story’s over.”

She set the mug down on the table beside the swing, then curled her knees up to her chest. She looked a little queasy—understandably so. Even if Carter had turned out to be a jackass, they’d spent years together…and now he was gone for good.

“I should feel worse,” she said finally. “Isn’t that awful?”

“No,” I said.

She looked up at me, eyes shining, but not from grief. It was something stranger than that, something tangled.

“He was awful to me,” she said, wrapping her arms around her knees. “And I let him be. I stayed for so long, made excuses, told myself he was just scared or lost or trying. I thought…if I loved him enough, he’d remember how to love me back.”

I didn’t say anything. Just listened.

“But he didn’t,” she continued. “And when I finally left, I thought that was the end of it. That I could just walk away and rebuild. And then I found you, and I really thought it was possible. But he followed me. Of course he followed me.”

I frowned, speaking up then. “Willow,” I said quietly, “did he ever hurt you?”

She met my eyes, that witch-gold dulled with disorientation. “You mean physically?”

I nodded, not knowing how I would handle her answer.

She bit her lip.

“Just once, about six months before I left,” she said.

“When I told him he had to break off his affair, he shoved me against a wall. And…God, it seems stupid now, but I thought that was a sign that he actually gave a damn about me. And now he’s dead and I’m supposed to…

what? Cry? Forgive him? Light a candle?”

I shook my head, reminding myself that this was about her grief and not about my rage. I couldn’t fly off the handle in response to how he’d hurt her…I had to support her.

“You don’t have to do anything, darlin’,” I said. “Not a single thing.”

Willow exhaled through her nose, her shoulders sinking. A couple tears streamed down her cheeks, and she sniffled.

“I feel like I should be sad,” she murmured, flicking the tears away. None came after. “Like I should mourn the idea of him, the good parts. But…the only thing I feel is this weird ache. Like a splinter just worked its way out of my skin, and now I’m waiting for the sting to fade.”

I reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “You get to feel however you feel,” I said. “That’s the thing about grief. You don’t decide how or when it hits.”

She nodded, leaning into my hand like it was the only thing keeping her tethered. Her skin was warm. Alive. And I wanted her to stay that way—wanted to wrap us both in this moment and never let anything else in.

“I don’t want him to haunt me,” she whispered. “Not even as a memory.”

“He won’t,” I promised. “You’re here now. With me. And nothing from before gets to come in unless you invite it.”

We sat there a while longer, just breathing. The wind picked back up—gentle and clean this time, like the earth had let out a sigh of its own. The trees creaked a little. A cardinal landed on the railing and hopped once before darting away.

It felt like a turning point. Like we’d crossed over something we couldn’t come back from—and maybe that was okay.

She reached for my hand again and twined our fingers together. “It’s weird,” she said softly. “But for the first time since I got here, I feel like I can really start.”

“Then let’s start,” I said. “Whatever you want. A new garden, a new name, a whole damn life.”

Willow smiled, small and sincere. “Yeah. I think I do want all that. ”

She stood slowly, letting go of my hand to stretch—and that’s when she paused.

Brows pulling together. Head tilting toward the front step.

“Rhett,” she said carefully. “Didn’t you throw those away?”

I turned.

The flowers.

The same ones Carter had brought—the lilies and pink carnations he’d hurled into the dirt like a toddler throwing a tantrum. They were sitting on the top step to the porch, right where Jesse had left, neatly placed.

The ribbon was damp with dew.

The petals were curling at the edges—but not crushed.

So I stood up and picked them up, flashing Willow what I hoped was a comforting smile. “Guess I forgot,” I said. “I’ll take care of that.”

But I hadn’t forgotten…and it seemed there was a chance we were haunted after all.