Page 27 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Rhett

The house didn’t feel right without her.

It was too still, too quiet, too empty. I’d gotten used to the soft creak of the floorboards under Willow’s bare feet, the hum of her little tunes when she puttered around the kitchen, the scent of rosehip oil clinging to the air. Now, without her…

It felt hollow.

So I didn’t go back to sleep.

I got up and kept trying to get to work on renovating the study.

I’d managed to rebuild most of the bookshelves, gathering Hazel’s photo albums, recipes, letters, and novel collection. I kept searching for anything about the curse, but I was coming up empty.

I flipped through one of Hazel’s older journals, fingers blackened with dust. A dried rose fell out from between two entries—brown and crumbling, but still fragrant. It hit me square in the chest.

Willow would’ve known what kind it was.

And Willow was still gone.

The sun was high in the sky, and I hadn’t heard from her— not a call, not a text, not even a check-in on the landline. I figured the birth was going okay. It wasn’t my business. I needed to let her do her thing.

But still. I hated the way the silence stretched in her absence.

I set the journal down and rubbed the back of my neck. My shoulders ached from sanding and bending, my palms raw. I crossed the hall toward the kitchen, hoping a strong cup of coffee would help me push through the rest of the afternoon?—

The front door slammed.

Silence.

I frowned. “Willow?”

No answer.

I stepped into the hallway, my bare feet catching grit on the hardwood.

Sunlight slanted through the front windows, too bright for how cold the air suddenly felt.

I moved toward the entryway, every muscle tight, expecting to see her there—hair pulled into a messy braid, exhaustion in every line of her face, ready to go back to bed or enjoy a homecooked meal.

But the door was closed.

Not just closed—latched.

I reached for it, checked the knob. Locked from the inside.

“Hello?” I called again, voice low.

Nothing.

I turned in a slow circle, listening. The house had gone dead quiet again…

and this wasn’t the soft, familiar hush I’d grown used to.

Not the kind of quiet that came with memories—Hazel’s perfume hanging in the hallway, a door creaking open on its own like someone checking in. That kind of quiet didn’t scare me.

This did.

“Okay,” I muttered, trying to shake it off. “Just tired.”

But then I heard it.

A soft click . The sound of something small shifting on porcelain.

From the bathroom.

I crossed the hallway, each step slower than the last. The door was halfway open, the light already on.

I hadn’t left it that way.

And there, on the edge of the sink, sat Willow’s hairbrush.

Not tossed like she usually leaves it—half-hanging off the counter, caught in a tangle of shed strands. No, this was placed. Centered. Clean.

No hair in it at all.

The kind of careful, sterile neatness that made my stomach twist.

She doesn’t leave it like that.

She never leaves it like that.

I stepped inside, hand brushing the light switch, though the overhead fixture was already buzzing dim and yellow. The mirror was fogged over like someone had just gotten out of the shower, and my own silhouette managed to spook me a little.

Or…wait.

That wasn’t my silhouette.

I stood stock still, watching the figure in the mirror. It was so foggy that I couldn’t quite see…but it didn’t move with me. Not exactly. It wasn’t shaped like me. I leaned a little closer, torn between running or taking this thing on.

“Grandma Hazel?” I murmured. “That ain’t you, is it?”

The mirror didn’t respond. Of course it didn’t—because it was a goddamn mirror and I was a paranoid asshole, and I was gettin’ more superstitious by the day?—

“MINE.”

I jerked backward from that harsh, otherworldly whisper, stumbling until I bumped into the door. Fuck me…it was shut. I hadn’t shut it.

The fog was already fading, slow and streaky, as if it was being drawn back into the glass. The shape dissolved with it. Just steam now. Just a mirror. Just me, pale and shaking and barefoot in my own damn house.

I yanked the door open and stepped out fast, but I didn’t run. I stood there in the hallway, jaw clenched so tight it ached.

I didn’t believe in ghosts.

Not really.

But I believed in this: in memory, in violence that stains places and people, in the way a man like Carter could haunt someone without ever setting foot in their house again.

I stared back through the doorway.

And I said it, low and furious.

“She ain’t yours.”

My voice shook. I felt like a fuckin’ lunatic. I didn’t care.

“You don’t get to come back here and make her feel small. You don’t get to twist what she’s buildin’ with your bullshit echoes and your creepy little games.”

I stepped back into the bathroom—just far enough to make sure the mirror heard me.

“You lost her the day you stopped treatin’ her like a person and started treatin’ her like property. And she’s not gonna carry that weight in my house.”

I reached out and wiped the mirror clean with my forearm. Hard.

Just my reflection now.

Nothing but me.

“Try me again,” I said. “See how long you last.”

And then— bang bang bang —a knock on the front door, hard and fast.

“Rhett!”

I turned so fast my neck popped.

“Rhett, it’s me! Open the damn door!”

I moved quick through the house and wrenched the door open, still half expecting something unnatural on the other side.

But it was just Silas.

He stood there in his work boots and sun-faded T-shirt, one hand shielding his eyes like he’d jogged over from town and hadn’t quite caught his breath.

“You okay?” he asked, frowning at me. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

I stepped aside to let him in, shaking my head. “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”

He gave me a look—half wary, half annoyed—and crossed the threshold.

The second he stepped inside, he paused. Just for a beat.

His eyes swept the entryway, then flicked toward the stairs.

I clocked it.

“You feel that?” I asked.

“Feel what?”

I didn’t answer. He did feel it. He just didn’t want to say it.

“Came to talk curse stuff,” he said, finally turning back to me. “Been thinkin’ on your situation with the girl. I don’t want you to take this lightly, what happened with our folks and with Amelia?—”

I gestured vaguely toward the kitchen. “Coffee’s fresh.”

Silas stuttered. “Are…are you listening?”

“Not really,” I admitted, already halfway to the kitchen. “You want cream?”

“Rhett.”

I stopped to look back at him.

My brother was still standing in the foyer like something was keeping him from stepping in deeper. His eyes weren’t on me anymore. They were down the hall…toward Hazel’s study.

“You ever have a dream that sticks with you?” he asked, voice rough. “Not just haunts you, but… warns you? ”

It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end…made me want to call Willow. She’d said she would be distracted tending to Jasmine Evers all day, maybe until the evening…but I needed her beside me. I didn’t trust there wasn’t some dark force out there, working against us.

“She say somethin’ in the dream?” I asked, looking back up at him.

Silas nodded, slow. “Hazel was sittin’ in the garden. Younger than I ever knew her. She had that pink ribbon in her hair like in that photo on the mantle. And she said…” He trailed off, throat bobbing. “She said, ‘Not everything buried stays gone.’”

My stomach twisted.

“She say it to you ?”

Silas hesitated. “She was lookin’ at someone behind me. But I think she meant for me to hear it.”

I swallowed hard. “You think it’s about the curse?”

“I thought I did.” He paused. “Now I’m not so sure it’s just that.”

I met his eyes. “There’s somethin’ in this house, Silas. And it’s not Hazel.”

He shifted, uncomfortable. “What exactly are you saying?”

“I’m sayin’…there’s a presence here. A bad one. And I think it’s got its teeth in Willow.”

That got his attention.

“You think it’s the curse targetin’ her?” he asked, stepping closer.

“I think she broke the curse,” I said with a bitter laugh. “Then…somethin’ followed her here.”

Silas dragged a hand over his mouth. “This have anything to do with that guy who came sniffin’ around a couple weeks back? The one Delilah told off at the library.”

I stiffened. “Carter Thompson…Willow’s ex. He was a real piece of work when he was alive, came by here tryin’ to win he r back. Apparently he wrapped his car around a tree on his way out of town…and I don’t think he ever left. Think he’s tryin’ to stake a claim from beyond the grave.”

Silas shook his head, the corners of his mouth tight. “I told you it wasn’t safe, Rhett.”

I frowned, not sure I heard him right, and looked into his eyes.

“Excuse me?”

“I told you from the beginning,” he went on. “You get involved with someone sweet and kind like that…this house’ll eat her alive. It’s not just the curse, it’s the Wards . We destroy everything we touch?—”

“Stop.”

Silas’s jaw clenched, but he shut his mouth—thank fuck.

“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m in too deep, Silas. I’ll protect her until the day I die…even if that day comes sooner than we’d like.”

His expression faltered.

Then, after a long moment, Silas blew out a slow breath and looked away—like maybe he didn’t want me to see the emotion working behind his eyes.

“Alright,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “Then what do you wanna do?”

I blinked.

“You’re not gonna argue?”

He snorted. “Why bother? You made up your mind the second she set foot on the porch. Hell, probably before that. I can’t stop a Ward man once he decides something’s his.”

“She’s not mine,” I said quietly. “She’s hers. But I love her. And I’ll keep this house from swallowin’ her if it’s the last goddamn thing I do.”

Silas nodded once, sharp. “Okay. Then let’s do it.”

I blinked. “Do what?”

“Whatever we need to do,” he said, already rolling up his sleeves. “You want sage? Holy water? I’ve got salt in the truck. Crystals in the glovebox. You want me to dig somethin’ up, I’ll grab a damn shovel.”

That caught me off guard.

“I mean it,” he went on. “Tell me what direction to swing and I’ll swing. We’re not lettin’ whatever this is take root.”

“You don’t even know what we’re fightin’,” I said.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “No. But I believe in you. And I can see plain as day you’re scared.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

He shook his head. “I’ll be pissed at you if you get yourself killed…but you’re welcome.”