Page 3 of Where the Roses Bloom (Gospels & Grimoires #1)

Willow

Carter’s car smelled like air freshener and cologne…but Rhett’s truck? It smelled like cedar, motor oil, and soap.

Like…man, in the best way.

Just clean and earthy, like the kind of man who lived alone and kept things simple.

Rhett didn’t talk much as we pulled back onto the road, and I was grateful for that.

I didn’t think I could handle small talk, not yet.

Not with my brain still mush from crying and sleeping in the fetal position and then waking up to find a gorgeous man standing outside my window offering me coffee.

I kept my hands wrapped around the mostly empty cup he’d given me, fingers tight on the porcelain like I was still bracing for something to go wrong.

Maybe it already had…but it felt like things were going perfectly right.

The trees blurred past in soft greens and golds. Every once in a while, the branches arched overhead like a cathedral, and I found myself exhaling without meaning to. This place…Rhett wa sn’t the only thing that felt good. The land felt good. The air, the sky, the trees.

The fairies, maybe.

I took the opportunity to look over at him, getting a better peek.

He was…damn, he was hot. Like hot hot. So hot.

Rugged features, green eyes, thick, dark hair and a matching beard with a silver streak through his waves.

He was wearing a white t-shirt that left absolutely nothing up to the imagination, every line of muscle clear and defined.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Rhett said without taking his eyes off the road.

I almost choked on the coffee I’d just sipped. “What?”

“The land,” he said. “The trees. Mornings here…the light hits just right.”

I smiled. “Yeah…it doesn’t look real.”

“It’s real,” he said. “Just old. The land here remembers things.”

“Yeah…you said something like that earlier too,” I mumbled. “Fairies or something?”

He chuckled, his voice low in his throat. God…I’d never seen someone who looked like that; I didn’t even think they existed. And his voice made it a million times better.

“Just something my grandma used to say,” he said. “She was a bit of a local legend. People thought she was a witch.”

I smiled. “Yeah…people used to say that about me, too.”

“Oh really?”

I shrugged. “I’ve always had an interest in that kind of stuff? Got my nursing degree, but I decided to become a doula rather than getting a job at a hospital.”

“A what now?”

“A doula,” I laughed. “For home births and birth coaching. I work with moms. Or…I did, I guess.”

He frowned, clearly picking up on the fact that there was more to my response than I was letting on. “And now? ”

I hummed. “Not sure.”

We pulled into town a few minutes later, just a few weathered buildings gathered around a narrow road, their signs faded and edges softened by sun and rain. Nothing fancy. No boutiques, no souvenir shops. It was the kind of place most people would drive through without slowing down.

But something about it made me sit up straighter.

The stoplight in the center of town blinked red into empty air, a few weathered cars and trucks driving through every so often. A hand-painted sign stood at the edge of the square, the teal letters barely legible beneath a curl of creeping vine:

WILLOW GROVE — EST. 1834.

WHERE THE ROOTS RUN DEEP.

There was a row of well-kept shops on either side of the street, even a bookstore with a full Pride display in the front window. A coffee shop…an antique store. I could see the steeple of a church on the far end of the street, but I didn’t think it was open.

It was too charming to be this quiet.

No traffic. No chatter. No out-of-towners with cameras or iced lattes. Just a stillness that settled under the skin, not unfriendly—just…watching.

“Pretty small town, as you can see. That’s the library,” Rhett said, motioning toward a white clapboard building with ivy wound tight around the porch rail. “We’ve got the bakery, the bookstore, my brother’s shop is just a quick way’s down…and over there is Mabel’s.”

The diner had wide windows, a crooked sign, and two rocking chairs that moved a little in the breeze. I couldn’t smell food yet, but I knew I would. It had the kind of front door that probably jingled when it opened, the kind of counter where regulars sat with the same mug every morning .

None of it felt modern. But it didn’t feel old either. Just…set apart. Steady. Waiting.

Waiting for me, maybe.

He pulled into the lot and parked. I hesitated, still clutching the coffee cup.

“You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just trying to remember what dignity feels like.”

“Around here?” he said, opening his door and sliding out. “Nobody remembers that.”

The bell over the door—as expected—jingled when we stepped inside. It smelled like butter and coffee and something sweet just starting to burn—maybe cinnamon rolls, maybe caramel, I didn’t care.

I wanted to bathe in it.

With Rhett.

There were only four tables, three booths, and a long counter with a row of mismatched stools. A man in overalls glanced up from his paper, nodded at Rhett, and went back to his coffee like this was normal. Like gorgeous, broody men brought stray women in for biscuits all the time.

“Sit anywhere you like,” Rhett murmured, gesturing toward the empty booths.

I slid into the seat by the window and tried to make myself small. Rhett sat across from me, leaning back like he hadn’t found a sobbing stranger curled up like a raccoon at the end of his driveway an hour ago.

“Mornin’, sugarplum,” came a voice from the kitchen. “You’re late.”

I looked up just as a woman stepped out through the swinging doors. Short and soft-bodied with pink cat-eye glasses and a tattoo of a rolling pin on one forearm, she dried her hands on a towel and raised a brow at Rhett.

“Had a situation,” he said .

Her gaze slid over to me, a smile curling her lips. “Thought your granny taught you better manners than to call a lady a ‘situation.’ You got a name, darlin’?”

I blushed. “Um…it’s Willow, actually.”

“Of course it is,” she said with a soft laugh, like she wasn’t remotely surprised by the coincidence of my name. “I’m Mabel. You like your coffee with cream and sugar?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good girl. I’ll bring you a carafe and all the fixin’s.”

She was gone before I could even blink, stepping through the swinging doors to the kitchen. I watched after her for a moment before looking at Rhett, who had a bemused smile on his face.

“Do you bring a lot of strange, sad women in here?” I asked.

“Hm…” he trailed off. “Well, everyone here is strange, some are sad. But no…I don’t make a habit of bringing women here.”

He looked at me for a second too long after that. Not in a gross way—not like Carter used to. This was different.

Like he was studying me without needing to fix anything, just…seeing.

“First time for everything, I guess,” I muttered, trying to cover the way my cheeks went warm.

“Guess so,” he said.

Before I could figure out what that meant—or if it meant anything at all—the bell over the door jingled again.

“Well, well,” came a new voice. “If it isn’t the handsome handyman and his mystery girl.”

I turned just in time to see a woman with auburn braids and combat boots saunter in like she owned the place.

She had a red leather-bound book tucked under one arm and lipstick the color of sin.

The second she saw me, her eyes lit up and sparkled…

like I was the most interesting thing that had happened in years.

“Delilah,” Rhett said with a long-suffering sigh.

“Rhett,” she replied, sing-song, then turned her gaze fully on me. “You must be Willow.”

“How…?” I started. I’d been here for a matter of minutes…no one should even know I was in town, let alone my name.

But Delilah ignored me.

“Welcome to Willow Grove,” Delilah said. “Sorry the road pulled you off-course. It does that sometimes. Usually when something—or someone—is supposed to find you.”

My skin prickled.

“That supposed to be charming or terrifying?”

“Both.” She grinned and dropped her book on the counter. “Don’t worry. I only read palms on Tuesdays.”

Rhett shook his head and leaned back in the booth like he’d seen this all before. Delilah winked at him, then gave me one last once-over before sauntering to the counter and stealing a piece of bacon off overall guy’s plate without asking. He didn’t utter a word of complaint.

“She runs the library,” Rhett said. “Not technically a Ward, but she might as well be.”

“Yeah…that checks out,” I murmured.

Mabel returned with two plates piled high with biscuits, eggs, and bacon. She also carried a little silver tray with a ceramic creamer, a sugar bowl, and a tiny jar of honey with a wooden dipper.

“Eat,” she said, setting everything down like she was laying the groundwork for a miracle. “You both look like you’ve been through hell, but you’ve got good faces. Especially yours, honey.” She nodded at me. “You stayin’?”

I froze with my fork in my hand…suddenly wondering if this was a Persephone and the pomegranate situation.

If I ate these eggs, would I be stuck here ?

Would that be the worst outcome?

“Just…passing through,” I said.

“Uh-huh.” She didn’t believe me for a second.

Rhett didn’t say anything. Just buttered a biscuit and handed it to me without looking up. His fingers brushed mine when I took it, calloused and warm and sending a shock up my arm.

I wasn’t sure what was happening here. I didn’t understand how this place—this man—had started to feel like a soft place to land when I was supposed to be broken and drifting and done.

But I took the biscuit.

You don’t just… not take a biscuit from a handsome man.

Rhett cleared his throat like he was about to speak, then took a sip of coffee instead. His gaze lingered out the window for a second too long, fixed on the sidewalk. Two men were walking by with their child, the kid cackling and swinging between them.

Then he asked, casual as could be: “You think you’ll keep driving?”

I peered at him over my coffee.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “That was the plan. Just…keep going.”

“But now?”

I didn’t answer.

Because the truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted. Not really. But I knew what it felt like to be seen for the first time in what felt like years. And right now, I was sitting in a booth with someone who made me feel more human than I had in a long time.

“There’s a motel just off the square,” he said, voice betraying absolutely nothing. “Willow Grove Motor Inn. Nothing fancy, but clean. You could stay awhile. Rest.”

There was something in his voice when he said it— stay awhile —that made heat unfurl in my belly. It almost…no, it would be ridiculous.

But it almost sounded like he wanted me to stay.

“Alright,” I said, folding my napkin slowly. “One night.”

“That’s all it takes,” Mabel muttered as she passed by with a plate of pancakes.

I glanced at Rhett. He was smiling into his cup like he hadn’t heard her, but I could see it—the faintest flicker of hope.

I liked the way it looked on him.