Second the silence hit, my attention scanned, searching the shadows.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hands itching with the thirst for revenge. To expose it all. Right then and there.
When nothing moved but the leaves on the rustling trees, I blew out a sigh and headed back inside the quiet house.
Most of the lights had been cut. Mr. Marin had turned in about an hour before, curling up at his wife’s side.
I sent up a silent promise that I wouldn’t fail them this time.
After I locked every lock on the door and rechecked to make sure they were secure, I moved through the living room and into the kitchen, dipping out onto the back porch, doing the same inspection as out front.
Silence echoed back.
Nerves on edge, I scanned one more time before I retreated back into the house and deadbolted the lock behind me.
Under the strain of it, I sank down onto a chair at the kitchen table and dropped my head into my hands, rubbing at my hair like it would conjure a solution.
A true way to fix this without breaking more in the end.
My chest tightened when I heard the delicate footsteps coming down the second set of stairs that led into the kitchen.
Could feel her presence rush me.
Violets and grace and the girl.
She stopped at the bottom of the steps, her face barely visible in the lapping, jumping shadows.
Energy surged.
Chills lifted.
A shaft of electricity struck in the air.
Slowly, I pushed to standing.
The atmosphere sizzled.
My breaths hardened while my heart careened out of control.
I moved her way.
A storm hovered over me.
Thunder and greed.
I felt her harsh inhalation, the girl sucking me down into the well of her lungs.
She stood at the foot of the staircase, wisps of black hair falling over her shoulders, those eyes strikes of lightning in the night.
Those plush lips parted, and her chin quivered.
Hand shaking, I reached up and traced the tremor. Like it might be possible to hold it in my hand.
“I’m scared, Richard. So scared.” Violet whispered the admission. Breaching the subject we’d been skirting all day.
Giving me her truth.
I cupped one side of her gorgeous face, thumb brushing across the defined angle of her trembling jaw. “I’m scared, too. Scared of what I’m willing to do to protect you.”
Her throat bobbed when she swallowed, and she lifted her hand, fingertips grazing the healing wound between my eyes.
A silent confession zinged between us.
Acknowledgement that none of this had been random.
She blinked up at me, and her tongue darted out to wet those full, pink lips. “I didn’t see anything, Richard. But I heard. My mama always taught me to listen with my heart…and I heard it, Richard. I heard the wickedness. I heard the evil. He said…”
I inched forward. Possession gripping me in its storm. I tipped up her chin, staring down at her through the dim, bleary light.
“What did he say?”
She choked, barely able to press out the words, “He said not to go diggin’ up graves. That I’d never know when I might fall in.”
What the fuck?
I’d expected some veiled warning for me.
Panic seized me. My chest constricted in a bluster of rage. Tongue the lash of a blade. “What graves? What the fuck was he saying? Who?”
Her head shook, her own panic vibrating through her being, and she was clutching me by the shirt.
Her little fists curled so tight they might as well have been embedded in my soul. “I just need to know one thing right now. Tell me it’s true. Tell me you still love me because I’m done pretending like I don’t need you.”
Twenty-Nine
Violet
Sage eyes flared, and a play of shadows danced across the carved lines that made up his formidable shape. He took my face in both of those big hands.
A tender bid of possession. “You want to know if I love you, Violet? Fuck. The only thing I feel is love for you. Loving you is the composition of who I am.”
He looped an arm around my waist and tucked me close.
The air thinned and my lungs squeezed, the beat of our hearts racing, racing, racing. A thunder that boomed.
Encroaching.
Rumbling
A storm that gathered strength.
And I knew—I knew it was getting ready to hit land.
“Told you,” he murmured in his rough way. “You are every song I have ever written.” He brushed back the hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. “You are every lyric. Every riff. Every strum. Every echo. You are the song of my heart. I love you, Violet Ramsey. I love you with everything I’ve got and with everything I’ve got left to give.”
And I was swept away.
My feet no longer touching solid ground as he lifted me, my toes barely brushing the floor as he tucked me close against the warmth of his body.
Joy slammed me.
Overwhelming.
Beautiful and terrifying because I knew I was giving myself over to this. There was no more fighting these feelings.
They were free.
Running rampant.
His nose brushed mine, and he kissed the corner of my mouth. “I love what comes out of this beautiful mouth.”
He ran his nose up my cheek, and then he pressed a tender kiss to my eye, then moved to the other, his voice a low roll of emphasis, “I love the way these eyes see the world.”
He ran his lips to my temple, murmured there, “I love the way this mind thinks. The way it processes.”
Then his hand was shifting, running down to palm flat over the erratic thud of my heart that expanded, swelling to overflowing, breaking free of its chains. “And most of all, I love this. I love the heart of you. The trueness of you. I love who you are in the deepest places that only I can see.”
He grabbed my hand and pressed it over the battering in his chest. “Do you feel it, Violet? Do you feel it beating for you? It always has. And it’s never gonna stop.”
“I feel it,” I
