“So, then you crawled through the hole on the other side into the courthouse basement, and Jane mimed to you about trapping the lidérc?” he asked.
“Actually, the trapping bit was my idea.”
He stared at me for several silent beats. “Gypsy” finished playing on the radio and “Silver Springs” started up. It had to be a Fleetwood Mac power hour.
“Did you even think about Addy and Layne when you decided to let the lidérc attach to you and seal yourself in that room?”
I turned away, grimacing about my answer. “No and yes.” Squirming under his hard stare, I explained, “I knew in my gut that I had to stop the son of a bitch, because it wasn’t going to quit coming for me until it had its revenge. Jane was leading me toward the stairwell when I realized that I might know how to trap the thing and had what was needed to make a blood ward, like the one I’d seen in the Sugarloaf Building.” I lifted my chin. “I made the decision at that point knowing that if I could pull it off, my family would be safe.”
“And if you didn’t pull it off?”
I looked down, remembering how scared I was about dying and never seeing my kids again. “I had to try, Doc,” I said quietly. “There was no time to send a group text and take a vote. It was coming for me, and I knew it wouldn’t stop.”
My reply was met with more silence from him.
I cleared my throat. “While I was sitting alone in that room with the bastard inside of me, I tried not to think of Addy or Layne because I didn’t want it to find out about them, but I couldn’t help myself.”
He still said nothing. I listened to Stevie Nicks’s haunting voice, wondering how I could convince him of what needed to be done to finish this.
“That’s why I have to kill it, Doc, but we can’t let Dominick know.”
He shook his head slowly.
“The lidérc knows how to bring me to my knees now.” When he continued shaking his head, I added, “It knows about you, too, now.”
That stopped him. “You mean about me being a medium?”
“I mean it knows that I’m in love with you.” I lifted his hand, lacing my fingers through his. “I can’t risk it getting free and coming for any of us again. It’s too smart to be tricked by us again. I’m afraid the next time it will win.”
“What makes you so certain it would seek you out?”
“It bragged about killing two Executioners before me. I was going to be the third notch on its belt, but I thwarted it.” I leaned forward, clutching his hand to my chest. “We thwarted it. The first chance it has to come for us, it will.”
He sighed. “Masterson will not like you killing his pet.”
“He won’t know if we’re sneaky about it.”
He shifted, turning toward me. He started to say something, then glanced down and blew out a breath.
“What?” I could feel something big and heavy hovering in the air between us.
“I realized something tonight,” he said quietly, then hesitated again.
My heart tiptoed up my esophagus and waited with bated breath at the top of my throat. “Doc?”
“Come here.” He tugged on my hand, pulling me over to his side of the seat, helping me straddle his lap. After I’d settled in, his fingers traced my face as he stared at me with a worried brow. “Kiss me, Boots.”
“What are the magic words?” I teased, easing toward his mouth anyway.
“How about ‘I can’t live without you’?” he said, his fingers sliding around my shoulders, pulling me closer. “Will those do?” He tasted my lips, his kiss tender.
I leaned into him, using my mouth to show him those words would work just fine.
A groan came from deep in his chest and he pulled back. “Violet,” he whispered, sounding torn.
I sat back, sensing his need for space. “What?”
His eyes drilled into me. “I can’t lose you.”
I lifted his hand and kissed his knuckles. “I’m not going anywhere, Doc.”
He turned away, his gaze hooded. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.” I framed his face and tried to force him to look back at me, but he wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to let this go until he shared whatever was making him avoid my stare.
“Ever since my parents died,” he said, playing with a button on my coat, “I’ve kept everyone at arm’s length.”
“What about your grandfather?”
“Even him. I loved him, but I kept waiting for him to die, too.” His focus settled on my throat. “Then he did die, and I shut down the rest of the way.”
“What about the guy who let you fix up your car in his garage?”
“I had friends here and there, but I didn’t let any of them get close because I knew I’d lose them, too, eventually.” He shrugged, more to himself than me. “I floated from town to town for a long time after that while I tried to make the ghosts go away.” His eyes lifted to mine, finally, and he smiled. “Then I met you.”
I grimaced. “Falling at your feet was not one of my finer moments.”
He traced the line of my jaw. “You were perfect, terrifyingly so.”
“Not perfect.” I thought of how many times I put my foot in my mouth. “You’re forgetting what a hot mess I was—still am, for that matter.”
His thumb grazed my cheekbone. “I tried to keep my distance.”
I gave him my best mock glare, putting my hands on my hips. “You left town for almost two weeks without telling me where you went or when you were coming back.”
His fingers trailed down the side of my neck. “But I couldn’t stay away.”
Batting my eyelashes at him, I said in my best sex-kitten voice, “That’s because you’re a sucker for curvy blondes.”
“I was falling in love with you.”
My heart swooned
