We watch as they disappear around the bend. He turns his attention back to me. “How are you feeling about all of this?” he asks, sincerity showing in his eyes.
“It feels right,” I tell him.
“Good,” he says, giving me a big hug.
As he pulls away from me, I decide to ask the question that’s been on my mind the entire day. “Did your dad come home?”
He sighs, looking away from me. “No.”
“Are you sure he’s okay?” I grab his arm, needing reassurance that my appearance hasn’t pushed him over the edge.
“I have eyes on him.”
That doesn’t tell me much, but then again, it’s not my business.
“I just need you to take care of yourself,” he tells me, tipping my chin, forcing me to look up at him. He taps the end of my nose just like my mother used to do, and I wonder how many times she’s done it to him.
He kisses my forehead like I did Aspen’s, and then he does a little dance before jumping off the porch.
“I’ll see you soon?” I ask, laughing at him.
He places his hand over his heart as if I wounded him. “Of course.”
We wave at each other one last time before he disappears from the path.
I wait a few minutes, and then I walk to the end of the porch. “You don’t have to hide.”
The man who steps from the shadows of the forest glares at me. “You didn’t either, but here we are.”
My gaze wanders over his tattoos, and I smile.
He growls.
It makes me laugh lightly. “I’m going to guess that you’re Dirk.”
“Proof you’re a witch,” he says, jumping the fence.
I shake my head, because I don’t take offense. Bill talked a lot about the man who fell in love with his daughter. “And you’re Raffe’s best friend.”
The wind chime in my yard distracts him, and for a moment the scowl leaves his face. His head falls. “I’m more than that.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “You saved his life.”
His gaze goes back to the wind chime. “How do you know all of this?”
I walk over to my door and hold it open. He stares at it for several long minutes before he decides to step through. His desperation for answers overrides his dislike for me.
His presence fills my space, but the darkness that swirls around him doesn’t intimidate me. I’ve stared evil in the face. It doesn’t reside inside him, despite his best effort to make it appear that way.
“Your sister sent her friend Bill to help me when I first arrived,” I tell him simply. He doesn’t seem like a man who wants more words than necessary. “He didn’t know who I was …” My voice fades at the look on his face.
“Bill knew?”
I swallow hard. “He guessed, but I never gave him any confirmation.”
One of his eyebrows slowly arches higher and higher. “He knew we’d been looking for you,” he says, his voice shaking with bottled up rage.
There’s only one way to diffuse this and that is with the truth. I push my sleeve up and hold my wrist out to him. “This is how I kept him from revealing my secret.”
