Page 122 of Her Wicker Guardian

The sound catches me before the meaning does.

For one fractured second, I’m wearing red flats again, standing in a ballroom while Trent turns two syllables into a warning no one else can hear.

Rachel.

Stop.

Rachel.

You know better.

Then the memory falls away and Locke is still sitting beside me.

He hasn’t turned my name into a warning. He sounds amused. Mildly exasperated. Almost as if he’s been waiting for me to hear myself.

I look at him. “What?”

“You’re explaining the same things we’ve already discussed.”

“I’m being cautious.”

“You’re telling me how to behave inside a hardware store.”

“I didn’t tell you how to behave.”

“Not yet.”

That earns him a stare, which he meets without the slightest concern. There’s no consequence waiting behind his disagreement, no anger I have to manage if I refuse to concede. He thinks I’m hovering and expects me to survive being told so.

“Fine,” I say. “I’m hovering.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to enjoy being right this much.”

“I like it.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Trent could turn my name into a leash. Locke just used it to call me on my bullshit, and when I disagreed, nothing happened. No punishment. No careful repair afterward. Just an argument, already over.

I open my door. “Come on before you get even more pleased with yourself.”

“I am already pleased enough.”

“Careful. You’re getting smug.”

He gets out laughing.

The bell over Calhoun’s front door rings when we walk in, and the store goes quiet in the way a room does when people are trying not to look as hard as they’re looking. The fluorescent lights still hum. A radio plays softly behind the counter. Somewhere toward the back, something electronic beeps. But two customers near the paint display stop talking, and Mrs. Calhoun freezes with a pricing gun in one hand.

Every face turns toward Locke.

He notices. What he doesn’t do is move closer to me. His shoulders straighten slightly as he takes in the store, but he stays exactly where he is. I notice the space he leaves between us more than I notice the staring.

Mrs. Calhoun recovers first. “Well. Later came sooner than I expected.”

Locke recognizes her voice. “Mrs. Calhoun.”