Page 35 of Her Wicker Guardian

I start toward the side of the house.

“Wait.”

I stop.

She looks toward the front, then back at me. “They can’t see you yet.”

Footsteps sound near the front of the house.

Shannon points toward the workshop. “I’m asking you to stay back there until I know who it is.”

“Choose?”

“Yes. You choose.”

I step into the workshop and stay beside the open door while Shannon walks across the side yard and turns the corner to the front.

Someone knocks. A man speaks. Shannon answers him. I hear Rachel’s name and another word I don’t know, then footsteps move away.

The machine starts again.

Shannon returns. “Just a delivery for Rachel. That’s all.”

I step back into the sun.

The man who came here did not know I was standing behind the workshop door. I look toward the cottage, in the direction he went.

“People.”

“Yes.”

I touch my chest. “Locke.” Then I point toward the front of the property. “People... Locke?”

Shannon understands what I’m asking. Her mouth opens, then closes before she answers. “Later. Not today.”

I know later. Rachel later means she comes back. People later means something different, something Shannon cannot explain to me yet.

I keep looking toward the cottage anyway. After a moment I return to the repaired door and move it once more. It swings cleanly. My hand stays on the frame because I know why it failed and what it needed.

No other engine comes.

Rachel will come back.

For now, that is the thing I know.

Chapter Seven

Rachel

When I turn into my driveway, Shannon’s SUV is still there. I park beside it, shut off the engine, and get out.

I’ve barely made it around the corner of the cottage when I see Locke standing beside the workshop in Tom’s borrowed clothes, one hand resting on the door as though he’s been waiting there long enough to become part of the building. The afternoon sun catches the lighter willow of his face and the small green growth at his wrists.

Then Locke starts toward me. Not fast. Not far. Three steps, maybe four, before he stops in the middle of the yard and waits.

“Hi.”

His gaze moves over my face. “Rachel back.”