Page 88 of Her Wicker Guardian

“It should.”

Tom grins, and for a few seconds the evening feels almost ordinary: a plate waiting for him, Shannon over-organizing from a distance, Tom teasing me in my own driveway. Then he looks past me toward Locke, who has followed us only as far as the corner of the house. “You good tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll call if that changes?”

“I will.”

He studies me for another second, then nods and leaves without making anything bigger than it needs to be.

Locke watches the truck disappear, then heads back toward the bear to straighten a few of the tools Tom left behind. I stay near the front long enough to check the road before circling to the back porch. It’s been quiet since Aaron cleared the shoulder, but quiet doesn’t mean private anymore. The photograph is out. My name is out. Enough people know the general location that strangers found the house before dark, and now Trent knows too.

I haven’t answered him. I’m not going to. That doesn’t stop his message from sitting behind my locked screen like a warning left inside the house.

Locke comes up the porch steps with an empty water bottle in one hand.

“Want another?”

“Yes.”

I leave the screened porch and walk the short stretch along the cottage to the kitchen door. Locke follows as far as the stoop. I go inside, take one from the refrigerator, and turn back. He’s waiting just outside the threshold, the way he usually does, and suddenly the arrangement feels ridiculous.

Four locks on both exterior doors. New cameras. Motion lights. A gun upstairs because I finally admitted that being afraid of Trent didn’t make me dramatic. I built layers between myself and the outside world until this cottage felt like mine, yet Locke has been sleeping on the screened porch. Tonight, half of Hollis Springs knows he’s here, and I have no idea how many more people will know by morning.

“Locke?”

“Yes?”

“Come in.”

He looks at the threshold before stepping over it. He’s been inside before. He’s stood in my kitchen, watched me make coffee, and learned that the refrigerator light goes off when the door closes. This shouldn’t feel like a change, but it does because this time I close the door behind him and start turning the locks.

Locke watches my hand move from one to the next. “There are four.”

“You’ve counted them?”

“Yes. I know why they are there.”

For a second, I’m back in the old house, listening to Trent move through rooms hard enough that I could tell his mood from the sound of a cabinet door. Then I’m here again, with Locke standing several feet away and waiting for me to decide what happens next.

I turn the last lock. “People know where you are now. I don’t think you should sleep on the porch tonight.”

“Because they might come.”

“Yes.”

“I can stay awake.”

“I know. That’s not the point.” I lean back against the door and try to explain something that seemed obvious until he asked. “I’ve got four locks, motion lights, cameras, and a gun upstairs. It makes no sense for me to lock myself in here and leave you outside where strangers can get to you first.”

He thinks about that. “So you want me here?”

There’s no pressure in the question. He’s making sure he understands.

“Yes.”

“Then I stay here.”