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Ford fell silent for a moment and pulled in a deep breath, and I knew what that meant.
Jimmy hadn’t come for him.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t remember much of it after that,” Ford admitted. “A woman found me sleeping in her greenhouse about a mile from here. She had some kind of tropical plants so the greenhouse was super warm and I guess that saved my life. She called the police and my uncle Curtis came out and got me and took me home.”
“Your parents must have been so relieved.”
He didn’t say anything for the longest time. “Yeah, relieved,” he repeated.
I didn’t get a chance to question him about the comment because he said, “Afterwards, I had all these nightmares about Fright House, even though it’d been Jimmy’s friends who’d scared me and not ghosts. But I couldn’t sleep and I was terrified to turn off the lights.”
“Understandable,” I said. “Something like that would be hard to put out of your mind.”
“Impossible,” Ford said quietly. “I knew the only chance I had of dealing with it was to give the memory something to compete with.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Ford actually pressed back against me when I put some distance between us. The intimate embrace should have had him crying foul, but the closer he got to me, the more his body seemed to relax. Was he even aware of what our position must have looked like? True, there was no one to see, but my mind was certainly aware of all the implications and my body just wanted more.
“I remember things,” Ford said. “Like really well.”
He seemed to hesitate with his words. “What do you mean?”
“I have a really, really good memory.”
It took me a moment to get it and I inadvertently chuckled as I said, “What, like a photographic memory?”
I instantly regretted my response because Ford stiffened, then pulled free of my hold. He turned and tried to step past me, but I grabbed his arms. This time, my touch didn’t relax him at all.
“I’m sorry, Ford, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’ve just never met anyone who—”
“Yeah,” Ford murmured.
Fuck.
Just the way he said that one word made me realize how I’d blown my opportunity with him. It clearly wasn’t something he told a lot of people.
“You said you needed to give the memory something to compete with,” I reminded him, hoping I could somehow keep this entire encounter from completely disintegrating.
He crossed his arms again and I wanted to curse at the silent signal for me to keep my hands to myself.
“I started researching the history of the house at the library. It turns out that the Wrights owned the house up until the last descendent of the family died a couple years before I was born. Another family bought the house… a husband and wife who were expecting a baby. Their plan was to eventually tear the house down and build something more modern on it. But just two weeks after they moved in, they lost the baby. They moved away and seemed to just kind of forget about the house. Rumors started going around that they’d wandered off into the woods and never returned. There’d already been talk of the place being haunted when the Wrights still owned it because they also suffered through some tragic losses, but most of what people say is just made up. But by reading the facts of the story—”
“You remember the truth whenever you think about that night,” I speculated.
Ford nodded.
I wanted to ask him a million more questions, both about his gift and his childhood, but his eyes spoke for him and I knew he was done talking about it.
“Ford,” I began, but he interrupted me.
“Where are your broom and dustpan, Sheriff Wells? I’d like to clean up the mess I made,” Ford said as he jerked his chin in the direction of the remnants of the broken plate on the floor.
I sighed.
So much for progress. “In the closet right there,” I said as I pointed to the door on my right.
As Ford cleaned up the mess on the floor, I started putting away the ingredients I’d taken out to make the grilled cheese sandwiches. I’d lost my appetite and I doubted Ford was interested in food.
“Sheriff Wells?”
“Yeah,” I said without looking at him. I was coming to hate the sound of my title on his lips.
“I know Sawyer told you he could handle the work at the sanctuary, but it really is a lot for one person. If I promise to stick to the chores that keep me in the heated buildings, do you think I could…”
His words dropped off when I looked at him. I got the impression it’d been a really hard question for him to ask, though it shouldn’t have been. My gut was also telling me that keeping his commitment was something he needed to do, rather than just wanting to.
