Page 118 of Soft Flannel Hank

“Aye. You may have seen her carried out. But she wasnae dead.”

Esther crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “I know what I saw.”

“I had a team in place. They drove the donors home after the… transaction. Gave them an IV, made sure they were fed. Safe.”

He was agitated, his hair wild. His eyes wilder. “Jesus, lass, I’m cursed, but I’m not a monster.”

Suddenly, Esther could see it. She could see Callum as a mortal man. Big and strong. Too big. Too strong, probably. Lethal. But with a code. Jory would never have associated with him otherwise, whatever that association had once looked like. And on a deeper level, Esther’s intuition hummed warmly around her.

She believed him.

But it didn’t explain the last six months.

“If you had such a legitimate setup, why were you so cagey when I came downstairs?”

“Because I didnae know you. I couldnae trust you. Witches have never exactly been allies of my kind and certainly not me personally. It was a warlock who took my Marjory away from me.”

Esther let that revelation roll around in her brain. It made sense. She was about to tell him so when Jory began shouting in Gaelic again. At least Esther assumed it was Gaelic. But Callum didn’t shout back. He didn’t even look at her. He stared at her feet, at her boots, that distant, wounded look resting heavy on his face.

“I cannae bear to look at you,” Jory said in English. Her voice was thick with tears now.

Callum stood quickly. Esther shrank back against Hank. Jory stepped in front of them both.

“I’m not going to harm you, lass!” Callum said to the ceiling through gritted teeth. “You changed yer phone. Left without a trace. I just needed to tie up the loose end. That’s all. Just let me glamour you and I’ll be gone and we can all go back to our… lives, such as they are.”

Jory didn’t budge. Hank made a noise behind her that reverberated deep in his chest. Esther could feel it as much as she heard it.

“You don’t need to glamour me,” Esther said, gently pressing on Jory’s arm to move her to the side.

Callum dropped his chin and looked at her, his eyebrow raised.

“I swear. I won’t tell a soul.”

“And if you do?”

“I won’t. I’m going back to Georgia to pack, and then I’m leaving. I don’t want to cause trouble for you. I just want…” Esther looked back at Hank, who tightened his grip on her shoulders.

Callum studied them both for a long moment, as if studying them. As if Esther and Hank were on display in a museum and he was trying to figure them out. After a moment, he nodded.

“I hope ye can forgive me, Esther. Had I been able to reach ye, we could have both been saved a half year of trouble.”

Esther snorted. “Trouble is putting it mildly.”

“I didnae mean to frighten ye. And I should have been honest with you from the start. I should have explained the situation to you. Ye’re good people, Esther. Anyone can see that. I certainly should have.”

After a long moment, Esther nodded. “Forgiven.”

Callum took a deep breath in, deliberately avoiding looking at Jory. “Then we’re done here.”

He waved to the dining room and the two men, completely forgotten by Esther by this point, slipped between Esther and Jory and out the kitchen door. Callum turned to follow them but at the last minute, turned to look at Jory.

His eye contact was intense before he said, “But I’ll be seeing you, Marjory.”

“Like hell you will,” she hissed.

“Oh, you will, mo cridhe. We’re far from finished here.”

And in a flash he was gone.