Page 60 of Soft Flannel Hank

He didn’t see anyone following him, but that didn’t mean they weren’t. He needed to get home. He needed to make sure Esther was safe. They knew she was here.They knew.There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Robbie worked for Callum and was scouting the area. Hank needed to protect her, but in case he was being watched, he needed to do something with these goddamn flowers.

He drove to Magda’s. She didn’t answer the door, so he left the bouquet in her mailbox, which hung next to the front door. Hank walked with deliberate slowness back to the truck, scanning his periphery without turning his head. It was quiet.

He got back in the truck and tried to regulate his breathing as he organized his brain. He didn’t have Esther’s number—a gross oversight on his part—or he would have called her. But he couldn’t. Fortunately, she was safe at his house. Or as safe as she was going to be anywhere. He had to believe that.

He pulled into his driveway. Parked. Pretended to fuss with something in his console. Got out. Stretched. Closed the door. Locked it. Walked slowly into the house, pretending to be engrossed with something on his phone. All very normal. Natural. Nothing suspicious at all.

He locked the mudroom door behind him and walked slowly into his kitchen. He didn’t shout her name, even though his brain was screaming it. If someone was watching him, watching him through the windows of his house, he couldn’t alert them of anything. And so he slowly paced through his downstairs.

Esther wasn’t downstairs anymore. He climbed the stairs, pausing at the top to listen. Nothing. He knocked on the door to Anna’s room. Silence.

Hank’s alarm bells were screaming at him as he turned the knob and opened the door. The bed made, but Esther’s backpack and duffle bag were gone. He stalked to the bathroom. Her toiletries were missing. He went to his room, just to check, and found it empty. Exactly as he’d left it. Exactly as it had been. As if she’d never been there at all.

He raked his hands through his hair, pulling sharply on the roots as he groaned. She was gone and in danger, and he had failed.

Goddammit.

12

Esther sat on the bed and shuffled her cards. She had no desire to pull any for a reading, but they felt good in her hands. Comforting.

She put her cards down on the bed and placed her hands on her thighs, rubbing long figure eights against the soft denim of her jeans. Her heart lurched in her chest as a memory of Hank rubbing his thighs with his hands burst forth.

As she rubbed, as her palms warmed and tingled from the friction, she took some deep breaths. Her yoga teacher had always been cuing diaphragmatic breathing, as she called it. Breathing into the softness of your belly instead of the rigidness of your ribs. Trying to make your exhales take up longer spaces than your inhales. Softening your body to receive the breath.

She tried it now. Rubbing her thighs and feeling her belly expand and contract. She heard the water in the bathroom turn off. Jory came out.

“Sorry that took so long,” she said with a grin as she came to sit on the bed across from Esther. “I love this jumpsuit, but you literally have to get naked to pee.”

Esther laughed. She’d owned one jumpsuit and only worn it twice before giving it away for that very reason.

Jory looked at her intently. She had an almost wild animal quality about her. The way she could sit so still, the way her eyes could focus intently forward but Esther knew she was constantly aware of her periphery as well. The way she always seemed to be listening.

“What are you, Jory?” Esther blurted out, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.

Jory sighed. “That’s a long story.”

Esther gestured around her. “I’ve got time.”

Jory took a deep breath. “What do you know about old Scottish legends?” she asked, locking her vivid, otherworldly green eyes on Esther.

“Not a damn thing,” Esther replied.

“Well, then.” Jory took a deep breath. “The story goes that long ago there was a woman. A beauty, with raven black hair and eyes like sea glass. She mended the fishing nets that the men took out to sea. Nobody could weave as well as she did. Day after day, she sat on the shore and made nets. The waves crashed around her. The animals became accustomed to her. She loved nothing more than the sea.

“One day, the old gods came to Earth. When the god of the sea walked onto the land, he saw her and he wanted her. He courted her with gifts. Shells from far away beaches that swirled with dozens of colors the woman had never seen before. Ivory tusks from the narwhales that swam in the deeper waters. Rocks worn smooth by the tide.”

Jory’s voice was hypnotic, husky and warm, like the scraping of a plane against wood. Jory dropped her eyes to her hands, where she was twisting a piece of yarn that Esther hadn’t noticed before.

“He loved her?” Esther asked.

Jory nodded.

“Did she love him back?”

Jory sighed. “Aye.”

Esther cocked her head to the side at that word.