Page 55 of The Witch and The Cowboy

Walker waited for us with Cadence in his arms. Exhaustion made his shoulders sag, and worry furrowed his brow.

I sighed. “I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

“You don’t owe me an apology,” he said. “You have every right to be angry with me.”

I stopped in my tracks.

“Why would you say that?” I asked.

He switched Cadence to his other arm and refused to meet my stare.

“I almost got us killed, Freya,” he explained. “Worse, I almost got you captured by those things.”

He clutched Cadence closer and covered her head with his hand, as if she needed his protection then or now.

“Freya,” he continued. “You tried to stop me, and I didn’t listen! You shouldn’t forgive me. I could’ve wrecked all of us.”

I shook my head. “You were trying to do the right thing, cowboy.”

“You’re not going to tell me I’m reckless?” he asked. “Or stupid?”

He actually wanted me to berate him.

“You are reckless,” I said. “And maybe a little stupid sometimes, but you can’t help it. You’re a man—you’re a good man, though. That’s what matters.”

He still didn’t look convinced.

“Walker,” I said and sighed. “You’re going to make me admit this. I didn’t want to leave that guy because I knew he was a vampire—I wanted to leave him to save our own asses. I didn’t know he was a vampire.”

Shame caused my cheeks to heat. Walker stared at me too intently, and I squirmed under his gaze.

“You were thinking of everyone,” he said. “You do that a lot, even though you don’t admit it.”

I frowned. “Enough of that, Walker. Let’s take care of your sister.”

I swept past him to the front door.

“If only you could take a compliment,” he complained.

“No one has it all,” I retorted.

He laughed at my antics but followed me. Cadence groaned in his arms. I was grateful for a sign of life from the girl, but it meant I needed to get those herbs faster. Waking up from an Awakening was no walk in the sunshine.

I took a deep breath and opened the blue-painted door.

“You don’t lock it?” Walker asked.

“Not with human locks,” I answered. “The whole place is spelled to only open to Redfern family members or those invited in by Redferns.”

“So,” he said. “Are we invited?”

I pretended to contemplate and scratched my head.

“I suppose.”

He rolled his eyes and chuckled. As we entered the cottage, his laughter stopped, and his jaw dropped a little. I couldn’t blame him. If the vampires’ castle was plucked from a nightmare, our cottage leaped from the pages of a fairytale.

Before us sat the most comfortable sofa in existence, and across from it were two high-backed chairs, whose light blue upholstery hadn’t faded in the decades they’d been there. Behind the chairs were two bookcases filled with spell books. The entrance to the hallway split them up. Mom and I’s bedrooms were down the hall.

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