Page 98 of Where the Roses Bloom
“How the hell did you even find out this was happening?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Last I heard, you didn’t have any way to reach us from…where again?”
“Todos Santos,” Holden said. “And no, I still don’t have a signal—Beau had a message sent through the Peace Corps and I caught the first flight home.”
I shot him a look.
“Hope that’s okay,” Beau said.
I didn’t answer right away…because I wasn’t exactly sure if it was okay. The silence that had come after Hazel’s funeral had stretched three years, and in that moment, I remembered every jagged thing Holden had said the last time he stood on this porch.
About how we weren’t cursed, just dysfunctional.
About how maybe our parents’ wreck wasn’t some cruel twist of fate, but something they brought on themselves…
…and the implication that Amelia’s death had been that way, too.
It had broken Silas to the point where he’d punched Holden right in the jaw, and we hadn’t heard a word from him since.
“Yeah,” I said at last. “It’s fine. It’s…it’s good.”
Holden’s jaw worked, then he did the last thing I expected. “I should’ve come home sooner,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Silas didn’t say anything. Just started up hammering a nail into the porch to hang the lights.
Hammeringhard.
Whit muttered, “Damn right you should’ve.”
Holden didn’t rise to meet Whit, not this time. He just stood there with his bag still slung over his shoulder, Milo dutifully at his side now like some kind of canine buffer. Beau reached out to give him a pat, and I could see it clear on his face: how he was trying to be the bridge, how he wanted this to go smooth.
“I mean it,” Holden added. “What I said at the funeral…I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. I just…” His gaze flicked to Silas. “Well. I guess I’m a bit of an asshole.”
A smile threatened to crack Silas’s anger. “More than a bit.”
I looked between them all—Whit itching for a fight but willing to let it lie for the rest of us; Silas pretending to care more about the nail than the person who came all this way to stand under the same roof again; and Beau anchoring the moment with that soft steadiness that had always made him the glue that bound us together.
And Holden…well, he looked older, maybe a little wiser. Not so much like the kid who’d been young enough to be more like a son to me than a little brother.
Maybe less of a cocksure little shit.
But beyond that, it occurred to me that the town had been healing, the land, the county, the house. Even if we were haunted now, Willow had freed us from a generations-long shadow. It was the first time since Hazel passed that all five of us were standing here together…and it was for awedding, not a funeral. I could practically feel her spirit watching over us, just waiting for that extra juice to cast Carter’s energy out for good.
“So…” Holden said. “Can I meet her? The bride, I mean.”
The word sounded strange, something I hadn’t thought about enough. Everything was moving so fast that I hadn’thad a chance to even think about Willow as my bride…and it felt like we were already bound in all the ways that mattered. But I smiled at the idea of it, shaking my head. “She’s out with a friend right now,” I said. “But…well, would you look at that.”
A cloud of dust appeared at the end of the driveway, swirling around Delilah’s Jeep as she drove up from the road. Delilah always drove like she was trying to outrun the devil, and I made a mental note to remind hernotto do that when she had someone so damn precious in the passenger seat.
Willow didn’t seem bothered by it as she got out of the car, though, her bag slung over her shoulder, a bakery box in her hand. She grinned up at me, taking in the sight of all five Ward brothers on the porch—a little confused that we’d someone added a new one.
“Um…” she said, shifting the box of pastries in her hands. “Did you get a new one?”
“A new what?”
She tipped her chin toward Holden. “Ward. I thought only four of you lived in the county. Or is this…”
“Holden,” I confirmed, nodding. “He flew all the way from Guatemala for our good old-fashioned wexorcism.”
Willow’s brows lifted. “Holden…huh. I thought y’all were making him up—like a metaphor for unresolved trauma.”
