Page 53 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

Her body fits against mine with an ease that should not feel so familiar. One arm falls loosely around my neck. Her face turns into my chest, and her breath warms the skin above my collar.

I carry her into the bedroom and lower her onto the mattress. After removing her boots, I pull the blanket over her and place her bag near the bedside table.

As I straighten, her fingers close around my wrist.

“Rocco?”

“I’m here.”

Her eyes remain closed.

“Don’t let it happen.”

I know what she means. I also know promises are precarious when the outcome depends on things no one can control. I make this one anyway.

“I won’t.”

Chapter 9

Loralee

Iwake beneath a blanket that smells faintly of cedar and Rocco. For several seconds, I don’t know where I am. The mattress beneath me is firmer than the one in my rental cabin, and the room holds none of the familiar objects I unpack whenever I travel. There is no rose-quartz lamp glowing on the dresser. No shallow bowl for my rings and crystals. No scarf draped over the nearest chair because I always bring too many and never hang them properly.

Then memory returns. The cash box. Shattering glass. Smoke burning my throat. Rocco’s blood on my hands.

I sit up too quickly. The room tilts, not enough to send me back against the pillows but enough to make me close my eyes and breathe through it.

The vision took more from me than any reading ever has. Even the worst sessions leave me tired in a way sleep can reach. This exhaustion is different. My energy feels stretched thin, as though part of me remains caught inside a moment that has not happened.

I place both feet on the floor and wait until the dizziness passes.

My boots sit neatly beside the bed. Rocco must have removed them after carrying me in here. The thought brings a warmth that has nothing to do with the blanket pooled around my waist.

I remember waking long enough to catch his wrist.

Don’t let it happen.

I won’t.

The promise should not comfort me. Rocco cannot control every person attending the festival, every weapon hidden inside a vehicle, or every decision made in anger. He knows that better than most people, yet he gave me the promise anyway.

A radio murmurs beyond the closed bedroom door. Rocco’s voice follows, low and precise as he asks for an update on the west vendor lane. I cannot make out the response, but I hear him acknowledge it.

He stayed.

Part of me relaxes at the realization. Another part tightens.

I like knowing he is in the next room. I like it far more than I should after three days. His presence feels solid, warm, and oddly familiar, as if some part of me recognized him before we met and has been waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

But presence requires energy, even when the person asks for nothing.

I have learned not to apologize for that truth. Solitude is not loneliness for me. It is where the edges of my energy return to their proper shape. It is where I separate what belongs to me from everything I have absorbed from other people.

Right now, I am carrying too much fear to know how much of it is mine.

I stand carefully and open the bedroom door.

Rocco sits at the small kitchen table with a laptop open in front of him. Two radios, a festival map, and several incident reports occupy the rest of the surface. His long hair is tied at the base of his neck, and his black shirt stretches across shoulders I know beneath my hands now.