What should have been only one hour turned into two hours. Then three. Then four. Bryony fled to the woods that covered her property, wandering among fat, old twisted oaks. She finally stopped and sat with her back against a tree, tilted her head up and closed her eyes, listening to the wind rustling the leaves overhead. Small animals and insects skittered through the dry underbrush.
The sun rose, bathing her upturned face in warmth. In the back of her mind, she knew she should get back to Pagan Posies for work. Her family would be worried that there was no sign of her.
But she couldn't bring herself to move. She was paralyzed by that reading rolling around in her head over and over.
You will fall in love...An all-consuming, fiery love so deep and so strong that nothing will break it. You will never be abandoned. You will never question his loyalty...And you know him already.
Bryony buried her face in her hands. This is exactly why she didn't want to know her future. She couldn't stop wondering who she would fall so hard for. She didn't have that many men she was familiar with. And if it was Sean...
She couldn't imagine loving Sean like that. She couldn't imagine him loving her like that either.
A sliver of denial wedged its foot into the door of her thoughts. Sky's readings weren't always accurate. They always came true, but they were open to interpretation. Sky might think Bryony would fall in love. But what if she had interpreted the tea leaves wrong? It was easy to get a reading wrong if you weren't clear-headed and ever since Sky had met Aiden, her head had been in the clouds.
The crunch of a footstep in the fallen leaves made Bryony startle. She sat up, her shoulders rigid, and twisted around to look behind her.
Sean raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. A red and gold plaid fleece blanket was draped over his arm. He wore a dark brown leather jacket with the collar turned up against the chill of the morning.
He was the last person Bryony wanted to see and she frowned as he approached.
"What are you doing out here?" she said.
"Don't worry," he replied. "I'm not staying."
He came to a stop behind her. A pause settled over the forest and Bryony held her breath, waiting for his reason for being there.
A moment later, he draped the blanket over her shoulders.
"There's a cold front moving in tonight," he said. "And if you're going to sit here for hours, you might want something to keep you warm."
Bryony considered refusing but the blanket was soft and her coat hadn't been fending off the chill like it should have.
"How did you know where to find me?" she said.
Sean shrugged. "In school, you were always hiding in trees, climbing them, sitting under their branches. You loved trees. Makes sense that when you want some time alone to get away from everything, you would come here."
Bryony had no response to that. She didn't think he had noticed that detail. She thought he only noticed the things he didn't like, such as her splotchy brown freckles or her frizzy red curls.
"Stay as long as you like," Sean said. He retreated a step, sliding his hands in his pockets. "I've made excuses to your family. You're covered until dinner."
"Why would you do that?"
Another shrug. "Because I've been a pest to you all week." He scrubbed at the back of his neck and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "I'll get going now."
He turned away but before he left, he stopped and placed something on the tree root by her elbow. When he removed his hand, a shiny, golden brown acorn was resting there.
"What's that for?" Bryony said.
"Everything I was never very good at saying."
Then he left her there and walked back through the trees to the house. Bryony didn't touch the acorn. For all she knew, it was a prank.
***
Bryony stayed in the woods until sundown and Seline's shrieking call for dinner echoed through the trees. She gathered up the blanket with a sigh and the acorn caught her eye.
She stopped and stared at it.
What's that for?
Everything I was never very good at saying.
Bryony poked at the acorn with a tentative fingertip but the nut didn't explode or do anything strange. It simply sat there, dull and unimpressive.
Carefully, Bryony picked it up, pinched between two fingers.
It appeared to be a perfectly normal acorn.
Seline screamed again for dinner. Bryony sighed and stowed the acorn in her pocket, forgotten already.
She hiked through the trees up to the house. But when she stepped onto the porch, she caught a glimpse of the kitchen through the glass door.
The table was full to bursting with Torres family members. Sean was there, too, of course. And sitting beside him was an old woman Bryony didn't recognize. She was thin and frail but when she looked at Sean, she smiled like she was seeing the sunlight for the first time.
She must be Sean's mother.
Poppy wiggled onto her lap and Sean's mother kissed the top of her head.
Bryony always did that before—sat at the dinner table with Poppy on her knee, feeding her bites of stew and pumpkin.
Bryony slipped around to the back door and tiptoed up the stairs to her room. She fished a box from her closet and started packing.
It was high time she found a place of her own.