Page 91 of Finding Forever

She kissed my forehead. “You’re welcome. Being able to spend so much time together is a blessing. Goodnight, Eric.”

“Goodnight.”

After she left, I sipped my drink and listened to the sound of the forest. “This is my favorite time of the day.”

“I thought it might be. You spend most evenings out here or by the lake.”

I smiled. “You noticed?”

“It’s hard not to. Sherlock has a sixth sense when it comes to where you are.” He searched my face. “Did I say something wrong?”

I pushed away the images crowding my mind. “Jaydon Chapman said he had a sixth sense when it came to his victims.”

“It will get better.”

“Will it?” I looked at Eric, hoping he understood what I was going through. “I had another nightmare last night. Someone was chasing me through the forest. When I stopped running, I kept pushing the emergency button on my cell phone, but no one answered.”

“It was a stress dream. You’ll be okay.”

“I hope so.” Taking a deep breath, I focused on the here and now, not what kept me awake for most of the night. “I spoke to Detective Jameson. The man who told me Jaydon worked at the FBI was one of his neighbors. The FBI is looking into whether he was involved in any of the murders.”

“That’s good. They’ll do everything they can to make sure anyone who was involved is brought to justice. Have you been offered any counseling?”

I nodded. “I’m not sure it will do much good.”

“I used to think the same thing. I spent three months going to weekly meetings with a counselor after Mike died. It helped, but I’m not doing so well now.”

“What do you mean?”

Eric wiped his hands down the sides of his jeans. “It was my fault the Chapman brothers came here. If I hadn’t rented the cottage, you’d be blissfully unaware of what’s happening.”

I wanted to wrap my arms around Eric and tell him everything would be all right. But I wasn’t sure it would get better. “Jaydon Chapman would have hurt you or anyone else who spent time with you. He was pure evil, Eric. At least I could defend myself enough to get away from him. I couldn’t have done that without the self-defense moves you showed me.”

“You would have found a way,” he muttered.

“Maybe. But I remembered what you said about running away and thinking through the panic. It helped.”

He dropped his head to his chest. “You nearly died.”

“And I’m pleased to report that I didn’t. How have you been? It couldn’t have been easy standing close to Jaydon and not knowing what would happen.”

“That’s just it,” Eric said heavily. “I knew what he was going to do. He would have shot you dead without blinking an eye. I don’t want you in the same situation ever again.”

“That makes two of us.” I looked up at the sky and sighed. “When I was younger, I used to worry about a giant asteroid hitting the earth and killing everyone. Granddad told me the chance of that happening was so low it wasn’t worth losing sleep over. I didn’t believe him, so I went to the library and looked in a book. He was right. A large asteroid hits the earth about once in every 100 million years. So, then I thought, what if this is the year? What if we’re the unlucky ones? Do you know what Granddad said?”

Eric shook his head.

“He told me that sometimes you need a little faith. Life will work out how it’s supposed to—with or without my doom and gloom predictions.”

“My parents would have liked your granddad. They told me something similar after Mike died.”

“Did it help?”

Eric took a deep breath. “Not straight away. I had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It took over my life for a while. After you were shot, it felt as though I was reliving what happened to Mike. My PTSD is back.”

I wrapped my hand around his. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Be patient. Give me some time to work through what’s happening.”