Eight Second Angel: The Ballad of Lily Grace (Lonesome Point, Texas Book 7) by Jessie Evans

destroying the world.”
    Grace’s tongue slipped out to dampen her lips. “But the flower fairy couldn’t bear to think of him dying because of her. So she flew up to his mountain ahead of the war party and sang him a magic lullaby that would turn him to stone for a thousand years. She knew that, by the time he woke, she would have passed into the land of the dead. Some fairies live forever, but not the ones who tend the flowers. Eventually, the frost takes hold in them and they can’t rise up to help make springtime anymore. She hoped that knowing she was gone would help the giant let go of his grief and learn to love someone else.”
    “But what if she was wrong?” Canyon said, the lump in his throat so large there was no ignoring it. “What if the giant still loved her, even after a thousand years? Even after she was gone.”
    Grace opened her eyes, staring up at the blue sky. “I asked Gran the same thing, but she said she didn’t know because the story didn’t have an end yet. There’s a mountain in Ireland named after the fairy with a giant-shaped stone on top. No one knows when he was put to sleep, but Gran swore no one would be surprised if they woke one morning to see that the rock had turned back into a giant and walked away.”
    “Or started crying again and flooded the town.”
    Grace turned to him, eyes shining. “When did you become such a romantic?”
    He took a breath that caught in his chest. “Sometime between seeing a girl standing on the edge of a roof and waking up with her head under my chin this morning.” He sighed, knowing he couldn’t let her go without telling her the truth. “I love you, Grace.”
    She swallowed, her throat working. “I love you, too. Would you stay if I could stay?”
    He cupped her cheek. “I don’t answer questions like that.”
    “Like what?” she asked. “Hard questions?”
    “Impossible questions. No matter what I answer, it doesn’t change anything. Either way, you feel bad, and I’m not going to put that on you.”
    A tear slipped down her cheek. “I can’t stay, but I can tell you the truth before I go,” she said, echoing his own thoughts from a moment before.
    “What truth is that?” he asked.
    She took his hand in hers, guiding it away from her face. “My name isn’t Grace Heller. It’s Lily Grace Lawson and I was murdered sixteen years ago.”
    He tightened his grip on her hand. “Grace, please—”
    “Just listen,” she said. “Then you can tell me I’m crazy, but let me get it out first.”
    “All right,” he said, sad to see her slip back into her delusions, especially when they had so little time left.
    “I spent that time in a place between this world and the next,” she continued, “too worried about the husband and children I’d left behind to move on. I felt like I’d left too much unfinished. So when a woman offered me the chance to come back to earth to help a soul in need, I said yes. I wanted to save a life if I could, to be of use. And the woman told me I wouldn’t remember anything about who I’d been before.”
    She fell silent for a moment, holding his gaze, hers so clear and steady he had no doubt she believed that she was telling the truth.
    “But I do remember,” she whispered. “I remember who I was and everything I lost. I remember my husband and how much I loved him. That’s how I know.”
    “Know what?” he asked.
    “That this is real,” she said, voice catching. “That we could be something special. I’ve felt it twice. That means you can find it again. If you try.”
    “I don’t want to feel it again. I don’t want it with anyone but you,” he said, anger and grief warring inside of him. “If you’re my guardian angel, then whoever sent you here should let you stay. Because I’m going to need you for a lot longer than a week.”
    Like the rest of my life , he thought.
    “That’s not the way it works,” she said with a twist of her lips. “And I’m clearly no angel or I