Page 58 of One Forbidden Moment

She set her bag down and turned toward him."What made you come to the nursing home?"

"I wanted to see you," he said.

"It meant a lot."She stepped closer."You're getting more comfortable navigating around by yourself since finding Finn."

"It helps knowing he's here."He inhaled deeply."That he understands."

Her gaze dropped.He lifted her chin, making her look at him.

He didn't know how to explain his emotions over watching her with her mother.The tenderness, the patience, the heartbreak she carried without complaint.He'd never seen anything like it.Never had anything like it.

"I want to understand you," he whispered.

Jillian reached up and touched his cheek, her thumb brushing lightly along his jaw.It wasn't sexual.It wasn't rushed.It was gentle, loving, intimate in a way he didn't know how to handle.

He leaned into her touch without meaning to.

"I don't see the person you were in the past."She smiled softly."You're a good man, Moe."

He swallowed hard."Don't know about that."

"I do."

She stepped closer, resting her forehead against his chest.He wrapped his arms around her, holding her like she was something fragile and fierce all at once.She fit against him perfectly, like she belonged there.

They stood there, breathing the same quiet air, letting the moment settle around them.

And that was when he felt it.

A cold ripple slid across the back of his neck.Not wind.Not temperature.Something else.Something wrong.

Jillian stiffened in his arms."Moe...did you feel that?"

He turned slowly, scanning the room.The shadows in the corners looked deeper than they should've.The air was heavier.The silence was listening.

A faint flicker moved along the wall.It wasn't a light nor a shadow.It was darkness itself, shifting and moving.

"Moe."Jillian grabbed his arm, panic evident in her voice.

He stepped in front of her instinctively, shielding her with his body.

The flicker pulsed again.Then again.Like it was searching for a way out or looking for them.

His heart hammered."Finn said it'd show up."

Jillian's voice trembled."Is that it?"

He didn't know how to answer.The darkness wasn't a shape.It wasn't a creature.It was a presence.A wrongness, pressing against the world like it wanted in.

The flicker stretched upward, thin and tall, then snapped back into the corner like it had been pulled away.

The air lightened.The shadows softened.The room returned to normal.

Jillian exhaled shakily."Oh, my God.It was watching us."

Moe didn't take his eyes off the corner."Yeah."

"What do we do?"She slid her hand into his, gripping tight.