“That’s the truth.” I park under the canopy outside the garage as the other crew jumps out of their cart and barrels toward the house. “What torture did you have in mind for tomorrow?”
“The woman Vargas sent to us is arriving.” His tone is so riddled with worry; something is off.
Before we had the shelter, we used contacts all over the country as safe harbors for victims we were erasing. It gave us temporary places to stash them while we made arrangements for their new identities. It’s not a job many would volunteer for because the victims are skittish and usher a threat of peril with them. A few weeks at most is the standard agreement. Wells already stated it was a two-week provision, so timing isn’t the issue.
“And? You said she was rough. Is there a concern?”
He huffs a breath, his fingers diving into his slicked hair. “Rough is an understatement, but that’s not all. She’s been through”—his eyes ping between Rena, the landscape, me—“a lot. It’s a fucking mess that we can talk about tomorrow with her. But that’s not what has my stomach in knots.”
Bile coats my throat because the Chief rarely appears this conflicted, and we’ve seen some volatile cases over the years.
What the hell is going on?“Then what is it?”
“It’s not what; it’s who.” He flicks his eyes back to the house before returning to me with some sort of plea. “It’s Gage’s girl.”
“Gage has a girl?” Rena mumbles.
“Fuck,” I hiss at a loss for how to respond beyond that.
“Yeah.” He nods, skimming his fingers over his mouth. “Let that sink in for the night and meet me in the morning with some goddamn insight on how to approach this.”
He climbs out of the cart and dashes for the house as I remainstunned, attempting to digest that bomb, until I glimpse my shivering wife.
“C’mon, baby girl.” I scoop her into my arms and scurry for our bedroom.
Despite the heat, the rain is cool. So, when I carry Rena inside, the AC chills her to the bone, her limbs trembling in my embrace. I rush up the back staircase, sprinting to our wing and grabbing a few towels from our bathroom to warm her up.
Setting her on the floor, I buff her dry and start removing her clothes. “Better peel these off first, Little Moon.”
“It’s not the rain,” she mutters, lifting her arms so I can rip her plastered tank and bra away, revealing the goose bumps littering her skin. “I mean, it is. But the chills—it’s not the temperature.”
I wrap the towel around her shoulders, checking her over. “You don’t feel well?”
“I feel wonderful. It’s just a lot.” She glances down at her hands, threading the towel through her fingers. “You’ve given me so much, and I haven’t … I haven’t given—”
“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence,” I warn as I shimmy her shorts and panties off.
“Nothing you can keep,” she continues while I use a second towel on her damp legs. “The Joplin guitar. The music room. That amazing blueberry field. It’s all so much … and I … I don’t think like that.”
“You gave me the notes—best gift I’ve ever gotten.” I point to where they’re framed above our bed—one of the first things we did together when I moved her in here and transformed this room into ours, adding little touches of my girl to the otherwise simple black-and-gray decor. “You know why?”
She blinks those gorgeous green gems at me. She’s so soft right now, so vulnerable, a side of her most don’t get to see.
Mine.
“You love those gifts because they take a part of you that was entwined with pain and free it, right?” I ask.
Her brows furrow. “Yeah.”
“That’s what your notes did for me, Rena. They freed me. Made me fight, hope, live.”
“Okay.” She smiles, but a lone tear streams down her cheek. “I get that. You taught me to hold on. I just … I’ve loved you for so long, and I want to make sure you know that you’ve always been a part of me.”
“I’ve never felt so loved in all my life,” I promise, wiping her sentimentality away before ripping off my own wet T-shirt. “There’s no me without you.”
“Good.” Her wispy voice strengthens. “I might have another gift that will make you want to live.”
She abandons her towel and tugs my wet shorts and boxers off, tossing them into the wet-garments pile. The visual alone—my radiant girl naked, on her knees for me—is a damn fantasy, but when she bends forward with her luscious ass in the air, grips my hardening cock, jostles my piercing with her tongue, and licks at the emerging dollop of precum with a sultry whimper, I’m undone.
