I grab the hand towel from the counter behind me and hold it next to her hand, “You okay?”
Sitting back on her heels, she takes the towel and wipes her face. She is pale and the smudged soot streaks still on her cheeks look like someone drew on her face with marker.
Nodding, she lets her head fall back and focuses on the ceiling, “Yeah, I think I breathed in too much smoke.”
I stand up and lean over the bathtub to turn on the shower, “Here, you’ll feel better if you wash the soot and smoke smell off you. You need help?” I hold my hand out to her.
She shakes her head but doesn’t move so I squat down next to her and slide the back of my fingers up her cheek. “You sure, I can hang around.”
Movement by the door has both of us turning our heads in that direction. Kinley is standing at the door, her eyebrows are drawn down and she is looking between us, “What’s going on, are you okay?”
When we say nothing in favor of wondering why she is here, she sheepishly follows up with a shoulder shrug, “I felt bad about what I said, I wanted to apologize again.”
Sloane stands up and tosses the towel onto the counter, “I’m fine, just too much smoke.”
Kinley looks at me and says, “Get out, I’ll take it from here.”
After what just happened downstairs, my first thought is if she will be nice so my eyes narrow as I look at her. Her hazel-green eyes soften, and she lightly squeezes my arm to indicate that she is trying to help, “We’ll be fine.”
With a turn of my head, I look at Sloane, she gives me a small smile and a nod. I resist the urge to push her hair off her face and kiss her, so I leave the room and go back downstairs to talk with my team.
The table in the breakfast nook is already covered in computer equipment and Spits is sitting with his back to the wall, spitting sunflower seed shells into a red plastic cup that I assume he brought himself; his focus is on the three screens in front of him. Callum is on the other side of the kitchen island talking to Marley.
“I have to be able to work with them every day, it doesn’t have to be all day but at least a few hours.” Her arms are crossed over her stomach, she only stands like that when she starts to feel cornered.
Callum glances over her head to make eye contact with me and I nod my head. I’ll figure something out; I can’t haveher slipping further into nightmares or not eating since Dad’s heart attack already sent her into a mini-spiral. Marley functions on structure and familiar surroundings.
Marley usually avoids talking to men, we only see her real personality at home, when she goes out, she is mostly withdrawn and quiet.
She’s only comfortable talking to Callum because she’s been around him enough in the past to be familiar with him. If it were anyone else, she would have waited to pull me aside. He’s got an extra inch to my six-two, so she looks even smaller standing next to him than she does when she’s next to me.
He brings his focus back to her and reaches up to give her upper arm a gentle squeeze, “We’ll figure out how we can get you to your horses every day.”
“I’ll keep an eye on her.” Jax steps out of the pantry with a box of wafer cookies, his mouth is half full. “I don’t mind.” The top part of his shoulder-length brown hair is pulled back with a tie and his cool blue eyes move to me.
When he looks in my direction, Marley turns to see what he’s looking at. Her eyes meet mine and she raises her eyebrows in question, she’s asking me if she can trust him.
I walk around the island and lean to her ear, “He’s like a brother to me, you can trust him.”
She turns her head just enough so she can mumble to me, “He has to stay back, my newest girl won’t like him being too close.” I’m pretty sure there’s a double meaning behind the request.
“You just tell me where to stand, sweetheart, and that’s where I’ll be.” Jax shoves another handful of wafers in his mouth and starts crunching.
I put my hands on Marley’s shoulders and say in her ear, “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out, you can trust everyone in this room.”
She nods her head and turns to leave without anotherword. I hang my hands on my hips and turn to look at Jax, “You can’t be that familiar with her.”
Jax’s face falls and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead in surprise, “What’d I do?” He looks at Callum, but Callum only holds his hands up and takes a step back to let us know he’s staying out of it.
Reminding myself that I never told Jax about what happened to Marley, I roll my head from one shoulder to the other and take a deep breath. I look over my shoulder to make sure Marley is not in the room, “Marley doesn’t trust men.”
His eyebrows climb even higher in confusion as he looks at Callum and then back to me. I tilt my head and wait for him to figure it out, it only takes a few seconds. He points to the door Marley just went through as understanding, then shock, and finally, anger registers on his face.
I give a small nod.
Callum has tucked his hands under his arms and is leaning against the counter while looking at the floor, he looks at Jax through his eyebrows, “She’ll get used to you, just don’t be too comfortable around her. It took her a few times being around me before she would talk to me.”
Jax sets the box of wafers on the counter like he lost his appetite, his eyebrows are pulled down in anger and his mouth is a tight line as the seriousness of it settles on him, “Got it, I’ll keep my distance.”
