Noah tipped my chin up, looking amused. “What did you name yours?”
“Shadow and Patches.” One was black and the other a calico.
“Good choices,” he said. His were orange and gray. “How about Cheddar and Ash?”
I leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “Perfect.”
“Lunch is just about ready,” he said. “I have everything for the kittens upstairs in the bathroom if you want to bring it down here for them while I add the last few ingredients?”
I shook my head. “I have a trunkful of supplies, too.”
“Of course you do. How many toys did you buy?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Probably too many.”
“Same. They’re going to be so spoiled, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yeah.”
We parted, him retreating into the kitchen while I dashed back into the cold. Last year, it had been warm for Valentine’s Day, but this year, it was freezing, a polar blast howling down from Canada. The forecast called for snow tonight, and Noah and I planned to stay up late to watch it fall.
Once I was back inside, I got the cats set up with a litter box and food, and joined Noah in the kitchen. He already had my meds lined up for me on the island, and I opened the bottles and took them one by one with a glass of water.
I might have thought I was fine after crawling out of the grave, but that was only in comparison to how awful I’d felt before. My hair samples proved that Beau had indeed been poisoning me. With arsenic, that motherfucker. Further tests showed I had damage to my intestinal tract, liver, and lungs that would take time to heal.
Noah watched me pop the last pill, and I could tell from the dark look on his face that his mind had gone to the same place mine had.
“I pissed on his grave today,” he said.
I nearly choked. “Noah!”
“What? I checked first to make sure no one was looking.”
“Don’t give the Broadturns an excuse to come after you. It’s not worth it for a little pee.”
He shot me a defiant look. “I’ll have you know it was a lot of pee. And Idothink it might be worth it if I defaced his headstone. Better yet, dug him up and set his corpse on fire. His death was too easy after what he did.”
He looked like he was serious. Like he’d really considered doing what he said, and my love for him swelled. He was so protective of me, yet so gentle and caring. Except for in the bedroom, where he turned downright despotic, which Ialsoloved. He was my perfect partner. My dream man. Sometimes, while I lay awake late at night, I wondered if Ireallyhaddied a year ago, and this was heaven. It sure felt like it might be.
“Ben Broadturn drove by earlier,” Noah said, dragging me right back down to earth.
“Ew, why does he keep doing that?”
“Trying to catch me doing something illegal, probably.”
“My lawyer might have a point about filing a harassment complaint against him.”
Noah turned, plating up our stew. “Might be a good idea. I wouldn’t put it past that bastard to try and frame me for something otherwise. He’s almost as bad as his brother was.”
I nodded in agreement. I’d spent enough time around Beau’s family that I could attest to the fact that they were all awful, just to varying degrees. They’d more than proven that after Beau’s death, pushing to have me and Noah arrested even though there was no indication that we’d committed a crime. We’d both hadso manydefensive wounds after the fight, and our stories matched. Plus, the state police had found enough evidence during their investigation that the Broadturns were lucky they weren’t all under arrest for aiding and abetting attempted murder.
“I just hope it doesn’t make the paper if we do file a complaint,” I said. “Especially since the rumorsjustdied down.”
Noah turned, sliding a heaping bowl of stew toward me across the island. “One little complaint is far less salacious than everything else that came out.”
He had a point there. Sergeant Wade filed his official report six months ago, and the whole town got to read about what Thibodeaux’s golden boy had really been like. The cheating rumors were all confirmed. So was the astronomical debt. The life insurance policy that Beau had forged my signature on. The fact that he submitted a claim for itbeforepulling the plug on me. The arsenic in my tissue samples. The pentobarbital Beau used to induce my coma. His list of crimes went on and on, impossible to ignore or excuse.
I sighed and slid onto a barstool. “What if it makes national news again?”
