"Why?"
I sit on the edge of the bed. I owe him the truth, even the parts that are hard to say, because that's the deal. "We sleep on an upper floor. There's basically one way up and one way down. Those stairs. If someone gets past all the locks downstairs, we've got nowhere to go. I'm not getting us trapped up here without a way to defend ourselves."
He's quiet, evaluating the threat, mapping the exits, calculating the odds. Except now the odds include a loaded handgun on the nightstand and a man he trusts willing to use it.
"Do you know how to use it?" he asks. He's not asking about whether I can shoot. He's asking about whether I'm prepared to shoot a person.
"Yes."
"Have you ever—"
"No, I've never harmed anything except a Coke can with a gun. But I will use it if he comes through that door. Make no mistake about it. If he makes it to the second landing, I will kill him. He's not taking you, Stormy."
Stormy sits on the bed next to me so our shoulders touch. He stares at the gun on the nightstand.
"I don't want you to have to do that," he says quietly.
"Me either. That's not the plan. The plan is Mickey, the bikers, Sheila and the phone call and everything we talkedabout. The plan is a parking lot full of people who know his name. This—" I nod at the gun. "This is the backup. This is the three-in-the-morning insurance policy for the scenario where none of the rest of it matters. If he walks up those stairs, this is only ending one way. And if for any reason, you get caught up here without me, you use it too. Point and shoot. Just make one hundred percent sure it's him before you do."
He leans into me and puts his head on my shoulder. My arm goes around him.
"He didn't come tonight," Stormy says.
"No, he didn't. I expected him to."
"He will, though."
"Yeah. I think he will."
"We'll be ready," he says. "I'll be okay."
"You sure will, baby. I'll make sure of it."
I'd do anything in this world to protect him.
We get ready for bed. He settles against my chest, his spot, the place his body knows the way it knows breathing, and I pull the sheet over us.
I reach over to the nightstand. The gun is cool under my fingers. I find the safety with my thumb and click it off.
Stormy's breathing slows against my chest. His hand is on my stomach, his fingers curled loosely, and within minutes he's asleep. Trusting me like a child to keep watch over him.
Ron's still out there.
Somewhere in this town, in a motel room or a parked truck, Ron Jackson is lying awake too. Making his own plans. Deciding when and how he's going to come for what he thinks is his.
Let him come.
I'm awake.
I'm armed.
And Stormy is mine.
Chapter 36: Stormy
Tex is making pancakes for breakfast again.
Burns the first one, saves the second, and I eat both. I've learned that love means eating the burned pancake and telling the man who made it that it's perfect.
