After a pause, Morgan said, “I could loan—I could give you bus fare.”
“Don’t want your charity.”
It was hard to enjoy the warm fire in the cast-iron stove or the starlit glow that shone through the window to dance on the patterned carpet and wooden floorboards.
At least the night would be clear. He’d be able to see his way as he waited for the train, waited to jump for the ladder. Which would be ice cold and maybe slippery. But he was used to not having a solid footing or a handhold.
He’d been riding the rails alone before he’d met up with Blue and Star in Chicago. He could be alone again, and away from Morgan. Who didn’t want him. Just like everyone else.
“Need more wood?” Nimble asked pleasantly, as though nothing was wrong.
“It’s good for now,” Morgan said. Not wanting to be under obligation, obviously. “I poked it up. Stuck a few twigs in there. It’s fine.”
All right. Nimble might as well do the dishes and finish what he’d started before he left.
With that decision ringing in his head, he went into the bright kitchen, and went to the sink. Turned on the hot water, and before it got too hot, he stuck his hands beneath the flow. To remember what it felt like to be warm.
CHAPTER 13
morgan
Morgan sat in front of the dwindling fire and listened to Nimble in the kitchen. The high-pitched bustle of cutlery and dishes didn’t quite hide the fact that Nimble wasn’t humming. Which was strange.
Morgan considered asking Nimble to come in and build up the fire the way only Nimble could. And then he stopped.
Nimble had already done so much for him. Fetching and carrying. Cooking and washing up. Morgan could sit for a while on his own, like a grown man who didn’t need a babysitter.
Then Nimble came in, a glass of water in one hand, three amber pill bottles in the other. He put them on the coffee table in front of Morgan in a swirl of flannel shirt, without a word.
Morgan took a breath to remark upon the fact that the glass might leave a water ring on the wood. Then he looked up and snapped his mouth shut.
Nimble’s shoulders were a hard line, and his face was stiff, as though he’d just come out of the cold and had yet to thaw. He wasn’t his usual cheerful self, taking joy in everything.
“Are you okay?” Morgan asked. “You look?—”
He stopped, hardly able to explain what he was seeing, because it was so different from how Nimble had ever acted.Except on that first day, when Nimble had been hiding behind the counter in fear of the law.
He thought back. Nimble had grown quiet after the phone call home. The one that Morgan had talked him into.
Something had happened, obviously, but Nimble’d hardly said two words about it.My dad is a jerk. He knows I’m alive. And that was it.
Something was very wrong. And, as usual, Morgan had been so wrapped up in his own troubles that he’d failed to observe what was going on with anyone else.
That’s what Bradley had accused him of, back in the day, but Morgan had dismissed it because he’d just been in an accident, for Christ’s sake. It had been reasonable for him to be self-absorbed. He’d needed help, only Bradley hadn’t given it to him.
Now here was Nimble, whohadgiven him help, and who might need help.
Morgan wasn’t fresh out of the hospital anymore. He needed to step up and find out what was wrong. Even if Nimble decided to leave in the morning, to hop a freight train or hitch a ride, Morgan needed to take care of him as best he could. Nimble didn’t want his charity, but maybe he could use a listening ear.
“Dishes,” Nimble said, turning to go.
“Wait a sec,” Morgan said. “Can you?”
Nimble’s shoulders rose and fell in a quick, hard breath. Just waiting. Like Morgan was going to snap his fingers and order him to scrub the floor while he was at it.
“Listen, what happened? You told me your dad was a jerk. What did he say?”
Nimble shrugged. But the spark was gone from his eyes. His mouth was a hard line.
