Page 62

BANDERA.

Odds are every line on that page is something they did to her in that cellar under Whitlock's winery. I read each one slowly, and I make sure she watches me read it.

"Property," I say. "Can I call you mine?"

Her chin comes up. "Yours, if you mean it like a man means it. Not like a deed."

"That's how I mean it."

"Then yes."

"Kneeling," I say. "It's not on here either way."

She doesn't answer right away. I wait, and I don't help her.

She takes the book back and writes one more line.

KNEELING: YES. FOR YOU. EYES UP.

I don't trust my voice. I turn the book around and write under hers, in my own hand.

NEVER IN ANGER.

NEVER WITHOUT HER YES.

NEVER ON A NIGHT I'VE FOUGHT. THIS ONE'S MINE. SHE DOESN'T GET TO LIFT IT.

She reads it and looks up. "Did you fight today?"

"I watched Coleman Whitlock drive away from you this morning and didn't lay a finger on him. I haven't put my hands on anything in anger since that bag." I hold her eyes. "I'm safe. I decided that in the church lot."

She takes the pen one last time.

NO CONDOMS.

I look at the line, then at her.

"Nell drew my blood the morning she floated Sadie's teeth," she says. "You were walking Sadie back to her pen. The doctor Nell promised me ran it under my own name. I let her because she takes cash and keeps nothing on a computer. My results sit on paper in a locked drawer in her office, so nothing goes to insurance or into any hospital system. That's what Nell called about. Every test came back clean."

She knew it all afternoon and didn't tell me.

"Every test?" I ask.

"Every one. The doctor ran the full panel, and there's nothing on it." She doesn't blink. "And the implant's good for years yet, so there's no baby to worry about."

"My last panel was clean a few weeks before you walked into my barn," I tell her. "I haven't touched anybody but you since."

"Then I want you bare." Color climbs her throat, and she doesn't look away. "I want it, the same as everything else on this page."

I sign the bottom. K. HOLLISTER. She signs under my name. DELILAH RUTH KING. There's no line for a witness, and neither of us adds one.

I tear the top sheet out, fold it once, and put it in my shirt pocket. She keeps the carbon.

I go down the hall, take the black canvas bag off my closet shelf, and set it on the kitchen table where she can see it.

"Bedroom," I tell her quietly. "Fold the quilt off my bed and put it on the floor at the foot. Everything off but that shirt. When I walk in, you'll be standing on that quilt."

She goes.