Chapter 15 Marisa
MARISA
Cold touches my ankle like a careful finger and the dream snaps.
The room is in half-light, lit by coals whispering in the fireplace and the red eye of the old stove across the hall.
My shawl has slid to the floor.
The quilt smells like cedar and soap and Cruz’s laundry.
For a second I do not know why my heart is running.
Then the silence settles. It is the heavy kind that happens when a house decides to listen.
I sit up and the floor bites my feet.
The window shows white and a smear of tree.
No storm howl, just the soft hiss of winter.
The quiet is not wrong, only too complete.
I pull the shawl around my shoulders and step into the hall.
Across from me, the nursery door sits with its new steel plate and quiet hinge.
Deacon fixed it this afternoon while pretending to argue with a loose tile.
There is a charm in knowing a man who believes in hinges that do not lie. I touch the handle, breathe once, and ease it open.
Both boys sleep the way saints do in paintings.
Luca on his back, mouth open, one hand fisted like he is holding court.
Gabe curled to the side, knee tucked under, brow creased as if the ceiling tried to tell him a story and got the details wrong.
The quilts are warm over their bellies, Abuela’s hand in every stitch.
Two soft rasping breaths move in counterpoint.
A third body lies on a pallet beside the cribs.
Cruz, on his side, one forearm thrown out toward the nearest crib like a man who fell asleep reaching.
There is a bottle rinsed and set on a towel within arm’s length.
His mouth twitches when I tuck the blanket over his shoulder.
He does not wake.
The twins sigh through whatever baby dream they are having, and I swear something in my chest unknots two inches.
I could stay and watch them breathe.
I could, but the quiet will not let me.
A prickle moves along my neck and does not fade.
The floor creaks in the hall, the familiar wood sound with a small wrong under it, like a violin that needs a quarter turn.
I step back into the hall and freeze.
A shadow goes past the frosted pane of the back door.
A flicker more than a shape. Not big. Not long.
Real enough that my skin knows before my mind votes.
I hold my breath without deciding to.
Then there is a crack downstairs.
Not loud.
The sound of cold glass choosing a new line.
A second sound that is not weather lands under it.
A soft scrape.
I swear I feel the house inhale.
My hands move before my thoughts.
The hallway drawer sits under the little table where they keep flashlights and extra batteries and one of Roman’s spare pistols because rules work better when they have teeth.
I pull the drawer. It is open already.
Empty.
The slot where the flashlight lives is a clean outline.
The felt-lined groove for the pistol looks like a mouth that decided not to speak.
For a heartbeat, panic comes up like water.
I close the drawer on it and push a dry breath past my teeth. Roman is here.
Deacon is here.
Cruz is in the nursery with both boys and a hand that wakes at the weirdest squeak.
That is logic.
Logic is useful when fear tries to be dramatic.
I put one hand on the railing and go down barefoot.
The stairs give little complaints under my weight.
The air gets colder with every step.
The smell changes from soap and warm milk to ashes and wet pine and the metal scent doors carry when they have been thinking about strangers.
My legs shake.
I keep going because I would rather be scared in the kitchen than scared in the hall.
I round the corner, mouth open to call out and then swallow it, because something in me wants to hear before I say.
I step into the kitchen and run straight into a chest that is not a wall.
Not a ghost. Not a stranger. Roman.
I collide with all that heat and muscle and the smell of leather and smoke and he catches me like he was already there, arms tight and fast around my shoulders and back.
It is not pretty.
It is not careful.
It is relief that lands like a net.
“Breathe,” he says into my hair. His voice is quiet and rough from disuse. “In. Out.”
“I heard,” I start, then stop because the words stutter. “The back door. A shadow. The drawer.”
“I know,” he says. He does not let me go. “I took the flashlight. I took the gun. I left it open because I did not want to make noise. You were asleep. You needed it.”
“You saw it,” I whisper.
“I saw enough,” he answers, and his arms tighten in a way that makes my heart pound in his rhythm. “Stay with me.”
He is warm under my fingers. His shirt is damp from the outside.
I can feel the outline of the pistol at his back when I slide my hand accidentally lower, and something inside my fear stands up straighter.
Beyond his shoulder the coals blink red.
The window glass wears a sheet of breath.
The back door sits closed and latched.
The faint muddy crescent I saw earlier has become a thin smear.
“The boys,” I say, turning my face into his chest, already stepping away. “Cruz is with them. I want to check. I have to check.”
“Cruz is with them,” he repeats, steady. “Deacon is outside. Wren and Hox are on the south line. I walked the west twice. The only thing getting through that door is the draft.”
“I still have to see them,” I say, because there is no argument that will fix my ribs.
His hands ease, not much. He looks at my mouth, then my eyes, then the hall. “Go,” he says. “I am behind you.”
He is. He moves like a shadow that decided it was tired of being a metaphor.
We pass the long table.
A mug sits with a line of milk dried on the rim.
Cruz’s dish towel hangs like a surrender flag on the back of a chair.
Someone with neat hands stacked spoons in size order.
The house looks normal enough to make a person feel foolish.
My feet stay cold.
I pad up the stairs and he breathes behind me, quiet and present.
In the nursery, nothing has changed except my pulse.
Luca puckers.
Gabe issues one soft complaint and sinks back into sleep.
Cruz lies where I left him.
I step in and lay my palm on each small belly and feel the rise and fall. I count four.
I count four again.
The numbers settle me.
I look at Roman.
His face softens without losing anything.
He nods once.
We step back into the hall.
I try to speak.
My mouth has trouble choosing between facts and fear.
He looks like he will stand there and let me decide, as long as I want, but there is a new sound downstairs.
The oven clicks as metal shrinks in the cooling.
A gust lifts the eaves and lays them down again.
The quiet returns, and under it something like a held breath.
We stop at the top of the stairs.
I turn to him.
My voice feels like it belongs to a younger version of me for a beat and I hate that.
I clear it.
“I could not find the gun,” I say, a little sharp now that I am not whispering. “You should have told me. You cannot leave the drawer open. Anyone could think we forgot how to be careful. What if I had gone looking for a light and found air. What if I had needed it.”
“I am telling you now,” he says, and his mouth pulls in the faintest hint of a grim smile that does not quite belong to humor. “And you would not have needed it. Not with me awake.”
“You are not the only awake person here,” I say. “I am not a porcelain thing. I will not be wrapped in quilts and set on a shelf because it is convenient for your heart rate.”
“Good,” he says, and the word hits with heat. “Then listen. You stay with me tonight. No arguments.”
I blink at him. “What does that even mean.”
“It means exactly what it sounds like,” he says, voice low enough that the banister leans in.
“You do not sleep alone. You do not walk the hall by yourself wondering if the house is listening. You do not invent a worst case in the dark. You stay where my hands are, where I can get to the door first, where I can make it so you do not wake like this again.”
“You do not get to tell me where to sleep,” I say, even as my body answers him like it has better instincts than my mouth. “I should be with the boys if something happens. I should be right there.”
“You were,” he says. “And I was thirty feet away from the back door and it took me five seconds to get to you. Deacon is under the eaves with a cold nose and a bad mood. Cruz is on the floor of the nursery with a bat he will pretend is for swatting dust bunnies. The boys are covered. I want you with me.”
“Want,” I repeat, because the word pours molten through my nerves.
“Yes.” He looks at my mouth like he is starving. “Stay with me and sleep and let me do my job. If you do not like it, tomorrow you can make a list and I will read it while I drink your cold brew and complain.”
The image almost makes me laugh. I keep my chin stubborn for form. “I am supposed to listen because you make the coffee metaphor?”
“You are supposed to listen because I am asking you,” he says, and for once it is not iron, not the club president voice.
It is a man who knows how to hold a wall with one hand and offer the other.
The house gives a small groan.
I sigh out a breath and look toward the nursery one more time.
Cruz snores very softly then swallows it. Both babies sigh in unison like a choir of two.
“Fine,” I say. “For tonight. If I wake and find you replaced by a wolf in a leather jacket I am going to be very cross.”
“I will bite the wolf first.” The corner of his mouth moves.
He leads me to my room with a hand at the small of my back.
He checks the lock on the window, clicks the lamp to a low pool, sets the flashlight back on the dresser where I can grab it without thinking, and tucks the pistol under the mattress on his side.
Then he slides the shawl off my shoulders and sets it across the chair like he tends fabrics when he is not tending fires and men.
“Roman,” I say, because the quiet has turned into a bubble where words want to change shape. “Do not talk to me like I am a problem to solve.”
“Then let me talk to you like a need.” He steps in, close enough that my knees go soft, close enough that the smell of smoke and pine and something darker fills the air between us. “You are in my house. You are under my roof. You are in every thought I try to quiet. Stay with me, with us.”
I open my mouth to argue and what comes out is a different sentence. “You make it hard to run.”
“Good.” His hand comes up to hold my jaw gently, thumb along my cheek. “No arguments.”
I lift my chin into his palm because my body is treacherous and honest.
He kisses me slowly at first, then deeper, a heat that slides under my nerves and smooths them.
My fingers find his shirt and curl.
He groans into my mouth, low and dangerous, and the sound rolls through me like thunder going home.
We bump the bed with my knees.
He says my name in a way that ruins what little stubborn I have left.
I say his back like I am tasting salt.
His hands bracket my waist and drag me in.
He is careful where any man could be careless.
He is rough where I want him to forget manners.
Roman sets me on the mattress and stands over me for one heartbeat like he has to memorize the sight for the part of him that keeps lists.
I reach for him, unable to stay away any longer.
He comes down and the world narrows to heat and the slide of fabric and the way his mouth breaks on a laugh when I tug him by the belt.
We argue again for sport.
It lasts three sentences.
He wins because I let him and because there are better ways to spend a mouth.
The quilt wrinkles, and his palm goes heavy on my thigh. My breath changes shape.
He says, very soft and very sure, “I have you.” Then he proves it.