10. Nine
The rabbit was still alive when I reached the snare, and I was glad. Killing it gave my hands something to do besides pull Sarah's report out of my pocket and carry it back to John.
It kicked when I came through the brush, winding the wire tighter around its back leg. I caught it behind the head and broke its neck with one quick twist. Nimue lifted her head from my shoulder, interested now that the work was over.
"Not for you," I said.
She slid down my arm while I carried the rabbit into the dry creek bed. There was a flat rock near the bank where I cleaned whatever I caught. I put the rabbit there, cut through the skin below its hocks, and pulled the hide down.
Nimue tasted the air beside my wrist.
I shoved her head away. "You ate yesterday."
She kept watching. Facts didn't slow her down much when she wanted something. I understood that better than I wanted to.
I opened the rabbit's belly without cutting the gut, reached inside, and removed everything I didn't want.
My hands kept working. The rest of me was somewhere else.
Linc or Rafe would take John to Winston's office.
Sarah would put her arms around him, and John would remember all the people and places that had belonged to him before I found him in the pit.
Maybe he would come back.
And maybe he wouldn't. It was that last part I couldn't live with.
I rinsed the liver and checked it before wrapping it with the meat. John would want it cooked through. He was a doctor, which meant he could watch me eat something raw with blood running down my fingers but would start listing parasites if I tried to feed it to him.
The thought of his disgusted face almost made me smile.
I could hand John the report when I walked back up and let him make the choice Rafe said belonged to him. I wasn't going to. Rafe knew that when he let me walk out with it.
I wiped my knife on the discarded hide and folded it.
The report pressed against my thigh when I crouched to rinse my hands.
I had brought it with me because leaving it at the ranch had felt too much like making the decision final.Carrying it around while I lied was apparently different.
People had always told me things because I never held onto anything, and now I was holding this against my leg like it was mine.
John had promised me today, and the sun was still above the ridge. Sarah could wait a few more hours. She had already waited eleven months.
I knew exactly how ugly that was, and I didn't give a damn.
I tied the wrapped rabbit to my belt and settled Nimue around my neck. Then I went back to the cave anyway.
John sat near the mouth with the radio beside his thigh. He had pulled on his jeans while I was gone but left his shirt folded on the bedroll. The dressing on his ribs was still white. No blood. No wetness around the edges.
He looked up when my boots scraped the stone and let out a breath. "You came back."
"I said I would, didn't I?" I crouched in front of him.
John caught the back of my neck before I could reach for his dressing and drew me between his knees. He pressed his nose into my hair, breathed me in, and dragged one hand down my spine.
The report crackled in my pocket.
"Did you find what you needed?" he asked.
I put my arms around his waist and held on. "I found dinner."
John glanced at the rabbit tied to my belt. "You catch that with your hands too?"
"I used a snare."
"Good. I was starting to worry you did everything the difficult way."
"Only when the difficult way is more fun." I pulled back enough to look at the dressing over his ribs. "Let me check you."
His hand stayed on the back of my neck for another second before he released me. "Go ahead."
I pressed around the edges of the bandage, watching his face instead of my fingers. He hid pain well, but his stomach tightened when I reached the stitches near his back.
"That hurt."
"It pulled."
"What did you do while I was gone?"
"Put on my pants."
"You could've waited."
John laughed and caught my wrist before I could move to the dressing on his thigh. "I've been dressing myself a long time."
"You didn't have me for fifty years."
He smiled. "Check the wound, little one."
I did. The dressing had held, and the skin around it wasn't any hotter than the rest of him. I sat back on my heels, satisfied for now.
John reached for me again, but I stood and took the rabbit from my belt before he could pull me back between his legs. If he kept touching me like that, I might tell him just to stop the report from making noise every time he put his hands on me.
Or I might burn it.
I looked toward the fire ring. Coals still sat beneath the ash. I fed them dry grass and twigs, then added thicker wood once the flame caught.
John watched me push a green branch through the rabbit. "How long?"
"Until it's cooked."
"That clears things up."
"You want parasites?"
"I want dinner."
"Then quit asking questions."
He leaned back against the cave wall and stretched his legs in front of him. Even sitting down, he took up too much space. One boot would've reached the fire if he'd been wearing them. He bumped his bare foot against my hip while I turned the rabbit. I shoved it away.
He put it back.
I glared at him.
John kept his face innocent. He rubbed his foot along the outside of my thigh.
"Keep that up and you're eating it burnt," I said.
"You seemed tense."
"I'm hungry."
"So am I."
He wasn't talking about the rabbit. My cock thickened, and John's mouth curved when he noticed.
I grabbed the bag of dried fruit and tossed it at his chest. "Eat that."
He caught it one-handed. "You're no fun."
"You weren't complaining earlier."
"No. Earlier you let me have meat."
I almost dropped the knife.
John opened the bag and ate a piece of dried apple like he hadn't said anything. I turned back to the rabbit before he saw me smile.
This was what I wanted. John in my cave, eating my food and putting his hands wherever he pleased. Nobody calling for him. Nobody waiting to drag him back into a life where he belonged to everybody except himself.
Except me.
I had enough food in the tins to keep him there for a few days. After that, I could hunt. There was water at the spring below the ridge, ammunition against the wall, and blankets for when the temperature dropped. The horses had grass in the wash.
The gelding still had a saddle.
I looked toward the overhang where I had left the tack. One cut through the cinch would take care of that. John didn't know horses, and he couldn't walk down the mountain with his thigh and ribs torn open. He would have to stay until I decided to help him leave.
I had stopped turning the rabbit.
"You're burning it," John said.
I moved it away from the hottest part of the fire. "It's fine."
"What were you thinking about?"
"Whether you'd complain if it was raw."
"I'm a doctor. Of course I'd complain."
I cut into the thickest part of the thigh. The meat was still pink near the bone, so I set it back over the fire.
John's foot touched my hip again. I caught his ankle and held it this time. His pulse moved beneath my thumb, steady and warm.
I could keep him.
The thought settled something inside me that had been clawing since Rafe put Sarah's report in my hand.
Then leather knocked against metal somewhere below the cave, and John stopped moving.
"What was that?"
A horse started up the trail.
"Linc."
I released John's ankle and stood. The horse took the climb at a walk, hooves striking stone while the loose buckle on Linc's bridle knocked against the bit. I'd told him to fix it. I should've cut the damn thing off myself.
John reached for his shirt. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't know yet."
That was a lie, too. Rafe had run out of patience and sent Linc to do what I wouldn't.
John started to get up. I put a hand on his shoulder before he could pull at his stitches. "Stay here."
His eyes moved to my hand.
I took it away. "The trail's narrow. Let me see what he wants first."
"All right." He settled back against the wall, but his attention stayed on me. "Don't be long."
I left the rabbit over the fire and went outside.
Linc had dismounted before the last climb and was leading the bay by the reins. Dust covered his jeans to the knee, and sweat had dried around the neck of his shirt. He looked tired and pissed off, and he wasn't surprised to find me standing in the trail.
"Rafe sent you," I said.
"Yeah."
"Tell him John's resting."
"I need to talk to John."
"He's hurt. You can talk to him tomorrow."
"Sarah reached Winston's office this afternoon."
I looked back at the cave before I could stop myself.
Linc saw it. "He still doesn't know, does he?"
"Keep your voice down."
"She's been sitting there for hours, Coyote."
"Winston can send her home."
"He isn't telling her anything until John decides what he wants."
"John can decide tomorrow." My hand closed around the knife at my belt. "You need to leave."
Linc tied his horse to a dead branch and started up the trail.
I moved in front of him. "You're not going up there."
"Yeah, I am."
"He's staying here tonight."
"Did he decide that?"
"He promised me today."
Linc's mouth tightened. "That wasn't permission to lie to him."
"Watch yourself."
"I have been." He glanced at my hand on the knife. "I watched you pack enough food for several days after Rafe told you Sarah was coming. I watched you take John out of the one place she might find him."
"He asked me to bring him somewhere quiet."
"And you just happened to choose the cave."
I stepped down until we were nearly chest to chest. Linc was bigger than me, but most men were. It hadn't made a difference yet.
"Get back on your horse," I said.
"Not without him."
I could make him. The rifle was still on his back, and his right hand held the reins. I knew where to put the knife so he couldn't shout before the blood filled his throat.
Linc knew it too.
He looked at my hand, then met my eyes. "You going to kill me to keep him from finding out?"
"If I have to."
"No, you won't."
That pissed me off enough that I drew the knife.