Chapter 26
Molly is hanging out in the kitchen, so I run to get her as soon as I’ve stopped hugging Micah. I need to see my dog to make sure she’s okay.
She’s just fine. She yelps joyfully at the sight of me and runs over for pets and kisses. Then she sticks to my heels as I return to the others in the big council room.
The others are talking at the central table, but Micah reaches out to take my hand and pull me down into the empty seat beside him.
Burgundy is telling the story of what happened to her and then how we got away.
It’s a lot. Someone else might have rambled on with a lot of unnecessary details, but Burgundy keeps her narrative concise and efficient, which is a relief.
Despite my emotions at the reunion with Micah and Molly, there’s a dark shadow at the back of my mind that keeps encroaching further.
Jesse and the Holy Rollers might be coming for me even now.
“You had some luck,” Logan says softly when Burgundy gets to the part where I killed the guard and we ran in the fog to the motorcycle.
“We did,” Burgundy admits.
“But you did good.” His eyes move from Burgundy, who he’s been focused on this whole time, to me, including me in the praise. “Really damn good in getting away.”
“It would have been great, but as we were driving away, we ran into Kat’s ex-husband.”
“What?” Micah asks sharply.
I nod. “Jesse. I thought he went from the militia to a drove like my brothers, but evidently he joined the Holy Rollers instead. He saw me as we were getting away. He told the others I’m his wife. So I’m afraid—”
“Shit,” Micah breathes.
“They’ll come after you,” Logan says with the same bland matter-of-factness he always uses. I’m pretty good at reading people—I’ve had to be with the life I’ve led—but I have no idea what that man is ever thinking. “They might even send a larger group.”
I remember the man who had a knife at the boy’s back months ago as I passed by on my way out of Cleverly. The woman told me that he insisted that she was his wife, so he was going to take her and her son.
He was a Holy Roller, and that’s what they do.
“He knows where you live, I’m assuming?” Logan asks.
“Yes. He lived there too for a while.”
“She can stay here, right?” Burgundy asks.
Logan doesn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
It’s better than nothing. I don’t want to be here—live here—but at least here me and Molly will be safe, and we’ll be with Micah.
“We’ll get a warning when they cross into our territory,” Logan goes on. “So we can be prepared.”
“Prepared?” I ask, suddenly rattled. Confused. Whatever force they send won’t be enough to challenge Logan’s soldiers, so I assumed we were just going to let them go to the camper, tear it to pieces, and then leave because they can’t get to me.
Logan frowns at me. “They held Burgundy for months. That won’t go unanswered. And your camp is now in my territory. We’ll get warning. We’ll be ready. You’re not going to lose your home if I have anything to say about it.”
I’m so stunned I stare at him, my lips slightly parted.
Micah reaches over to take my hand under the table and squeeze it. I cling to his warm grip.
“Th-thank you,” I manage to say.
“You don’t know me,” Logan says, still holding my gaze. “But you will. You’re one of my people now, and Burgundy always has been. No one moves against us and gets away with it.”
I’m not sure how Logan gets his news, but he trusts it. When no report of the Holy Rollers approaching comes that afternoon, everyone agrees they’re going to wait for the morning to make their move.
I’m shaky and exhausted by the time dinner comes around. When Micah asks afterward if I want to go to bed early, I gratefully agree.
He has a small, private room. It must have been his before, and they never gave it to anyone else, because it’s still filled with his possessions. Clothes and weapons and an old guitar in one corner.
After washing up and changing into one of his big T-shirts, I climb under the covers to wait for him.
He never asked, and neither did I. It was simply assumed by all that I’d be sleeping with him.
Molly makes a nest for herself on a thick blanket on the floor, and Micah finishes his cleanup before he turns off the light and gets into bed beside me in nothing but his underwear.
Every part of my body is aching, and there’s a shuddering mass of energy located somewhere in my chest that simply won’t settle. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, but I don’t know if I can sleep.
“Come here, baby,” Micah says thickly, pulling me against him in the dark.
I scoot closer, holding on to him and burrowing against his chest.
“I was really scared.” He sounds hoarse and as tired as I feel.
“I know. I’m sorry.” I squeeze him, breathe in the familiar scent of him.
“Are you?” He runs his hand down my loose hair and then grips a handful of it, like he’s desperate to hold on to me.
The uncertainty in his tone makes me ache.
“Yes. I’m really sorry. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I left, but then I was already there and didn’t want to waste it.
But it was wrong. I shouldn’t have tried to do something like that alone.
And I should never have gotten caught. I wouldn’t have been if you were with me.
I know I found Burgundy and we made it out alive, but I was still wrong in leaving you to do it alone. ”
He’s listening and breathing raspily. His heart is pounding beneath where my face is pressed against his chest. He doesn’t say anything.
“Are you mad at me?” I ask at last.
“Yes. A little.”
I let out a long sigh. “I know. I deserve it.”
“Maybe, but that’s not the main thing. Not for me anyway. It… it hurts.”
I make a helpless sound. “I know. All I can say is I’m sorry, but I know that might not fix it.”
“I know I kept secrets. I know I hurt you too. I know I don’t deserve for you to trust me. But it still hurts that you… that you don’t.”
I kiss his chest, his shoulder. “I want to. I’m… I’m trying.”
“I know you are, baby. You’ve spent so long depending on no one but yourself that it makes sense you’d immediately assume you had to take care of things on your own. But it’s not going to work if you keep doing that. I mean, if you even want it to work between us.”
“I do.” I’m close to tears again, but they don’t fall. “I want it to work between us, Micah. I’ll… I’m going to try.”
“Okay.” He pulls me up farther so he can nuzzle my hair.
“Okay?”
“Yes. It’s okay. You forgave me when I let you down. Did you think I’d let something like this be the end of us?”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“Well, I do know. It won’t work if your self-sufficiency is the most important thing to you, if that’s more important to you than me. But if you’re gonna work on it, then I’m good.”
“You mean it?”
“Yes, I mean it, baby. I love you. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I know it.”
“I want a life with you. All the way. Forever. So if I need to wait a little while before you’re secure enough to really trust me, I can do that. I can do it happily. It means you want me enough to work for it, and that feels kind of like a dream come true.”
I can’t hold back the throaty sound of emotion. I find his face in the dark and kiss him, deep and urgent and all in.
He responds immediately, sliding his tongue into my mouth, moving me on top of him, and pulling my thighs apart so they’re straddling his hips.
We kiss for a few minutes, all heat and raw feeling.
His cock grows hard against me, and soon I’m aroused enough to be comfortable.
So I lift up enough to let him slide into my pussy, and we both moan at the penetration.
He’s there. Inside me. All the way. Right where he’s supposed to be.
He pulls me back down into another kiss as we move rhythmically together. We’re both exhausted and emotionally stretched, so we don’t last very long.
After a minute, our carnal motion causes enough friction against my clit for me to come in a wave of pleasure, and he falls out of rhythm almost immediately afterward, jerking his hips up in clumsy thrusts as he grunts against my mouth.
He lets out a hoarse exclamation as he yanks himself out at the very last moment, coming onto my stomach instead. Then he pulls me down into a hug.
“Kat, baby, I love you.”
I feel it. I want to say it too. But there’s still a block in my heart that holds back the words. Instead, I murmur, “Thank you for saying it. I’ve never known anyone with a heart as big as yours.”
He kisses me gently. Then his body shakes with soft huffs of amusement.
“What’s so funny?”
“Of course the body part you praise for its bigness would be my heart.”
This makes me giggle. “Well, the rest of you is pretty big too, but your heart is the biggest.”
“Okay. I’ll take it.”
We lie together in tired contentedness for several minutes. His breathing slows down so much I think he’s actually asleep.
But then he says into the dark room, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For bringing back my sister. I always figured it would take a miracle to get my sister back, but I should have known that miracle would be you.”