8. Seven #2
John kissed the top of my head and stood, putting me back on my feet. "Come on, little one. Let's get back before somebody comes looking for us."
By the time we reached the house, the whole ranch was awake.
Ransom stood near the front gate with a rifle laid across his forearms and gave us a nod.
Joe Dancing had the motorcycle stripped to its frame outside the far shed. He looked up when we passed. I glared back, and Joe returned his attention to the bike first. Good.
The kitchen smelled like bacon, green chile, and fresh tortillas. My stomach cramped. I hadn't eaten since the day before.
Sierra stood at the stove with a spatula in his hand. He looked over John first, checking the dressing, then turned to me. "Better?"
"Yes," John said.
Sierra waited.
"A little," I admitted.
"Good. Sit."
I reached for a chair.
"Not you." Sierra pointed the spatula down the hallway. "Rafe wants you."
"I'm eating first."
"Rafe said now."
"He can wait."
"He's been waiting, Percy." Sierra turned back to the griddle. "Don't make him wait longer or he'll be in a worse mood."
John looked at me. I hated the space that opened between us before either of us had moved.
"Go on, little one," he said. "I'm in good hands here."
"You better finish your plate, or I'll be angry," I warned him.
One corner of his mouth lifted.
Sierra put a plate in front of him. The first burrito was the size of my forearm. A second one sat on the plate behind it.
"I'll be right back," I said.
John caught two of my fingers before I could turn away. He squeezed them once and let go. "Tell me what he says."
"I will."
Sierra had my burrito wrapped in foil by the time I reached the door. He pushed it into my hands. "Eat before it gets cold."
Rafe sat at the turquoise table with a folder open in front of him. His reading glasses sat low on his nose. He hadn't touched the coffee at his elbow. He looked at the foil in my hand. "Sit. Eat."
I sat, but didn't eat. I was saving it to eat with John.
"Joe found one tracker," Rafe said. "Nothing else on the bike."
"You trust him?"
"I trust what he did in front of me. Ransom was standing right there."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"I know." Rafe took off his glasses and folded them on the table. "We can talk about Joe after. Right now, we're talking about John Jameson."
My hand tightened around the foil.
Rafe turned the folder toward me. The first page held a photograph of John in a white coat, taken years before. His hair had been darker, his beard shorter. He stood outside a low clinic building with his arms crossed over his chest, already too big for the photograph holding him.
I wanted to keep it.
"He's who he says he is," Rafe said. "John Jameson. Medical license still in good standing. Army, honorable discharge. No warrants, nothing criminal on him anywhere. Nothing that brings more trouble to this ranch than the trouble already following him."
I looked at the picture again. "What else?"
"Some of what's in there isn't mine to hand over, but…" He sighed. "You need to remember he was a person before he met you, Coyote. He's got history, not all of it pleasant. He's got people. Places. Just like we all do. Private lives we don't share with others right away."
I frowned at him. "Why are you telling me that?"
Rafe tapped the folder. "There are things in here that belong to him. If you want them, you ask him."
I didn't like that answer. I liked that Rafe hadn't handed John's life to me on a stack of paper even less. He pulled one page free and slid it across the turquoise. A missing-person report. John's name sat at the top, his photograph beneath it. The report was old enough that he barely had a beard.
The person who had filed it was Sarah Jameson.
"Sister?" I asked hopefully, because I couldn't fathom him having a wife. He would've told me about that.
"Yes. Lives in Socorro."
I read the page again. Eleven months. Five of those had belonged to Zaroff and the pit. The rest belonged to whatever had driven John onto the road before that.
"She's been looking for him the whole time," Rafe said. "Hospitals. Shelters. Police departments. Anywhere a man his size might have been noticed."
My thumb pressed over her name. "Did you call her?"
"Not yet."
The answer loosened something in my chest.
"Winston did," Rafe continued.
Fucking Winston. Once a cop, always a cop. And here I'd started to like him. "What did he tell her?"
"That he had credible information about her brother and wanted to speak in person. He did not tell her that John was here. He did not tell her that this ranch exists."
"Is she coming?"
"To Winston's office. This afternoon."
I looked towards the door. The kitchen was two rooms away. John sat there eating food Sierra had made him, expecting me to come back and tell him what Rafe wanted.
"She'll try to take him."
"Maybe."
"No maybe about it. She's spent eleven months looking. She isn't going to see him and leave without him."
"She doesn't get to make that decision."
"Neither do you." Rafe leaned forward, forearms on the table. "John decides whether Winston calls her back. He decides whether he meets her, whether he leaves with her, brings her here, or never speaks to her at all."
"He's hurt."
"He's still capable of making choices."
"He doesn't know what he wants yet."
"Then he should get time."
"She's already coming."
"To Winston's office. Not here."
"What happens when she asks where he is?"
"Winston tells her he has to speak to John first."
"And then?"
"John decides."
I looked down at the report.
I could picture the kitchen from where I sat. John bent over the table, his knees crowded underneath it.
He belonged here, with me, eating Sierra's food, washing up in the bathhouse, right where I could touch him and be with him and watch over him.
"He said he's staying," I said, my voice tight.
"Then trust him to say it again after he knows the truth."
My jaw clenched. "You want me to tell him," I said.
"He's your man."
The words should have pleased me. They didn't.
"You keep calling him yours," Rafe said. "This is part of it. You put the choice in his hands, even when you don't like what he might do with it."
"And if he leaves?"
"Ask him to come back."
"I don't ask."
"Then learn how."
I showed him my teeth, but Rafe didn't move.
I looked down at Sarah's name again. Socorro wasn't far. If John wanted to go with her, he could be gone before dark. He had no truck, no money, no clothes that belonged to him, but none of that mattered. She would bring everything he needed.
I had a horse in the barn.
I knew trails that left the ranch without touching a road. Places in the hills where no truck could follow. A cave deep enough to hide a fire from below. John would come if I told him there was danger. He trusted me.
By the time he understood what I had done, nobody else would know where to look.
I folded the report once. Then again.
Rafe looked down at my hands. "Coyote."
"I heard you."
He sat back.
I slipped the report into my pocket. I felt it against my thigh the whole way down the hall.
"Tell him after he eats," Rafe said. "He's had enough put in front of him on an empty stomach."
I stood and picked up my burrito. Rafe didn't stop me, and he didn't make me promise, so I gave him nothing.
In the hallway, I could hear Sierra talking. John answered him in that low voice of his. The sound reached into my chest and closed around something.
I could tell him. I could walk into the kitchen, lay the report on the table, and put Sarah's name between us. John would look at me. Then at the paper. After that, he might look toward the door.
When I entered the kitchen, John was halfway through his second burrito. He had turned the chair sideways to make room for his legs.
His eyes found me immediately. "What did Rafe want?"
I sat beside him. "Nothing that can't wait."
John studied my face.
My pulse sped up. I set the foil on the table and peeled it open.
If anyone tried to take him away from me, they'd do it over my dead body. Zaroff. Sarah. Anybody.