CHAPTER 14 #2
He packed the tools with one hand and kept the other near the wall.
Going down was worse. The stair pressed them together at each turn, his wet shoulder brushing stone, Wren's lantern throwing their shadows long and broken ahead of them.
Halfway down, a gust hit hard enough to make the tower groan. Wren's boot slipped on a damp step.
Colt caught her around the waist before he thought.
She landed against him, one hand gripping his forearm, the lantern swinging wide and throwing wild light across the walls.
"I've got you," he said.
He had said the same words to Beau in fever, to a frightened heifer caught in brush, to himself when there had been no one else to hear.
With Wren against him in that narrow stair, the words did not sound practical.
They sounded like a promise he had no right to make unless he meant every inch of it.
Her fingers tightened on his arm. "I know."
That was worse.
Because once, she had not known. Or he had not made sure she did. He had carried his hurt like proof and never asked what she had carried away from him. Looking at her now, he wondered if the past had been built out of more missing pieces than either of them had known how to find.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yes."
He waited.
She swallowed. "No. But not because I slipped."
The lantern settled, its light soft against her cheek. He should have let go. The stair was cramped, and she was steady again. His hand remained at her waist, broad against damp fabric, his thumb held still because moving it would turn care into something else.
Wren's gaze dropped to his hand, then returned to his face.
"Colt."
His name in her mouth did damage.
"We need to get off the stairs," he said.
"I know."
Neither of them moved.
Rain tapped through the patched seam above, slower now.
Somewhere below, a bucket caught a drop with a clean plink.
Colt could count fence staples by feel and judge a gate's swing from one hinge.
He did not know how to judge this. The woman he had loved before he had learned what losing cost stood with his hand on her waist and old truth rising between them like floodwater.
He let go first.
It cost him.
They made it down the rest of the stair without speaking.
In the vestibule, the leak had slowed enough that the buckets looked overprepared.
Water still ran down the limestone in thin silver lines, but the hard stream was gone.
The flowers in the nave were safe. The chapel smelled of rain and beeswax and old wood, and the storm had shut the world down to the small space between the side door and the bell rope.
Colt wiped his hands on a towel. "It'll need a real repair when the roof is dry."
"Will it hold through rehearsal?"
"Yes."
The answer loosened something in her. She shut her eyes for one second, then opened them and nodded like she had given herself permission to keep standing.
"Thank you," she said.
"You don't have to thank me for that."
"I do. " She folded the wet towel over the bucket rim, too precisely. "You left Beau for this."
"Junie's with her. Beau was asleep."
"Still."
"Chapel was leaking."
"That's not the whole reason you came."
He could have made it about Della. About Paloma's flowers. About old buildings and storm damage and the fact that no man worth much ignored a leak when he had tools in the truck. Every one of those things was true.
None of them was the whole truth.
"No," he said.
Wren's hands went still.
The storm pressed hard against the door. Water crawled under the threshold in a narrow line. Colt stepped over it and wedged a towel there, buying the chapel one more small defense. When he straightened, Wren was watching him with the kind of fear that did not step back.
"I came because you called," he said.
She pulled in a breath.
It would have been easier if she smiled. Easier if she joked. Instead she crossed the strip of wet tile between them and touched his wrist.
Colt held still until the want in him quit pretending it was only memory.
He bent his head, giving her time to step away.
She did not. Her mouth met his with rain on it and a tremble she did not hide.
The kiss was careful for one breath, then not careful enough.
Her fingers curled in the front of his wet shirt.
His hand found her waist, the same place it had caught her on the stair, and this time he let his thumb move once over the damp fabric.
She made a small broken sound against his mouth.
That was where sense came back. Not enough to make him stop wanting. Enough to make him stop moving.
He eased back, his forehead close to hers, his hand still restrained at her side. The chapel door rattled under the storm, and all he could think was that one more inch would turn a kiss into a promise neither of them had told enough truth to keep.
"We need to slow down," he said.
"Because of Beau?"
"Because of Beau. Because of us. Because if I touch you like I want to, I'll start acting like the past is settled."
Her eyes shone in the dim light. "It isn't."
"I know."
She looked at his mouth once more, then stepped back. "I almost didn't call."
He looked at her.
"I had my thumb on your name," she said. "Then I thought about the picnic, and Cressie talking, and Beau looking at me like I was..." She stopped, shook her head. "Like I mattered enough to be dangerous."
The words moved through him slow.
"Beau likes you."
"I know. That's the dangerous part."