Chapter Six #3
Crystal’s mouth trembled, then steadied. “You bought me time. Dex got me to the records. Now I need to sit in my own apartment and answer questions without you standing in front of me.”
Jade went very still.
Crystal touched the back of Jade’s hand. “I love you. Move.”
Jade let out a breath that almost broke.
Then she leaned in and hugged her sister hard enough to make the blanket slip off Crystal’s shoulder. Crystal held on just as hard.
I turned toward the street and gave them that much.
When Jade stepped back, her eyes were bright and furious about it.
Crystal called past her to me. “Take her somewhere she can sleep.”
“I can hear you,” Jade said.
“Good. Then obey me for once.”
Jade pointed at her. “You’re getting mouthy now because you have legal representation.”
“I’m getting mouthy because I’m alive.”
That shut both of us up.
Crystal smiled a little, tired and shaky. “Go.”
Jade wiped under one eye with the heel of her hand like she was angry at her own face.
Then she walked to my truck.
I followed.
The silence lasted past the first mile marker out of Whispering Pines.
The road widened past the last strip of businesses. Morning came in hard and bright over the county route, catching dust on the windshield and lighting the green slopes beyond town. Jade sat in the passenger seat with one knee angled toward the door, hands folded too tightly in her lap.
This time, the passenger seat held Jade and nothing I had to pretend about, which made the cab feel unfamiliar.
“My house is twenty minutes out,” I said.
She kept her gaze on the windshield. “Your small normal house.”
“Yes.”
“Not a cabin in the woods.”
“No.”
“Good. I’m over rustic.”
“You did great with the cabin.”
“I threatened you with a dull kitchen knife.”
“That was one of your stronger moments.”
Her attention came to me then.
A smile tried and failed. “Dex.”
She wasn’t throwing my name at me this time. She was asking where we stood.
“I know,” I said.
“You don’t.”
“Then tell me.”
She faced the road again. “I don’t know how to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Standing between her and everything.” Her fingers twisted once. “Crystal said, ‘Move,’ and I wanted to argue with her like she hadn’t just survived men planning to make her death look convenient.”
“She needed to say it.”
“I know.”
“She needed you to hear it.”
“I know that too.” Jade’s voice went rough. “Knowing things is getting annoying.”
I let the truck run through the silence for a while.
My house sat on a quiet street twenty-five minutes from Whispering Pines and a long way from Pine Shadow, Bearclaw, and storage-unit gravel.
It was small, single-story, white paint that needed touching up near the porch rail, a strip of grass that went brown every July, and a kitchen window that caught too much afternoon sun.
Jade stared at it when I parked.
“This is very normal,” she said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I expected at least one wall of weapons and a chair facing the door.”
“I keep the chair inside.”
“Comforting.”
I got out and came around to her side. She opened the door before I reached it, because of course she did. When her boots hit the driveway, her knees gave half an inch.
I caught her elbow.
She didn’t pull away.
The place beneath my sternum pulled tight.
Inside, the house smelled like cedar from the old hall chest, laundry detergent, coffee I hadn’t made in days, and stale air from closed windows. Morning light cut across the kitchen table, the sink, the two mugs I’d left drying on a towel before taking the job.
Jade stood in the middle of the kitchen and took everything in too carefully.
“No motel decor,” she said.
“No.”
“No vending-machine pretzels.”
“I’ve got crackers.”
“Don’t ruin this for me.”
I set my keys on the counter, far from any pocket, and watched her notice.
Her expression softened.
“Bathroom’s down the hall,” I said. “Clean towels are in the cabinet. I need to check my ribs, then you can have the shower.”
She turned toward me. “You’re bleeding.”
I checked.
A thin line of blood had dried across my knuckles where they’d scraped against Ike’s truck. The rib pain was worse now that the adrenaline had drained.
“It’s not much.”
“Men say that when their limbs are mostly attached.”
“I’m not missing any limbs.”
“Your standards are bleak.”
Jade crossed the kitchen, opened drawers until she found the dish towel, then wet one corner at the sink. She came back and took my hand like she’d decided the argument was beneath her.
The cloth touched my knuckles.
I hissed through my teeth.
“Not much,” she muttered.
“It isn’t.”
“You’re very brave. Hold still.”
I held still.
Her fingers were cool around my wrist. Ink lined her hands in small permanent marks, old smudges and tiny dots from a life of needles, art, and other people trusting her with skin. She cleaned the scrape without looking up.
I watched her because I could. The kitchen had no warrant between us, no chase outside, no locked motel door, and no sister crouched behind my seat. It held Jade with dust on her boots and blood on a towel she’d probably make fun of later.
She glanced up. “You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re trying to figure out what happens now.”
“I’m not deciding.”
“What, then?”
“I’m getting used to being allowed to look.”
The towel stopped moving.
Jade’s throat worked once. “That was a dangerous answer.”
“I’m done with safe answers.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
I stepped closer slowly enough for her to stop me.
She didn’t.
I touched the side of her face, thumb brushing the dust near her cheekbone. The ink drop behind her ear showed where the braid had loosened.
“I want you,” I said. “Not Crystal’s name. Not the chase. Not the woman in my custody. You.”
Her breath shook.
“Here?” she asked, and the word came out too small for her.
“Here. In daylight. In my house. With every door unlocked.”
Jade glanced toward the hallway, then back at me. “You trying to make me cry, Tolliver?”
“No.”
“Good. I’d hate you.”
“I’d risk it.”
She set the towel on the counter and put both hands on my chest.
She didn’t push. She touched me like she was learning what stayed after the danger.
The crucifix lay beneath her palm, warm under cotton. Her fingers found the shape through my shirt.
“You really walked away from the bounty,” she said.
“Yes.”
“For Crystal.”
“For Crystal. For the truth.” I covered her hand with mine. “For you too.”
Her eyes closed for half a breath.
When she opened them again, the heat in her eyes had changed from the sharp motel burn that had turned every word into a weapon. This was lower, slower, and worse for my control.
“Dex,” she said.
I bent and kissed her.
Jade came up on her toes like she’d been waiting for the first honest touch all morning. Her hands slid from my chest to the back of my neck. Mine settled at her waist, careful of the scrape on my knuckles and the ache under my ribs, then tightened when she made a soft sound into my mouth.
This time there were no cuffs to work around, no keys waiting for her hand, and no one hiding on the other side of a wall.
I backed her against the counter, then held there until her fingers tightened at the back of my neck.
Jade bit my lower lip. “If you stop to have an ethical crisis now, I’m going to break something decorative.”
“I don’t own anything decorative.”
“Then I’ll improvise.”
I laughed against her lips, and the sound came out rough.
Her fingers went to the hem of my shirt. “Off.”
“Demanding.”
“Efficient.”
“Yes.”
That stole one quick smile from her. Then she dragged my shirt up, careful when it passed my ribs, less careful when she saw the bruise spreading along my side.
Her face changed. “Dex.”
“I’m okay.”
“That’s ugly.”
“It’ll get uglier.”
“That isn’t flirting.”
“It wasn’t trying to be.”
Jade leaned down and pressed a kiss near the edge of the bruise, soft enough that it didn’t hurt and hard enough that every thought in me went quiet.
Then she lifted her face. “There. I was nice. Don’t get attached.”
I was already attached.
I caught her face in both hands and kissed her again.
This time she opened for me with no trick behind it. Her tongue met mine, and her hands moved over my chest, my shoulders, the tattooed skin she’d only seen in motel light before. I lifted her onto the counter, and she hooked her legs around my hips, pulling me between them.
The kitchen window threw morning light over her face, her loose braid, the black tank she’d worn too many hours, the overshirt hanging off one shoulder. She looked exhausted and dirty and alive.
I wanted to call her mine, not as a claim over her, but because it was the closest word for what I felt and the only one I didn’t have the nerve to say.
I kissed the side of her neck, then the small hidden mark behind her ear.
Jade’s fingers dug into my shoulders.
“That mark almost ruined me,” I said against her skin.
“It saved Crystal.”
“It did both.”
Her breath caught. “Don’t make it sound important.”
“It is important.”
“Dex.”
I lifted my head. “Jade.”
Her real name landed between us and stayed there.
She stared at me for one long second, then pulled me back to her kiss hard enough to knock my common sense loose.
I carried her to the bedroom.
It wasn’t smooth. My ribs objected.
“You’re an injured idiot,” Jade said.
“You’re welcome to walk.”
She tightened her legs around my waist. “Don’t get dramatic.”
By the time we reached the bed, both of us were breathing hard.
The room was plain: gray sheets, a dresser, boots by the closet, and one window with the blinds half-open and sun cutting across the floor. There was no neon, no stale motel air, and no sound except our breathing and the small catch in Jade’s throat when I set her down on the mattress.
I knelt and unlaced her boots.
She froze.
I lifted my head. “What?”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
She started to answer, then stopped.
I took off the first boot, then the second. Dust fell onto my floor. The flower tattoo curled around her ankle and lower leg, the same mark that had fooled my paperwork and started everything wrong.