Page 27 of Savage Escape

Damn it, he was fixating. She was gonna notice and then get all uncomfortable and defensive around him. The man focused on her hands instead. Dry, bruised, and scraped knuckles. Raw wrists. Busted fingernails. Red crusted in the tiny crevices in her hands. They moved out of his line of sight and pushed her upright.

“Okay.” She sat forward. “What’s she like?”

“Who?”

“Your mother.” Her eyebrows arched up, and she eyed him as if he was slow. Like, who else in the world could she possibly be talking about? “Your adopted mom.”

“My mama?” Nathan blinked and paused to glance down at her face, half in surprise and half in suspicion that he was being mocked.

“Ya know, your southern drawl gets really pronounced when you’re surprised.” Another half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes pulled at the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t know...” Nathan shrugged and tried to figure out where the hell that came from. “She’s a mom, ya know?”

He’d expected a question about busts or other thieves—hell, even something more about his Special Ops days. Not questions about his mother.

“No.”

Surprise kept him quiet for a long moment.

“You don’t have a mom?”

“I...” Her voice was hesitant and after a moment, she let out a resigned grunt and continued. “I think she either split or died before I was old enough to remember her. My dad never said anything about her—other than that she was a whore, of course.”

“Oh.” Nathan absorbed that and tried to fit it in with the short and vague history of this woman. “You didn’t ask about her?”

“You didn’t purposefully draw attention to yourself in my family.” Her voice turned grim. “So no.”

“Why not?” The old scars, the ones under all the others, on her back and neck and arms popped into his head and suddenly he understood why she wanted to know.

“Are these your questions, Savage?” She let out a pointed huff and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Oh, no. Sorry—I—my mom. She’s—” How did he explain his mother? “She is the mother of seven boys—no girls, all boys. Adopted us all, her and my dad couldn’t have kids, so they did foster care and adopted. And we were hellions.” God, they were the worst kids. “She is always doing something—yelling mostly, cooking—though we’d beg her not to. But even her cooking is better than three weeks in the middle of nowhere on nothin’ but water and MREs.”

It was really ridiculous how horrible his mother was in the kitchen. It was like she didn’t have taste buds and lost her concept of time when she put something in the oven. They’dactually developed a system that involved plastic bags tucked into jeans and frequent visits to the bathroom and then raiding the kitchen for snacks when they were supposed to have been sleeping.

“Our complaining got so bad when we were little that Bobby, my adopted dad, took a bunch of cooking classes—he still does, actually. They were supposed to take them together, but Ellen refused to take ‘em.” That dark thing that was so hard and impenetrable in her eyes melted and she seemed almost warm. “She said that Bobby had been living with her cooking for years and he was still alive, so it couldn’t be as bad as we were making out. But Bobby’s the designated cook now and everyone’s much happier.”

Hell, he’d talk about his mama all day if she was going to be all human about it and not the hollowed-eyed robot that was her default response.

“It was always a controlled chaos at home when we were kids—still is, really. She is always in motion... she’s tough, bossy, loud, and stubborn. And god help ya if you forget your manners.”

“She’s sounds... nice.” A small smile pulled at the corner of her lips.

“I don’t know ifniceis the proper adjective for her, but she’s something.” He grinned at her and she smiled back, looking... wistful. It kind of killed him.

“How many questions do I get?” What he wouldn’t give for mind powers. How many times had he pressed into the back of his closet or hid under his bed and fervently believed that he’d had the ability to turn invisible when he was a kid? Now he’d give his right arm to read the Hitter’s mind.

“Is that one of your questions?” Her eyes narrowed and instantly cooled again.

“I just needa gauge what I should ask.”

“Damn, Savage—there ain’t that much to know about me! There’s gotta be something wrong with you—no one in the world asks as many questions as you! Is it some kind of compulsion you’ve got no control over?”

“Is that one of your questions?” So it wasn’t exactly mature to mimic her, but he was starting to feel a bit defensive.

“No.”

“How many?”

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