Page 97 of Snow in Texas

The tears in his voice caused her own eyes to film, and she turned to face him, biting back the sob that welled in her throat. “He did. Every day.”

“God, Jennifer, how did I forget?”

She put an arm across his wide shoulders and pressed her face down into his shirt. “It’s alright, it’s not your fault,” she whispered, as the tears slipped down her nose.

~*~

Colin

An early autumn night was stealing over the landscape when Crockett’s house came into view. The driveway and front lawn were full of cop cars and county vans. The street was lined with bikes. Whatever had happened…it was just that:happened. Past tense.

His stomach cramped, and worry cycled through his bloodstream, hot and furious like adrenaline. Since the news had come through, they hadn’t stopped long enough to check anyone’s phone for an update. Candy had gone white when he’d taken the call from Talis a few truckstops up the highway.

“Something’s happening with Jenny.”

There was no more impotent a feeling than being a hundred miles away from your woman when she was in danger. Unable to help, unable to put himself between her and whatever threatened her. His child. Jesus Christ.

He’d prayed and cursed alternately the whole way here.

What if she…

What if someone…

And what if he…

He scrambled off his bike at the end of the driveway and ducked under the crime scene tape, Candy hot on his heels.

“Hey!” someone shouted. “You can’t cross the line!”

Candy intercepted. “Try to hold us back, asshole, just try it!”

“They’re relatives,” someone else called. “Let ‘em through.”

So the local cops weren’t anti-Dog. Good to know.

The front door was open and flashbulbs were going off inside with bright flares. Men in black windbreakers crowded the living room – techs. But he glimpsed a shimmer of blonde hair through the doorway of the kitchen, and that was where he headed, breathing frantically, heart pounding against his ribs.

The sight of Jenny nearly took his knees. She sat in a chair with someone’s jacket draped across her shoulders, her face streaked with dark, dried blood. It was on her shirt, in the ends of her golden hair, traces of it caught in between her fingers.

“Jen!”

Her head lifted, and he watched the tears come up in her eyes, saw the rapid flit of a whole spectrum of emotions move through them. “Baby,” she said, voice trembling. Then she took a deep breath and stood. “It’s not mine,” she said when he continued to stare at her, vision blurring at the edges. “Colin, sweetie, it’s not my blood.”

“You–you’re okay?”

She nodded.

“And the baby?”

“I think so. Hopefully.”

He reached her in one stride and crushed her in his arms.

The familiar shape of her pressed to his chest, the silkiness of her hair against his face – it was home. It soothed him, replaced all the fear and worry with a bone-shaking relief. She smelled like blood. When she tucked her face into his neck, he felt the warm wetness of tears.

“What happened?”

Pup answered him, and that was the first time he noticed she wasn’t alone in the room. The prospect and old man Crockett stood on either side of her chair.

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