Page 99 of Snow in Texas

He didn’t want to hear this. Couldn’t. “Jen…”

“I stabbed him.” She put a finger up under her jaw to demonstrate where the blade had gone in. “And I shot him.” She closed her eyes and exhaled in an exhausted rush. “And I’m so glad. God, Colin, I’m so glad…so glad…”

“Shh. Hush.” He went to her and put his arms on her shoulders, gave her a little shake. “Let’s get cleaned up, okay?”

She nodded, distant, doll-like, and compliant. “Okay. Yeah.”

He’d intended to leave her to it, but realized now that he couldn’t. He stripped off his clothes as she undressed, eyes searching her skin for bruises or signs of abuse. Instead he found the slight curve of her stomach, the first physical sign of the baby growing.

“Come on.” He put his hand at her waist and steered her into the shower stall, stepped in and closed the door behind them. It was cramped with both of them, but the hot water felt delicious and he was glad to see Jenny turn her face into it, slicking her hair back, wanting Riley’s blood off her, finally.

He stood behind her and reached for the shampoo in the rack. He squeezed a dollop onto the top of her head and massaged it into her scalp. He thought she might reach to swat him away, but braced her hands on the tile instead, sighed deeply and leaned into his ministrations.

It spooked him. His feisty girl didn’t like to let him in, see her vulnerable. But he would take whatever she gave him, even if it was given in the aftermath of something terrible.

He lathered her hair, worked at her scalp with his fingertips, and her neck went weak. She tipped forward, and let him massage her nape, then her shoulders.

She put her back to the spray to rinse, pale throat exposed, breasts thrust toward him, and trauma or not, his thoughts turned lascivious. Her face hovered just below his, skin pebbled with water droplets, flushed from the heat. Rivulets trickled down her neck, across the generous swells of her breasts.

Desire lanced through him. The sudden, overpowering urge to join with her physically and remind himself that she was alive and whole, that she loved him.

As if she sensed it in him, her hands came to his chest. Her eyes opened. “It’s okay. You can. I want you to.”

He kissed her and tasted a faint soapiness of shampoo residue. Cupped his hand against her belly, where the baby was, right where she’d shown him before he left for Knoxville.

She sighed against his mouth. Tucked her hips in tight to his thighs.

“I missed you,” he whispered, and the hot water coursed over them both.

~*~

Jenny

Show woke with a start, the smell of fresh blood hot in her nose. The room was dark, and for a moment, she panicked. Then it came back to her in a rush: Crockett’s house, Riley, the knife, the police arriving, Colin taking her into his arms.

She lay on her side now, facing him, swaddled in her robe, clean, warm, and only smelling blood in her memory.

Colin snored softly, the force of his great ribcage expanding sending tremors through the mattress.

Careful not to wake him, Jenny slipped out of bed and went barefoot out into the main living area of the sanctuary. As she’d expected, Candy was in his chair, smoking, glow of the TV catching the shine of Scotch in his glass.

He gestured to the TV. “Need me to turn that off?”

“No, it wasn’t what woke me.” She took the chair opposite. “Can’t sleep either?”

He raised his glass and swallowed down the Scotch.

“God, I could use some of that,” she sighed.

“But you can’t.”

“He told you?”

“Yeah. Then I punched him in the face.”

“Candy!”

“Not that hard. I didn’t even leave a mark.” He snorted. “I had to dosomething.”

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