Page 43 of Lone Star

Amarillo

Seventeen

It had been a strange two days in the wake of what Michelle was thinking of as “the accident,” because “that time I flipped a truck off the road” was too much of a mental mouthful.

Immediately afterward, when she’d hung up with Fox, she’d thought to stay up and wait for Candy to arrive home. But the adrenaline crash was too strong, and the next thing she’d known, she was waking to the feel of a big hand on her shoulder, and Candy’s voice saying, “Shit, babe, are you okay?”

She’d tipped sideways so that she lay with her head resting on the arm of the sofa, and Candy knelt on the floor in front of her, shaking her gently, expression horror-struck. For a minute, she wondered if there was something on her face; wondered, with a flare of panic, if something had happened to TJ. But then she remembered the drive home, and the truck, and she sat up as it all clicked into place.

“Baby,” he said again, urgently.

“I’m okay.” Dizzy, though. Exhausted. Sore in the way that sheer terror always left you. “What time is it?”

His expression didn’t soften. His raised brows left a tidy stack of lines pressed into the sun-bronzed skin of his forehead. “After midnight. Jinx told me what happened. Baby, I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you. I shoulda been here. Pace was being…” He trailed off with a frustrated sound, and reached to touch her face.

Her reaction was automatic. Unconscious. She ducked back, just before his hand made contact.

Candy froze. They both froze, gazes locking.

She didn’t know why she’d done that. Nerves, she guessed; still keyed-up from what happened.

She shifted forward on an exhale.

But Candy put his hand down without having touched her, the furrow between his brows deepening. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, sitting back on his haunches, hands braced on the sofa cushions on either side of her hips. “I should have been there.”

“Why? So your bike could have been all dented up like Jinx’s?” She sighed and said, “You couldn’t have done anything, love. No one could have predicted what happened, and no one could have stopped it.”

A muscle in his cheek leapt as his jaw clenched. “You shouldn’t have gone at all.Ishouldn’t have let you,” he said heavily, his gaze shifting inward.

“Would you have me sit at home and live in fear?” she asked.

“I’d have you stay safe.”

She’d sensed an impasse; an ugly, thorny sort of argument she didn’t have the energy for now.

He’d wanted to know all the specifics, so she’d delivered a play-by-play, all that she could remember. It sounded reckless and crazy as she delivered it in halting monotone. Reliving it left her numb; exhaustion dragged at her.

Candy’s eyes got wider and wider, his jaw tighter and tighter. His hands migrated from the sofa cushions to her thighs, and she managed not to flinch this time.

“Christ,” he said when she was finished, hands tightening against her. “I can’t believe you did that.” He attempted a smile, one that wobbled and fell. “Actually, I can. But I can’t believe it worked.”

“Me either.” It seemed even wilder and dumber in retrospect. “What happened with Pacer?”

He’d made a face. “I swear he was on something. Wasn’t himself. Could barely walk. I asked him about the guys he lost, and whether or not they’d been in debt, or on anyone’s shit list. He couldn’t tell me shit.”

“Drowning the pain with pills?” she’d guessed.

“Probably.”

They’d gone to bed without any answers that night; he’d slept at her back, curled protectively around her, a hand resting on the slight swell of her belly. He fell asleep quickly, his breathing evening out against the back of her neck, stirring her hair. But Michelle, after her nap, stayed awake long after, staring into the shadowy darkness of their room, straining for nefarious sounds that weren’t there, thoughts churning.

She hadn’t told him she’d called Fox. It felt like she was hiding something from him, but she wasn’t ready to admit it yet – if an admission it even was.

Her brain was a mess.

Fox will fix it, she’d thought, before she finally drifted off. She had a moment to reflect that, perhaps, this wasn’t fair to her husband.

But then her eyes closed, and she tumbled headfirst into nightmares of headlights and squealing tires.

---