Page 96 of The Wild Charge

There was a balcony off their master bedroom, a narrow one, just wide enough for two chairs, and that was where she found him: slumped back in his usual chair, staring out at the dark farm, the faint, pale silver snake of the driveway in the moonlight. Smoke curled out in wispy streamers from the lit cigarette in his right hand. He didn’t turn at the sound of the door latching, but the way he blinked meant he’d heard her.

It wasn’t cold yet, but fall was coming on, gaining momentum; the air held the faintest chill, and she wrapped her arms around her middle, silent a moment.

Walsh took a long drag, sighing on the exhale. When he spoke, his voice was rougher than usual, stress and drink having sanded the usual easy flatness from his words. “Sorry, love.” He wiped at his face with his free hand. “I didn’t mean to get sloppy.”

I didn’t mean to be like your dad, he didn’t say, but she understood anyway. He didn’t ever drink too much around her, and never in front of Violet, deeply conscious of her father’s former addiction.

“Do you need some water?” she asked.

He took another drag, hand still clasped loosely over his eyes. “Already had some.”

Emmie took the few steps that separated them on her tiptoes, the slates of the balcony cold beneath her feet, and gently pried his hand from his face. When his head lifted, surprised, she eased down to sit sideways on his lap, and she was relieved to feel the way he immediately accommodated her, leaning back, his arm going around her waist.

She laid her hand over his heart, the too-fast thump of it, and tucked her head beneath his chin. Several days’ worth of stubble along his throat pricked at her nose as he swallowed.

“Is this the worst thing we’ve ever faced?” she asked.

He swallowed again, breath rasping faintly on his next inhale. “I don’t guess we’ll know until it’s over.”

“Then we’ll face it together.”

His hand flexed on her waist, arm tightening.

Crickets sang, out in the dark that lay like velvet around them. Whoever was coming, Emmie thought, had a hell of a fight on their hands.

~*~

Tenny woke in an unfamiliar dark, with a cotton-dry mouth and a throbbing head. He startled – or at least tried to, gasping and lurching upright, hands fisting at blankets whose textures he didn’t know, lungs filling with the scent of wood polish and laundry detergent that didn’t belong to the clubhouse. (How odd, he might have thought, with a clearer head, that the clubhouse had become so familiar. Had become safe.)

A familiar hand, though, landed on his shoulder, and Reese said, “Hey,” low and soothing.

Reese…

That meant…

He was…

He retched once, quietly into his hand, but his rolling stomach didn’t push for more, and he was able to keep taking deep breaths and remember where he was. The curtained window bleeding pale moonlight belonged to a guest room. In Walsh and Emmie’s house. He remembered the farm, the tense conversation around the island – remembered, with a wince, all he’d had to drink.

Shit, he’d called Kris.

And, worse, then he’d called Ian.

“Ugh,” he said, throat sticking as he tried to swallow.

Reese’s hand moved away. “Here.” Something cool and smooth pressed against his hand. “Water,” Reese explained.

What an excellent idea. He wasparched.

He chugged it all down, thought for a moment he might bring it back up – but his stomach settled, and it helped. Then he had to dry-swallow the two aspirin Reese pressed into his palm.

“’Time is it?” he asked, voice rough. Sleep was already dragging at him.

“Three,” Reese said, sheets rustling. “Go back to sleep.”

“Hm.” He eased back down flat, water sloshing in his stomach. The pillow was deep, soft, and the case smelled freshly washed. It was a comfortable bed – but, despite the drag of his eyelids and the fuzziness of his head, Tenny found that he didn’t want to drift off again, not just yet.

Is Hunter your father?he wanted to ask – but if Kris hadn’t known, then Reese certainly wouldn’t. Even if he was, he’d never behaved like a father. Even the slightest breath of kindness or paternal familiarity would have inspired a very different outcome in Reese. There was no room for softness, nor fondness, nor anything like pride in people who trained-up assets. The asset could never doubt his role as a tool; could never be allowed so much as a shred of emotional comfort – it would have made a man out of him, and not a machine.

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