Page 146 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Thirty

Two Weeks Later

“The doctor said not to push it,” Ava reminded, and Mercy went easily when she put a hand in the center of his chest and pressed him back into the pillows stacked against the headboard.

He grinned, and waggled his eyebrows in a way that was more cute than seductive. “Your doctor, or my doctor?”

She tried to give him a stern look, and smiled instead. “Mydoctor said I could continue with any regular physical activity for the time being. Hence…” She gestured down the length of her naked body. “Yourdoctor said not to lift anything over fifty pounds until your shoulder’s healed up. Hence…” She gestured to him, equally naked, sitting against the headboard, stitches removed to reveal shiny, new-pink scars on both arms.

Ava swung a leg over his hips, and snugged in close enough to feel the hot brand of his erection against her belly. All of her clenched in helpless response. They’d started out on their sides, both awake in the dark of predawn, and gentle kisses had turned to heated, slick kisses, and quiet, comforting touches to purposeful strokes and squeezes. Things had cooled a little, when he tried to get on top, and negotiations had become necessary, but Ava’s excitement was a slow-burning sort of fire that could get stoked upquickly.

He knew how to do it, too: He gripped her hips, thumbs sweeping up over the points of bone and back down again, pressing in until her hip flexors twitched. Teasing deeper into the creases of her thighs, arrowing in to where she was already wet and wanted him most…then retreating.

His grin turned shit-eating when she huffed with impatience, and he said, “I’m not picking you up, though.”

“You were going to hold yourself up, and you weigh a lot more than fifty pounds, and a lot more than me, thank you very much.”

“Aw, baby.” He stroked down her thighs, huge hands spanning them and then some. Shit, that was never going to get old. “You didn’t think I was calling you heavy, did you?”

She braced her hands on his chest, smooth, and firm, but with that delicious give of relaxation, of that little bit of extra weight fatherhood and contentment had put on him. She hated it on herself, that smooth layer of padding, but she loved it on him; the way it meant he was happy. That they made good food in their kitchen together, and ate amidst the bright voices of their children.

The kids. All of them back together again. Cal and Millie had broken free of Leah’s handhold and sprinted across the tarmac to them. Mercy had moved, as if to scoop them up, and winced, and held himself in check with a face like he’d been shot all over again. Ava had grabbed them instead, and hugged and kissed them, and Mercy had crouched down to do the same. Then both of them had leaped on their brother, showering him with questions, Cal tugging his hand, Millie bursting into noisy tears as she hugged him around the waist. Remy had patted them, and been so quiet, and sweet with them, so mature beyond his years after all that he’d been through. All that he’d seen…

“Oh, Mama,” Mercy said, softly, and touched her face.

She blinked, and realized her eyes were full of tears. “Oh.” She dashed at them, but more took their place. “Oh, I–”

“Come here, fillette,” he murmured, and pulled her down to rest on his chest.

“No, no, I’m…” But it was no use. She was crying. Softly, not hysterically, but enough to kill the mood.

Mercy murmured to her in French,love, my everything, I love you, and hitched her up higher against him, so she straddled his stomach instead of his lap. His hands petted up and down her back, stroked through her hair. “I know, fillette, I know. I’m sorry.”

The hollow of his throat was warm, and achingly familiar against her tear-stained face. He smelled like him: their soap, his deodorant, their laundry detergent, his skin, clean and the same as it had always been, since the very first time he kissed her, all those years ago.

She meant to say that she was okay, that they was fine, that she didn’t know why she was crying. Instead, she made an ugly noise, and his hand cupped the back of her head, and he kissed her crown.

Her now-familiar friend, that ugly black tide of panic and grief, crested now, though it was useless. Though Remy was safe, and Mercy was alive, and their family was whole again, back home. Though she and Mercy were in their bed, in the comforting, dark veil of early morning, their babies sleeping just down the hall. Everything was fine, was good, but the tide rushed up…

It crested, drowned her.

And in its wake, when it receded as quickly as it had come, she was left shaking, and bare, and so grateful and terrified and heartsore that she thought she might be sick.

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

He rubbed her back some more, his palms rough-skinned, but so gentle, and soothing, and loving. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

She shook her head, which amounted to grinding her forehead into his pec. No. No, it wasn’t okay. It hadn’t been.

But maybe, one day, it would be.

When she swiped at her tears, his hand joined hers, so gently. “I wish I could take it away,” he murmured.

Oh no.

She braced her hands on his chest and pushed up. His eyes, she saw, that deep, beautiful warm brown she’d known since she was eight, glittered with unshed tears. But he smiled, and said, “Aw, shit. I stepped in it, huh?”

She touched his face, because she could, because he was alive. “Felix.”

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