Page 150 of Beware of Dog

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. Her temple. The stubble along his jaw tickled like sandpaper on her cheek when he put his lips against her ear. “I have to go get them.I have to, baby. The guys who did this, I have to go.” He swallowed, and his throat clicked, and up close like this, heads touching, she heard hear the almost-sob that he choked down forcefully.

“You don’t.”

He took a harsh breath, and it was warm on the way back out, all down the neck of her gown. “I do. I really do. I don’t wanna go, and I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I need to do this.”

He didn’t need to in a practical sense, she knew. Her dad, Fox, Tenny, Reese—those were the guys who handled situations like this. Shep needed to go for his own reasons; because he felt as though he’d failed her, and he wanted blood on his hands. Someone had shot his old lady, and he wanted to hold the axe when it swung.

She closed her eyes, because she knew there was nothing she could offer that would dissuade him. Something warm and wet slipped down her face, and she realized she was crying.

Shep drew back, and his thumbs swiped the tears from her cheeks, gentle passes, again and again. “Hey, you asleep? Look at me.”

She struggled to open her eyes, and he was right there in front of her, familiar, and wanted, always wanted, and finallyhers, and she had no idea if, once he walked out the door, she’d ever see him again.

He’d never looked more serious. “Listen to me,” he said, softly, “I’m coming back. I promise. You’ve got Raven and your mom here, and Walsh is gonna stick around for a bit. You’ll besafe, and they’ll keep you updated. But I gotta do this, kiddo. You know I do.”

“I know.” It came out a whimper.

He cupped her cheeks and leaned in to kiss her dry mouth, and then her forehead again, lingering there, inhaling deeply. “I love you.”

“Love you.”

The morphine dragged her under before she got the chance to watch him walk away.

Thirty-Six

There was a minute, standing in the bright spring sunshine just outside the hospital’s pneumatic doors, when Shep had to put his hands on his knees and take deep breaths until the spots receded from his vision. It was three in the afternoon, and birds were twittering in the staked decorative trees, and an orderly was pushing a shriveled old man in a wheelchair, and a baby was crying somewhere, and Cass was still inside, upstairs, conked out on pain killers.

Yesterday he’d gotten married, and today he was going back into the city to kill a guy. Several guys. His lungs were being uncooperative.

A hand landed between his shoulder blades, and he knew it was Devin’s by the size before he spoke.

“There’s no shame in staying, son. It’s perfectly understandable.”

Perfectly understandable. No drill sergeant had ever said something so demeaning to him.

He straightened, and batted Devin away. “Fuck you, man. Bite my ass. I’m going.”

Devin chuckled. “There he is.”

Toly rolled his eyes and plucked the car keys from Devin’s other hand.

They took one of the identical black Rovers in the parking lot, but Shep could tell it was Raven’s thanks to the designer sunglasses clipped to the visor and the Chanel duffel in the back. Shep took shotgun, and Devin climbed in behind him without complaint.

They didn’t go back to the clubhouse, but hit the Interstate and headed straight for the city. Shep had expected to be jitteryin his seat, anxious and frustrated by the necessary delay of travel. Instead, it gave him a chance to get his mind straightened out.

Cass was alive. Had come through surgery with flying colors. She was hurting—she was hurting so bad, and part of that was because he’d left, and he ought to be sitting beside her, helping her sip water and stroking her hair and trying to distract her from the pain—but she was stable. She was going to recover. She had her sister and her mother, two nurturing women who’d looked after her for her whole life, who were surely better at caring for her than he was, with his dirty mouth and his dirtier thoughts, corrupting her and—

He shoved that thought down hard. It was that or give into it and rip the ring off his finger and throw it out the window in a fit of self-loathing.

He focused instead on what was to come. On what he would need to do—what he’d get to do. This was to be a personal satisfaction, when it was all over.

Toly and Devin talked quietly, unobtrusive background chatter that he tuned out; neither of them addressed him until Toly was parking at the curb in front of the building back home. Then Devin sat forward and touched him again on the shoulder.

“You still with us?”

“Yeah.”

Shep felt…well, notgood, he decided, as he climbed out and stretched his stiff legs. He ached all over, and his eyes and temples throbbed as if he suffered a terrible hangover. His anguish over Cass sat in his chest, a hot coal lodged right up against his breastbone. But he felt alert, and eager, and ready for anything, which was the best he could hope for in this situation.

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