THE CEMETERY WAS indeed small, the headstones sunken into unkempt grounds. Most of them were no longer legible.
“‘Real Joe Willeker,’” Zelda read. “Makes you wonder where ‘Fake Joe’s’ buried and what led to the misunderstanding.”
Gavin tried to shake his unease. The only times he’d visited a grave site was when a buddy had died in arms. Boots was buried in a decorated service animal plot in Maryland. Benji was buried in the city of Monroeville where he’d spent the better part of his childhood. Gavin had been to both burials but had zero visitations to his name. “We done here?” He swatted a fly. The gnats were worse amid the deep foliage. The no-see-ums were biting.
“Mavis is finishing the perimeter. Anything?” Zelda called out.
“We’ll have to listen later. Maybe audio picked something up,” Mavis responded.
“I didn’t hear anything.” Gavin stared at the crown of her head as she bent to his waist again. “Really? In a cemetery, sweetheart? That’s wicked.”
“Ha ha, funny. I’m not your sweetheart,” Mavis said half-heartedly.
“Some people see it as life-affirming—sex in cemeteries,” Zelda piped up. “Not that I’d know.”
“Sure.” Gavin smirked. Mavis cursed below him, and he touched her shoulder. “Hey. You good?”
“Hot.” Mavis straightened from undoing the recorder. She backed away, taking the pack with her. “I might sit for a spell. Zelda, do you have a drink?”
“Here,” Zelda said, searching her bag. “You rest. We’ll gather the equipment.”
“I thought she said she was always cold,” Gavin noted when Mavis walked off a pace with Zelda’s water bottle.
“That’s what worries me,” Zelda admitted. She snapped the handheld tripod off the bottom of the camcorder. “Keep an eye on her for me, will you? As soon as I get everything packed, I’ll radio Julian to send Errol with the golf cart.”
“Unless it’s a four-by, it won’t make it through the boggy part of the trail,” Gavin mumbled.
“I don’t want her walking back,” Zelda said, echoing his thoughts.
“I’ll carry her.”
“She won’t like that.” Zelda raised her voice slightly as Gavin began to follow in Mavis’s footsteps. “But don’t let that stop you.”
He was drawn by Mavis’s red bottoms. He reached her as she settled at the base of a low-bearing tree. “You found one your size.”
Mavis answered by lifting the water bottle to her mouth. Gavin squinted at the sky for a few seconds before shifting closer.
She waved a hand. “Look, it’s hot enough…”
“Relax, Freckles. I’m blocking the sun off you.” He bumped his forehead against one of the branches. Tilting his head curiously, he reached up for the small fruit hanging heavy from the leaves.
“Fig,” she said.
“Kumquat,” he retorted. When she drank again in response, he pulled the fruit free from the limb. He pitched it up a short ways and caught it.
“You should take some of those back to Briar,” Mavis suggested. “Her fig jam is the best.”
“Everything Briar makes is the best,” Gavin said. “Especially her jams.” He stuffed the fig in his pocket and contemplated how he would steal the rest needed for his stepmother’s boiling pot. Something brushed his leg. He glanced down to see Mavis offering her black backpack to him for the figs. Grabbing it, he said, “You’re reading my thoughts again. I’m starting to think you’ve got some sort of Spock mind meld thing going.”
“I never figured you for a Trekkie.”
“What? Man can’t carry a gun and enjoy Star Trek?” He tsked at her, stuffing more figs in the pack. “You’re a little offbeat for a labeler.”
She sniffed. “Always hated that word. Offbeat. Like everybody has to march to the same damn cadence in order to be accepted by society at large?”
He heard bitterness and stopped picking to tilt his head and get a better angle on her. “Are you going to rack my nuts if I ask if you’re okay again?”
“I might.”
“I don’t care. I’m worried about you, Bracken.”
“Hush.”
“Zelda and I have a wager on whether you’ll let me carry you back to base.”
“No. I mean it. Be quiet. Shh!” Mavis came quickly to her feet, her hand clapping over his mouth.
His body drew up tight. From her. From wariness. He heard the low nicker in the trees beyond him and spoke through her fingers. “There’s a horse behind me, isn’t there?”
“Bag,” she said. When he offered the pack, she reached in to rummage through the contents. One of Errol’s fairy-tale-red apples appeared from the depths. “Your knife.” He frowned at her. She widened her eyes, palm up. “Your knife, Gavin.”
Worry slowed his hand, but he palmed the butt of the knife from the sheath on his belt.
She frowned at the long blade. “Who the hell carries a knife like this?” At the indicative quirk of his brow, she shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Are its ears back?” he asked. “Is it foaming at the mouth?”
“Neither,” she said as she pared the apple. “It looks injured, around the foreleg.”
After she sheathed the knife, finished, Gavin stayed her with a firm grasp above the elbow. “Remember that talk we had about approaching wounded predators in the wild?”
“I know horses,” she told him, already moving around him in a slow circle. “If it bites, it bites.”
“I’m more worried about you getting trampled.” And he cursed because there was no talking her out of this. He pivoted enough to see the horse’s form some twenty-odd feet from their position. It was still as a statue, its attention seized on them. “Careful, Frex,” he said.
She took her time approaching, signaling Zelda across the cemetery to stay back. Gavin tried not to shift his feet. He wanted to pace. He’d shout if he was sure the animal wouldn’t bolt toward Mavis. Plus, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t trip headlong into a gravestone and spook it regardless. As the distance between Mavis and the horse closed to an arm’s length, Gavin’s fingers bit into the fig.
Mavis stopped, keeping moderately back. Gavin heard her speak to it. He recognized the Zen tone. The apple rose as an offering on her palm.
Gavin didn’t breathe as the horse weighed her and the gift.
The sound of whirring droned over the quiet density of the woods. “Mavis,” Gavin barked. “Back away.”
The horse skirted forward as the sound of the battery-powered engine grew. Gavin took several steps until Mavis’s back buffered his front. Drawing her in a quick backward retreat, he wound his arm over her chest as the animal’s hooves struck the moist ground. Gathering speed, the horse careered across the cemetery, tail feathered high.
A white golf cart bumbled into view. Gavin checked the urge to yell at whoever was behind the wheel. Beneath his forearm, he could feel Mavis’s heart thumping hard against her breastbone. Loosening his grip, he drew her around to face him. He opened his mouth.
She shook her head sharply. “Don’t say anything,” she said, shrugging free from his arms.
Gavin scowled at the line of her back as she walked toward the golf cart, then he looked off into the trees on the other side of the cemetery where the horse had vanished.
“You walkin’ back, handsome?” Zelda said from the golf cart.
“I’m coming,” he called. He lifted Mavis’s pack to his shoulder and left the silent graves to themselves.
* * *
“THEY’VE CORNERED THE BRUTE.”
Mavis frowned at the man in the power suit who stood at the balcony wall, hands planted across the high-gloss stones. The balcony jutted off the back of the first floor, but the house had been built over a raised basement, giving its edifice an imposing upsweep and offering an expansive view of the pasture. It might’ve been impressive had the whole house not had the entombed echo of an abandoned ruin. She might have been able to admire it if not for the sick feeling twining in the hard pit of her stomach. “Mr….”
“Julian, please,” he said, turning to her with all the charm of an experienced businessman. His comb-over was neat, his hair silver and fine as a newborn’s. “A friend of Zelda’s is a friend of mine.”
“Sure.” Clutching her glass of water with both hands, she held it against her stomach. “I guess in the spirit of friendship I should ask how long you’ve been hiring wranglers to catch this horse.”
“Oh, weeks. Two months, to tell the truth. It nearly scared the socks off me the first time I came to assess the place. It must’ve been alone just as long before we realized it was here. A terrible pity they left it the way they did.”
Only because you see it as a nuisance, she thought. Choosing her words carefully, she pondered through the swell of a headache. “Yes, terrible.”
“And the wranglers aren’t hired,” Julian told her, pivoting back to the view and the men running across the field in strategy. They’d nearly locked down a corral with the horse backed against the stable wall. No room to run. “They’ll be paid if and when they secure it for transport.”
“And from there?” Mavis asked. His back was to her, and she passed the cool sweating surface of the glass across her brow. “Where will they take him?”
“Wherever they please.”
“You don’t wish to be compensated?” Mavis asked. “To go against the house selling costs?”
“I don’t know much about horses,” Julian replied, “but I do know this one couldn’t have been very valuable. Or else its owners wouldn’t have left it.”
A distressed whinny broke across the pasture. Mavis did her best not to grimace as the handlers tried to fit the horse roughly with a bridle. “You do realize it’s hurt?”
“Is it?” Julian asked, mildly curious.
“I got close enough to see swelling around its front left splint.”
“You know horses?”
“My parents own several,” she explained. “I had a chestnut named Neptune. We did some show jumping.”
“You’re an expert in many areas, it seems.”
She drank the rest of her water, then set the glass down on the balustrade. “What would it take for me to convince you to talk these men into transferring the horse across the bay to my parents’ farm?”
The question scrubbed Julian’s face blank. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, do you know these men?”
“No. They’re hired hands.”
“So can you tell me you trust them to give the animal the proper care and attention it needs?”
Julian pursed his lips, peering across the field from where shouting and cursing was audible. “I suppose not.”
Mavis pressed harder, sizing him up. “This situation already smacks of an animal neglect case. You wouldn’t want the horse’s welfare to come back and haunt you. Would you, Julian?”
“The men will expect to be compensated. I did offer a reward.”
“How much?” Mavis challenged.
A muscle in his face twitched. “Five.”
“Hundred?” She narrowed her eyes as a beat of silence pressed between them. “Is that all?”
“I thought it generous enough seeing as they’re getting the animal in the bargain.”
“I thought the animal wasn’t worth much,” she countered. As Julian rooted around for the appropriate reply, Mavis scanned him thoroughly, deciding that a friend like Julian was the kind she’d be better off passing up altogether. “Zelda! Could you bring me my bag, please?” To Julian, she added, “Will you accept a check? Or do you prefer cold hard cash?”
Julian cleared his throat. “A check will be fine.”
“Good,” she replied, and stepped forward to take the ballpoint pen from his lapel.
* * *
“WHERE’RE WE GOING EXACTLY?” Gavin asked as he moved with Mavis in determined strides across the pasture. The afternoon sun was high and harsh, bringing the temperature to its staggering climax. He felt his shoulders baking through the fabric of his T-shirt. A line of sweat sluiced down the center of his back.
“You wanted to help,” Mavis reminded him. Was it just him or was she speaking through her teeth? Her focus was fixed on the skirmish in the stable yard. “I need to convince these men not only to give up the horse but to take it across the bay and deliver it to the farm.”
“Why?”
“Because I just bought it.” She ignored his answering oath. “They’re expecting a reward for its capture.”
“Will they get it?” Gavin asked her.
“We’ll see,” she said, and picked up her pace.
Gavin widened his strides as she broke into a half run. The reason for her hurry became evident. Men shouted. The animal was on a lead rope, but it reared and bucked, trying to break free. One man fell, likely kicked, and scrambled out from under the horse’s hindquarters. Another man near the front called out, bitten.
Gavin gripped the top of the metal railing. “Well, it might not look like much. But at least it’s plucky.”
Mavis gasped as the horse bellowed in protest. Gavin winced as the man on the lead rope dragged the animal’s nose to the dirt, straining the lead until its body tipped. It hit the ground with a resounding thud.
“Bastards!” Mavis cried as she bent and slipped through the rungs of the gate.
“Mavis!” Gavin leaped over the top and sprinted to catch her.
She was already on the posse. “All of you! Stop what you’re doing!”
They did stop, momentarily. They assessed her quickly, then went back to struggling as the horse gained its feet and resumed its fight for escape. “Who’re you?” the man on the lead rope ground out.
“Mavis Bracken,” she replied. “I’m the horse’s owner.”
“Yeah,” the man replied with a laugh. “And I’m Jefferson Davis. Nice to frickin’ meet ya.”
“This isn’t necessary,” she said, trying to butt against him so she could take the lead rope for herself. “You’ve got him pinned. There’s no reason for rough handling.”
“How do we know it’s not going to make a leap for it? The guy who was here last week said it jumped their fencing. We’ve worked this hard. I’m not taking chances. Get back so we can get him into the effing crate.”
Gavin noticed the horse trailer squatting behind a large truck on the other side of the fence, ready for use. “And by crate you mean crate,” he pointed out, sweeping his hat up to doff the sweat from his brow with the underside of the bill before settling it back on his head.
Mavis had planted her hands on her hips. “At least give it that bucket of feed over there. It’s exhausted. It’s hot. It’s dirty. There’s a good hose with well water running to it. The best thing to do now would be to give it a cool rubdown.”
“Why don’t you do it, clever clogs?” the wrangler replied. “And while you’re at it, the rest of us are hot and dirty, too. We could use a rubdown just the same.”
Gavin’s arm lashed out to grip the man’s collar. He didn’t miss. “Say it again, dipshit,” he said.
“Gavin,” Mavis said, cautioning.
“Slower this time,” Gavin said to him. “I don’t think I heard you right.”
“There’s no need for any more aggression,” Mavis pointed out.
“Just grab the rope, Frexy,” Gavin directed without turning his head to her. He stared a hole between the man’s eyes. He waited until Mavis took possession of the horse. Then he added, “You ever hear of soap, goober?” He threw the man back several paces.
“Gavin, really,” Mavis called wearily.
“What? He smells like a garbage truck and a corpse flower had a baby.” Grabbing the rope, too, he helped Mavis guide the horse to the other side of the corral, near the hose. He tied it off for her on a hook. Grabbing the feed bucket, he set it on the peg on the fence rail under the horse’s nose. “Bite me, porcupine, and I’ll lead you back to ’em.”
“No, you won’t,” Mavis said, already dragging the nozzle over the horse’s withers. A course of streaming water poured over its matted brown coat. “No, you won’t,” she repeated gently, circling her hand over the horse’s neck.
Gavin willed himself to stop wishing that was his neck she were rubbing and held on to the halter. When Mavis moved away, he added in an undertone to the animal, “Kick the lady and I swear to God, pal…”
The horse eyed him balefully. It jerked its head against Gavin’s hold, then settled down as the water caressed its back and hind legs, its ears lowering. The coarse sound of a nicker reached Gavin’s ears. “She’s good at that massage thing, right?” Gavin muttered. Despite himself, he moved his hand over the white diamond between the horse’s eyes. “Atta boy.”
“Girl,” Mavis said from the horse’s side.
“Yeah? That explains a thing or two.”
“Like what?” came Mavis’s prickly response.
He valued his tongue so he kept it safe inside his closed mouth.
“Try feeding her.”
Gavin tugged on the rope. The horse jerked. “Come on,” he said, scooping a hand into the bucket. “Nothing but figs to eat for weeks? Gotta be hungry.” Laying his hand flat, he offered the feed in a slow gesture of goodwill, hoping he didn’t lose a finger in the process.
The rub of whiskered lips grazed his callouses. Gavin raised a brow as the horse chowed. The feed disappeared. Gavin felt a slow smile crawling across his face and scooped another handful. The animal took the second offer without delay, putting scruples aside and giving way to hunger.
“Oh, good girl!” Mavis said.
Gavin looked up at Mavis, the hose dripping from her slackened arm. “How ’bout that?” he said, rubbing the damp hair on the horse’s neck.
“She likes you,” Mavis murmured.
“Poor lamb,” he muttered, spreading the caress wider. “Her judgment’s off.”
“No. It’s bang on.”
His eyes charted back to Mavis as she moved to the barren trough lining the fence. He watched her bend over to sweep a line of dirt from the bottom. He traced the slope of her back and tried to etch the muscles of her calves more clearly. They were tight and round, probably from all that yoga.
The hose clattered to the dusty earth and Mavis made a grab for the fence in front of her. “Ohh,” she moaned. Her hair dropped over her face, veiling her profile. “Oh, no…”
“Mavis?” When her brow dropped to the edge of the trough and she didn’t respond, Gavin rushed toward her. “Hey—”
Her knees hit the ground. The feed bucket toppled off its hook, littering grain everywhere. “Mavis?” He made a grab for her.
Her hand came up to meet his. Her body seized, and she began falling back to the grass.
Gavin caught her around the shoulders. “Mavis!” She didn’t respond. His stomach flattened. He grabbed her by the chin.
A twitch went through her, small, followed closely by another. His mind traveled back to the Bradley overseas where Benji had slipped away. The sweat on Gavin’s body became chilled. Fear jammed the back of his throat. He tasted it. His lungs burned.
He felt himself start to slide away, into the anxious spiral. He shook his head, trying to ground himself to the present. To Mavis. He patted her cheek with the back of his hand. “Mavis, baby. You gotta talk to me. Talk to me, damn it!”
“Out of my way! Out of my way!”
Something pink nearly knocked Gavin flat. Zelda pushed her big floppy hat at him. “Hold this, sug! Where’s her pack?”
Her pack? How the hell should he know where Mavis’s pack was? Why did it matter where her pack was?
Zelda pinned him. Her hand clamped on to his upper arm. “Okay, first, calm down. Can you do that for me?”
“She’s—”
“—having a seizure,” Zelda informed him matter-of-factly. “You do know she’s epileptic?”
Epilepsy. Yes, he had known that. Kyle had told him at some point or another, when Mavis was still a kid. Gavin had never been around to see the disorder take effect. In fact, it had been so many years since he’d heard it mentioned, it had slipped his mind.
“You, calm down,” Zelda repeated. “What she needs now is calm. Take some deep breaths and help me turn her on her side.”
While the first set of instructions had revealed the very large weight of terror sitting on his torso, this second set punched through because it required action.
He felt himself shake, then stilled the tremors and helped Zelda get Mavis onto one side. He made sure there was no shaking in his hand when he reached out to comb the hair back from Mavis’s cheek. “She—She needs something under her head.”
“Here.”
Gavin looked around to the mouthy wrangler and the offered towel. “Thank you,” Gavin said, taking it. Cradling Mavis’s head in his hand, he lifted her just enough to position the bunched fabric underneath. He lowered her to the makeshift pillow.
A whistle cut across the yard. The wranglers who had crowded around them parted and Errol was there with Mavis’s pack.
“Oh, thank goodness for you,” Zelda praised him.
Errol wasted no time upending the open bag. Items tumbled free. Among the gear and personal items that littered the sparse grass, a medicine bottle caught Gavin’s eye. He grabbed it, only for Miss Zelda to take it from him. Steady as a soldier, Zelda unscrewed the childproof lid, then shook out a capsule. “If we can get her to come to, we can do this a lot easier.”
Gavin watched Mavis’s eyes roll. When he saw the whites, cold took a bite out of him. “If she doesn’t?”
“We can give her the medicine, but she’s going to need emergency personnel.”
“Jesus,” he hissed. “Jesus Christ.”
Someone latched onto his shoulder. It took Gavin a second to realize that it was Errol standing behind him. He chose not to shake off the grip.
It might have been the longest wait of his life. He’d done recon missions requiring whole nights, even days of waiting. He’d bobbed like a cork on listless seas in what amounted to little more than a dinghy waiting for the right ship to pass. Spent hours waiting for the right man to cross his scope on a classified task force.
He’d waited outside a curtain to hear the doctors at base pronounce what he already knew—that death had taken his brother-in-law.
Mavis’s chest rose. He heard her exhale. Her lids came down over her eyes. Then, slowly, she blinked them back open.
“Mavis,” he said, crouching farther into her range. “Freckles?”
Her brow furrowed. She was limp. She made a faint motion with her arm.
Zelda was there with the capsule. She set it on Mavis’s tongue, then uncapped a water bottle. Cupping Mavis under the chin, she helped her swallow. “Welcome back,” Zelda said, patting her on the cheek.
Mavis mumbled a reply.
Gavin sat back on his heels, cursing himself and the world at large. He gave in the rest of the way and sat on the grass, elbows to knees. He had half a mind to lower his head between them.
Errol motioned the wranglers farther back as Zelda helped Mavis take another swig of water. “We should get you inside. Do you feel okay to move?”
“W-Wait.” Mavis’s hand fumbled. It wasn’t until it settled on Gavin’s ankle that he realized she’d sought him. He saw finally that she was looking at him and suddenly wished she wouldn’t. He was bone, splintered and white.
“How’d he handle it?” Mavis asked Zelda hoarsely.
“He’ll be all right if we can get him off the ground, too,” Zelda replied handily.
“I’m a’right,” he grumbled. Still, his hand clenched over the back of hers. “Jesus, Bracken. Jesus.”
“Sorry.” Mavis closed her eyes again.
“Stay,” he said sharply when she opened them again. “Stay with me. Okay?”
Mavis bobbed her chin in a short nod. “Okay.”
A pang hit him, the urge to pick her up and get her the hell away from this place. Far enough away that they could forget about the whole crazy experience. Yet she looked fragile. If he touched her, she might break into dust, like plaster. Not to mention that his knees were nice and jellified from the spin he’d taken. No, lifting a human—as little as she was—probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
He couldn’t stop himself from touching her, though, light brushstrokes across the high point of her cheek. Her brows came down. She patted his leg. “It’s okay.”
Gavin shook his head. “What—What can I do for you?” Swearing at himself, he pressed his teeth together. “I need to know what to do.”
She blinked—long enough for him to worry. Then she licked her lips and looked beyond him.
Gavin glanced around and saw the horse grazing nearby, keeping a wary eye on the proceedings. Reading her thoughts, he blew out a breath.
Of course. She was worried about the nag. She was Mavis. She had a thing for beasts, whether they barked, cursed, bit or kicked.
And they tended to love her in return.
To hell with it. Gavin shifted to his knees. Leaning over her and sliding one arm underneath her knees, he cupped the other arm beneath her shoulders.
He was rock steady when he lifted her. His knees stayed in place as he came to his feet.
“You’re going to carry her all the way?” Zelda asked, impressed.
Gavin didn’t answer. Mavis’s mango perfume was in his nose. Raising his voice to the gathered hands, he moved faster. “If that animal isn’t loaded into that trailer in the next few minutes, it’s my foot in your ass!”
Mavis mumbled his name.
Obediently, Gavin jerked his chin in the horse’s direction. “And if I find one scratch on Mollie McCarty, my foot will be the least of your problems!”
Errol had fallen into pace with him. He gave a low whistle. Gavin heard the approaching whirr of Julian’s golf cart. He nodded in decision, letting Errol lead the way to the gate.
The golf cart bumbled up to it and the man in the suit peered at them from the covered cab. As Gavin moved sideways through the slim parting of the gate with Mavis, careful not to jostle her, he heard the noise of the portable fan keeping Julian cozy.
“No trouble here, I hope, Zelda?” Julian asked.
Gavin all but growled. He looked to Errol, who nodded back in a minute gesture before closing the distance to the golf cart. Gavin watched wistfully as the man grabbed the banker by the fancy label and tossed him bodily from the driver’s seat to take his place behind the wheel.
Gavin walked smoothly through the satisfying cloud of dust Julian kicked up as he scrambled to his feet again. He might’ve trod on the man’s toes as he rounded the back of the cart. Cradling Mavis to his chest, he settled onto the rear bench seat, shifting her so he would absorb any bumps along the trail. Glancing around, he jerked his chin at Zelda. “Comin’?”
“Absolutely,” the woman said, sliding onto the seat next to Errol. As Errol put the cart in reverse, she spoke to the slack-jawed man in the headlights. “Sorry, Julian. There seems to be limited seating. But we do thank you for your hospitality.”
Julian stammered appropriately. “I—I—I…”
Errol put the golf cart in drive and did an adept 180. Gavin would’ve found it satisfying to watch Julian disappear in a cloud of dry dust. But Mavis wasn’t shrugging him off. She’d chosen him to lean on.
They could both do with some leaning at this point, he was willing to admit, and tucked the crown of her head beneath his chin.
* * *
HOME. SOMETIMES, IT wasn’t the river. Sometimes—a lot of times, it was a restored farmhouse in a private country wood.
The Cadillac splashed across the shell-lined drive. The afternoon storm the skies had promised pounded overhead. Rain fell in lashing strokes against the car. The lights of the house swam through the windshield, and the wipers shrieked to keep up with the deluge.
In a low mutter from the front seat, Zelda weighed whether to wait for a break in the weather. Mavis met Errol’s assessing look in the rearview mirror and turned away. She looked down at the center line between her and Gavin and the hard hand that had been locked over hers from the moment they had left the house in Mobile.
The whole drive he’d been silent. She’d felt him scoping her as they crossed the long bayway that bridged Mobile County with the Eastern Shore. His tension was palpable. His concern evident. He hadn’t asked if she was okay again. He’d just watched—waiting for her to bat an eye wrong.
Waiting to jump into a heartbeat’s action.
Errol braked and put the car in Park. Gavin didn’t let go of Mavis’s hand. She didn’t remove it.
Mavis pursed her lips. “It’s not letting up,” she said.
Zelda swiveled to her. “What did you say, dear?”
“The rain,” Mavis said, raising her voice enough to be heard over the drubbing. “It’s going to go on like this for a while. And y’all need to get home.” She touched the door handle.
Gavin quickly moved against his door. “I’m going with you.”
She frowned at him, but he’d already opened it, cutting off any argument.
“Wait!” Zelda cried. She produced a small umbrella. “Take this. It won’t keep you both dry, but at least Mavis might—”
Gavin took it quickly and left the vehicle.
Mavis gasped as she stood up next to the Caddy. The rain was like blunt nettles. She was drenched before Gavin made it around the trunk to shut her door for her. “There’s no need for that,” she half shouted at him when he raised the umbrella over her head.
His arm fit over her shoulders. He ushered her up the front walkway to her parents’ covered porch. She ducked her head. It fit nicely in the groove between his chest and triceps. Mavis fumbled with her bag, fishing for keys. Swiping the hair back from her brow, she ran her palm fast over her face to stop it from dripping. Sniffing, she dug deeper.
When she was still unsuccessful, she groaned. “You don’t have to wait. You can go back to the car—” The words seized as arms spanned her, pulling her in.
Gavin hugged her firmly from behind. Mavis’s mouth dropped open when his face turned against her damp neck and burrowed.
Arms lifting uncertainly, Mavis struggled to breathe. Not because he was cutting off her air supply, but she’d never known what to do with open affection from anyone but her parents or brother, and even that she preferred at a minimum. Words. She liked words. Sensible, intellectual conversation was all the stimulus she needed on a regular basis.
Or rather, it had been, until these arms. His chest pressed tight against her back and his scar-riddled nose lodged against her rapid-fire pulse.
Not that she knew what to do, exactly. An exhale shuddered out of her when his lips grazed the curve of her neck and shoulder…then pursed, brushing a kiss there. It was a nerve center. Her body lit up.
She pulled air into her lungs, siphoning it carefully around the jittering, knocking ball in the center of her chest. He’d begun to rock her. When she gripped his forearm and squeezed, she told herself it was for balance but knew it was a lie. She told herself other lies. She was tired—which is why she tipped the back of her head to his ready shoulder. She was really tired when she closed her eyes and absorbed him, the sensations that he brought to her skin.
Her eyes popped open. Too much. Too fast. Too soon. She wiggled slightly, tensing. His arms loosened.
Mavis pivoted slowly to face him. Her mouth was open in explanation when she finally found it in her to raise her gaze to his.
His mouth collided midway with hers. It might’ve been an accident…had he not groaned in satisfaction. Had she not gone up on her toes in reaction. An accident, she lied.
She felt the cotton of his T-shirt straining against the insides of her fists. She broke away in shock. She’d taken hold of him by the neckline and had practically bent him to her. Shaking her head, she planted the soles of her shoes to the porch and sought the coupling of clever words she often relied on.
It failed. She failed—to speak, pull away. His arms spanned the middle of her back. They felt good folded there. Heat curled against her center at the press of his navel to hers. In an instant, it grew, burning blue as a sapphire. And it brought on a large bolt of fear.
Too hot. Too close. Too real. It’s too real, she told herself. Nudging back, she placed her arms against his chest.
He let her go, just as quickly as he’d swept her in.
She tried again, to say something intelligible at least. Again, she settled for a lie. “I’m… I’m tired.”
He scanned her, mute. His mouth was full. She wondered if it felt pinched and puckered like her own. His eyes looked dark under the covering of the porch. They practically glittered. He reached.
She wouldn’t stop him. Oh God. If this was their beginning, where was the end?
With him gone, her broken and nothing.
He reached around her and pushed the door open. Then he retreated.
The disappointment struck. Yet another surprise.
“You’ll take care,” he said. It wasn’t a question or a request.
She didn’t chafe at the command as she normally would. She was messed up. She was messed up over him, and she couldn’t blame it on the day. She couldn’t blame it on the concern she’d seen etched as deep as his scars. She couldn’t blame him at all. She’d started this. She’d initiated it all by touching him under the bougainvillea. By taking his demons into her own hands, hoping she could knead them and tame him—hoping she could bring him back to himself.
She backstepped over the threshold. She heard her mother’s voice. More arms around her, these familiar.
“Won’t you come in, Gavin?” Adrian invited.
Yes, please, Mavis thought. Then she shook her head at the automatic answer. What was living inside her…no. Too soon. Too much.
Gavin saw the motion of denial. His hooded eyes rested on her without ceasing. “Thanks, Adrian, but I ought to be getting back and Mavis ought to get some sleep.”
“Thank you,” Adrian said. “Zelda told me over the phone what you did. How you helped. I’m grateful. We’re grateful to you. Please come by for dinner. Sunday.”
Gavin. Gavin at the table. Like before. Only not like before. So much had changed, but he’d be sitting in his chair again, the one that had been his despite the Navy-imposed and self-chosen absences…
Mavis couldn’t think of anything she wanted more. “Come,” she agreed, aware of the fact that he was looking at her still.
Gavin nodded quickly at her bidding. “Sunday.”
“Wonderful,” Adrian said, smiling.
“Let me know,” he said, talking to Mavis again. Only to Mavis. “If there’s anything you need.”
You, in all your shattered bits and pieces. Mavis would’ve stepped back if not for her mother’s supportive arm around her waist. “I’m fine,” she said instead. “I’ll see you?”
“You’ll see me,” he promised, the significance doubled by his unyieldingness. He nodded to Mavis’s mother before backing away.
Mavis didn’t breathe until he was out of sight. Then she didn’t dwell on it, or him, until she was alone. It was shining through her. If she thought about it, her mother, her father, they would see it. They would know how far Gavin Savitt was lodged inside her. And how much it would cost her to remove him when this was all over.