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Duncan nodded. “How’re you doin?” Your head okay?”
“Got a bell-ringer headache, but I’m okay. The more important thing is she didn’t break my leg or fuck my stump when she knocked me over. And the most important thing is Phoebe’s safe.”
“Yeah. She is.”
Vin gave his shoulder an affectionate slap. “G’night, brother.” He turned and headed back to his room.
“Night, Vin,” Duncan called after him.
On the way to Phoebe’s room, as Gremlin nosed his way back into Margot’s room, Duncan detoured into the bathroom and took a quick shower. Then, leaving his clothes in a stack beside the hamper, he wrapped the towel around his hips and went to Phoebe.
The room was dark and cool. She was asleep, curled up on what had become her side of the bed, since he’d been taking up real estate there. He could see the bottle of her sleeping pills, glowing with the light of her alarm clock.
Dropping the towel, Duncan slipped in beside her and scooted close. As he tucked her into the bowl of his big spoon, she sighed and began to wake.
“Dunc?” Her voice was soft with sleep, and he heard an almost childish lilt as well. It sounded sad and scared, like a little girl trapped in the evanescing tendrils of a nightmare.
“I’m here, baby. I’m here. Everything’s okay.”
She sighed again, wrapped her arms around his where he clasped her chest, and slipped quietly back into sleep.
Exhausted as he was in mind and body, Duncan lay holding her for a long time before he allowed sleep to take him. He didn’t want to fall away from the feeling that had gripped his chest and pulled.
He had never before felt so right, in his life or in his own skin.
This was where he was meant to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phoebe woke wrapped snuggly in Duncan’s arms, cozy and content. The room was a little cool, but she squirmed more deeply into his embrace, more fully under the covers, and sighed peacefully.
Dawn made the windows glow with watery light; she was going to have to get up and head down to the stable soon—
Stable. That one word turned on all the lights in Phoebe’s mind, and she remembered everything that had happened in the stable the day before. Now that her memory was awake, she could feel the sting and ache in her face, too, where Lydia Copperman had struck her.
She had killed a woman.
