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I rise to my knees, ignoring the pain in my leg. Then I lean in and kiss him, just a quick press of the lips.
"Let's simplify this," I say when I pull back. "If you're ever forced to leave Rockton, you'll go into the forest or you'll build a new town up here. Not south. Never south. And anyone who wants to be with you has to understand that." I kiss him again. "I understand that."
He puts his hands to my cheeks and pulls me in for the sweetest kiss, slow and gentle and hungry, that hunger growing as his arms go around me, and he eases me back onto the bed and--
And I yelp in pain.
Dalton jumps back so fast he drops me, and I let out a hiss, my eyes shut, wincing as pain rips through me.
"Sorry, sorry, fuck--" he begins.
I open my eyes and stop him as he moves in to fuss with me.
"I'm fine," I say, through my teeth. "Just ... I may need more painkillers before we try that again."
"Or we may need to not try that again until you don't need painkillers."
I purse my lips. "No, I'm okay with the painkillers."
He chuckles and adjusts my pillow, and I pull him down. He resists until he realizes I'm pulling him beside me, not on top, and he stretches out and I ease onto my side, body against his, put my arms around him, and kiss him.
FIFTY-EIGHT
We're still kissing--very sweet, very careful kisses, keeping the temperature low--when footsteps pound up the stairs, and Dalton's on his feet, cursing and saying, "I locked the fucking door," when the bedroom one flies open and Anders stops short.
"Uh..." he says. "The doors..."
"--were locked?" Dalton says. "Suggesting I was trying to let Casey have a quiet dinner?"
"Right. Sorry. I came by a few minutes ago, and I knocked. Then I tried the door, and when they were both locked, I kinda panicked and went back to the station for the master key."
I look at Dalton. "There's a master key?"
"Yeah, in the safe."
"Can someone explain why we even bother with locks in this town?"
"Fuck if I know. Makes folks feel better, I guess."
I shake my head and turn to Anders. "What's the emergency?"
"Uh..." He takes a deck of cards from his back pocket.
When I lift my brows, he says, "I thought you might be bored, so I was coming by to see if you wanted company and entertainment."
I pause, because I'm thinking that I had both, a few minutes ago, and I'd been very much enjoying them. However, given the fact I'm supposed to be recuperating ... Yes, I suspect there's a limit to how much longer we could have gone before we hit stitch-ripping territory.
I look over at Dalton. He sighs, ever so softly.
"Go make coffee," he says to Anders. "And grab the rest of the pie."
We play cards for a couple of hours, up on my bed. We talk about the case, too--about my interviews that day.
I can't mention Jacob with Anders there. I'm glad of that, because even thinking about him reminds me of what Dalton's told me about his past, and I'm trying not to dwell on that. He says he doesn't talk about it because he doesn't want to be treated like more of a freak than he already is. But I think there's more to it. He doesn't want anyone looking that deep.
I suppose hiding his past is easy enough. No one in Rockton was around when Dalton was brought in from the forest. People have cycled through many times since then. The Daltons must have made sure the story didn't circulate beyond those who'd been present. Dalton got to keep his secret and put forward the face he wants seen: born and bred in Rockton. The truth is so much more complicated. To even think of it--a boy ripped from his family, ripped from his life ...
It was kidnapping, pure and simple. Yet not pure and simple, because the Daltons honestly thought they were doing the right thing, saving a wild boy from his savage family and giving him a better life. And it was, in some ways, a better life, and that's part of the complication. What was it like for Dalton? To realize now, as an adult, that he'd been kidnapped ... and that he'd come to love his kidnappers and consider them his parents.
