Or maybe I’m just running it a little too hard.
“Well, I’ll be closed tomorrow,” he says. “But it’s nothing we can’t fix up.”
“Where are my guns?” I say, rolling my head to look at him.
“In the front.”
“What are the guns for?” Della interjects.
“Keeping us safe in the gorge until we’re ready to move in,” I say.
Brothers looks at Della, and she looks away fast. Brothers opens a cabinet beside the bookcase and pulls out a roll of bandages, some tape, and alcohol wipes. He tosses it all onto the chair beside me.
“Gonna wash up in the bathroom,” he says. “Y’all stay right where you are.”
He leaves, door swinging. Della sets her coffee aside and crosses to me. She’s in the prettiest sundress that hugs her body, letting her breasts hang naturally. It drives me crazy, seeing them shift when she moves, but it’s not half as bad as seeing her ass sway in the soft fabric.
I grip her thighs, pulling her in.
“Fuck, you look good,” I say.
She gives me the littlest eye roll, turning to pick up the alcohol wipes. “I think you’re just horny from the adrenaline.”
I think she might be right, but it’s hard to tell. I’m always horny when she’s around. She rips open the pack and shakes out a wipe. I keep quiet because I like just looking at her, feeling her warmth between my knees and under my palms. She grips my jaw, turning it to the side. The wipe stings the gash left by the flying chair that started it all.
“You and Brothers are really a match made in hell,” she murmurs.
“You can say that again.”
“We need him, don’t we?” Her voice softens.
I work my jaw, more against the pain than anything. For some reason, I can fight a room of people after being decked in the head by a chair, but the minute she’s patching me up, everything hurts a hell of a lot more. Funny how a little of her sympathy makes me so damn soft.
“Yeah, reckon so,” I say grimly.
She daps my temple, lips thin. Then, she tears off some tape and starts folding the bandage.
“So you’re going to work with him?” she asks.
After the swamp and last night in the gorge, I don’t have a choice, not when it comes to keeping her safe. They can’t see her, or Leland will know for certain she’s back. From what Brothers said, Lelandwouldn’t stop until he rooted her out and dragged her back. Apparently, he thought she was bluffing with the divorce papers, and it was a bloodbath when she actually left.
My grip tightens. She winces.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
She tapes the bandage on and sets her hands on either side of my face, turning it up.
“I don’t think you or Brothers know how to keep out of trouble,” she says.
“I’m not like him,” I say reflexively.
She purses her lips but doesn’t speak.
“Della!” Brothers calls. “Where’s that Angel’s Envy?”
“It’s under the bar,” she yells back.
“Come here for a second. I don’t see it.”
