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I slip off my shoes and clothes as quietly as I can, leaving on only my underwear and tank top. I tug the band out of my hair and run my fingers through the tangled strands. Ash’s cot is empty, just waiting for my weary body. But as if I’m watching from outside myself, I climb gingerly over Bishop, settle into the small space I occupied last night. I turn on my side to face the tent, my back to his sleeping body.
The night air is chilly and I shiver, reaching down to pull up the blankets that are puddled at our feet. As I lay back again, Bishop turns onto his side, closer to me. I freeze, not sure what to do. I feel caught, but lack any real desire to escape. Not here in the dark, where we can pretend nothing’s changed. His arm snakes around me, guiding me back against him. My body goes willingly, like it’s sinking into a long-remembered home. I take his hand in mine, bring it up to my lips. Not kissing, but close enough to my mouth that I can smell his skin, imagine the taste of his fingers on my tongue. His lips graze my shoulder, his exhales raising goose bumps along the back of my neck. He doesn’t speak, and neither do I, content to leave the communicating to our touch-starved bodies.
Chapter Ten
Bishop’s been here for a little over a week, and his assimilation has gone better than I expected. Most of the blood lust left along with Mark Laird. Granted, there are people who give him hostile looks, grumble that he doesn’t belong, but there are also those who remember the boy who came to the fence with water and food after they were put out. Others lived in Westfall back when he was a child and remember him as simply a little boy, born into a family he didn’t choose. They are open-minded enough to understand that who he came from doesn’t necessarily define who he is. I wish it were a pardon I could offer to myself, but my family’s bad deeds still feel like my own.
It’s actually my relationship with Bishop that’s causing more raised eyebrows than his being here in the first place. I know that people are confused. They remember the way I threw myself across his body to protect him, but they also notice the fact that I never meet his eyes, that I go out of my way to find things to do during the day that keep me far from him. They know he left Westfall to try to find me, and they see us disappear into the same tent together every night. But every morning we head our different directions, barely speaking. No one seems to know how to put all the disparate pieces together to make a coherent picture. Least of all me.
Bishop’s injuries are healing fast, the bruises on his face fading to streaks of sickly yellow and his ribs, although still tender, not so sore that he can’t be up and moving around. His willingness to help out whoever needs it, regardless of his injuries, has also gone a long way toward easing his transition into the group.
Today is our last day at the camp. Most everyone has already moved to town. There are just a few final tents to take down, a couple last loads of supplies to be transported. Caleb and Ash left this morning and will be back by afternoon to escort Bishop and me. In the meantime, we’re taking down my tent, packing up the last of my belongings.
I tried to switch places with Ash, so I wouldn’t have to be here alone with Bishop, but she shrugged off my offer. I think she’s as tired of the awful, grinding tension as anyone. Hoping, maybe, that leaving us alone will force us to confront it. But I’m more unsure and tentative than I was in those first few days of our marriage. At least then I knew why there were walls between us, understood my own reluctance to close the distance. Now I am a mystery, even to myself.
As I watch, Bishop reaches up to try to unclasp the top of the tent from the wooden pole, but stretching so far must aggravate his ribs because he yanks his arm back to his side with a wince before he can get the tent down.
“Here,” I say, stepping in front of him. “Let me do it.” Standing on my tiptoes I can reach it easily, managing to unclasp the tent with one hand. As I step back, my foot tangles in a half-packed bag, and I stumble. Before I can fall, Bishop is there, catching my body with his own.
I suck in a breath as his hand curls into my stomach, my body pressed against his from shoulders to feet. He doesn’t let go or move back. His other hand finds the curve of my hip, resting against the bone.
“You all right?” he asks. He’s so close his lips move against the top of my ear. I try not to shiver and fail.
“Uh-huh,” I manage. I can’t find air, my chest rising and falling like I’ve been running a race. He’s warm and strong, his heart pounding against my back. His fingers spread on my stomach, his thumb coming to rest right below my breasts, his pinky nudging the waistband of my pants. My insides coil and twist; my blood simmers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam rise out of my pores. It’s the first time he’s touched me outside the darkness of our tent. It’s the first time I’ve let him.
He runs his other hand over my hip bone, up and down, up and down, a slow, simple rhythm. “You’ve lost weight,” he says, voice quiet.
He sounds concerned, not critical, but I latch onto his words as a way to escape the fire in my belly, the weakness that makes me want to turn in his arms and meet his mouth with mine. It takes all my willpower, but I pivot away from him, chest heaving. “Disappointed my curves aren’t quite as curvy?” I mock, balling my hands into fists to stop their trembling. I hate the sneering sound of my voice. My back feels cold without him. My heart feels empty.
Bishop takes a deep breath, then shakes his head, shoves his hands into his pockets. “It was never about the way you look, Ivy,” he says. “You have to know that.”
I do know that. Which only makes it worse. I don’t know how to stop hurting him; I wish I did. I raise both hands and let them drop. “What are you doing here with me, Bishop?” I ask. “You should be with some other girl. Some girl who makes you happy.”
“I don’t want a girl who makes me happy,” he says. “I want you.”
My eyes fly to his, and I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out of me. Bishop’s slow smile makes my heart flip-flop in my chest. We stand there, watching each other, the unstrung tent billowing in the breeze between us.
“We should finish up,” I say, suddenly anxious to have something to do with my hands. Bishop doesn’t move, even as I bend down to begin folding the tent. “Are you angry with me?” he asks, re
ading something on my face I didn’t know was there.
I swallow hard, my throat working. “Why would I be mad at you?” As I ask the question I remember being attacked by Mark, how anger helped me win that battle. And how some of that anger was directed at Bishop. Even Ash thought I was angry with him. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
Bishop shrugs. “I don’t think fair really enters into it. You feel what you feel.”
“I don’t blame you for what happened, Bishop. How could I? None of it was your fault.”
“Maybe you’re angry because I did believe you, even for a minute.”
I toss the tent down with a snap. “I wanted you to believe me!”
“It still had to hurt,” Bishop says. I don’t know what to say to that. I can hardly claim a right to pain after everything I’ve put him through. And he’s already so close to the truth of it, edging right around the way my heart broke when he finally believed I was capable of all the terrible things everyone else already took for granted. “Maybe because if not for me, you’d be with your family right now,” Bishop continues. “All of Westfall at your feet.”
My body goes cold. “I never wanted that,” I whisper.
“I know. But it might have been easier.”
I shake my head. “That would never have been easier.”
