Page 139 of The Widow and the Wanted

“How can I want both?” he asks, and there is shame in it. Wonder too. “All the time. Since that night. Since before, maybe. I can hardly get my mind to settle. I want her. I look at you looking at her and want that too.” He bows his head. “It feels disloyal.”

“To me?”

He does not answer fast enough.

I lean closer. “Listen to me. There ain’t no part of me that gets smaller because you love her.”

His mouth tightens.

“You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“No. Hear me proper.” I press my forehead to his for one second, just enough to make him look at me. “You loving Lula don’t take you from me. It brings her closer. And if she wants us—if she chooses us—then I reckon maybe the Lord or those fool orange-blue stars finally dealt us a decent hand.”

“And if she doesn’t?” he asks.

The question cuts clean.

I look toward the door.

“Then we get her safe,” I say. “We let her go. And we live with it.”

His hand comes up to grip my wrist, not pulling me away. Holding me there.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Me neither.”

Chapter 36

Okee

The sun rises, blinding my already hazy, sleepless vision with its bright light that escapes through a slit between velvet curtains. Boone lies flat on our bed with one boot crossed over the other, flicking playing cards into his hat. The hat sits upside down on the floor beside the washstand. A few cards have made it in. More litter the rug around it.

Flick.

The three of clubs clips the brim and falls short.

“Damn.”

I rise to stand at the window and crack the curtain barely enough to see the street below.

Flick.

The queen of hearts sails clean into the hat.

Boone lifts his head from the coverlet. “Could be she’s back.”

I look over my shoulder. “She is not back.”

He shrugs, though it is a poor attempt at ease. “Could be she’s downstairs. Could be havin’ a bath. Could be Pearl’s got her trapped somewhere, spinnin’ a yarn over breakfast.”

“She would have sent word.”

“Maybe Goldie ain’t let her.”

“Why would Goldie keep that from us?”