Page 19

“Forty minutes.”

I laughed once.

“He came on the bike,” Robin said. “Wearing his cut.”

“Just him?”

Robin nodded.

That stopped me. Seb never did anything without thinking it through. But if he’d planned this, he wouldn’t have arrived alone. Dutch, Colt, Holden and Handful would have come with him. Riding four hours into Kettlewell in his cut, with nobody at his back, told me he hadn’t thought past finding me.

“I pulled up to talk to him,” Robin said. “Then Simon came out.”

Robin’s mouth tightened when he said Simon’s name.

“Meaning what?”

“Simon told him you were with him now and to back off.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Wren—”

“Robin, it’s fine.”

“It’s not his to say.”

“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.” But I knew where it had come from. Simon held Sparrow at four hours old. He had been there for both of us every day since. A man like that sees a Venom Riders patch on his pier and reaches for the strongest non-lethal weapon he has. It wasn’t clever and it wasn’t his call, but I wasn’t going to turn on him for one badly chosen sentence.

“He’ll want to apologize,” Robin said.

“There’s no need. I understand where it came from. He thought he was protecting me. All of you do it.”

Sparrow made an impatient noise against my chest. I settled her on my knee and gave her the teething ring from the sofa. She pushed it into her mouth and went quiet.

“You’re not angry?” Robin asked.

I shook my head. “Not angry. I’d be more surprised if something like that hadn’t happened.”

“I’m not going back to the port,” Robin said. “I’ll sleep here. Moff’s got eyes on the house and all over town. Nick will be over shortly.”

I huffed out a breath, but I nodded. “Do you know why he’s here?”

“Not yet.” Robin looked at me, then at Sparrow chewing on the ring. “But everything will be all right, Jenny Wren.”

A few minutes later, Nick’s truck came up the drive.

Robin stood and kissed the top of my head, then bent and kissed Sparrow’s. “I’m going to bed before I fall down.”

He was halfway up the stairs when Nick came in and followed me into the kitchen. “Give me two days.”

“No.”

“Wren, give me two days. Me and Dion will talk to him. By Friday, he’ll be back on that bike and out of town.”

I shook my head. “I want to know why he’s here. Why now.” Sparrow caught her fingers in my hair, and I loosened them one at a time. “Does he know about her? Is that why he came?”

“You said he didn’t know.”