Natural Law(46)
He didn’t have to do this, didn’t have to be part of her life in this way, but after less than a week of having one another, he had chosen to do so. Had as much as said that’s what he wanted when they made love after dinner less than three nights ago. This was one of the worst days of her life, or her best, depending on the perspective, and he had jumped in both feet to be part of it, no holding back.
Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he brought the garment forward and off her body. He unlaced her boots, took them off, his hands sure and strong on her ankle, the arch of her foot, and then gently raised her to her feet, removing her trousers and the practical underwear beneath. She stood before him only in her delicate cross and her own fragile, mortal skin. He turned, took a wash cloth off the counter, dampened it and turned back to her. Bemused, she felt him raise the cross from her skin, touch it and her sternum with the cloth.
“Gun powder,” he explained. “We’ll take some silver polish later, give it a good cleaning, but that’ll do for now.” Then he tossed the cloth in the sink, bent, slid his arms around her, and lifted her again. The hard thighs, the buckle of his belt and the buttons of his shirt pressed against her. She welcomed them, the heat of his skin through the fabric. Though she didn’t think she was cold, she was shivering.
“Shock,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. He lowered her into the water, shut off the spigots. When the heat of the water enveloped her, she moaned in pleasure, and he 160
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smiled, kissed her fingers. He arranged a cushion beneath her head with his other free hand when she wouldn’t let go of him.
“I’m going to scare you up some food. I’ll keep checking in on you, so don’t you worry about falling asleep. I’ll take care of you tonight. “
“I know,” she said, her eyes falling half shut. Her nose recognized the smell of the bath beads, smells that had clung to his skin from the first night she had met him. They comforted her, surrounded her, so she could find it in her to be an adult, let his hand go, but something in her chest tightened painfully as his fingers slipped from hers. She listened to his feet recede, was absurdly comforted when she realized the kitchen was close enough that she could hear the sounds of him moving around, finding her dinner.
The proximity worked for Mac as well, because he was able to see the profile of her head on the edge of the tub. Keeping his peripheral eye on her as he set some tea to brew, he pulled one of his Mundial cooking knives from the maple wood block knife holder and quickly and quietly chopped up some fresh asparagus and set it in a soup stock to cook. When a tremor ran through his hand, he stopped a moment, taking a steadying breath, tearing his thoughts away from the sudden image of a bullet fired at Violet’s face, tearing through that pale, delicate flesh and ending her life.
He prepared the soup with extra care and precision, put some fresh baked bread in the warmer, keeping his mind in a culinary net so it couldn’t go where he wasn’t ready to let it go yet. He could have his mental breakdown later. She needed him to be the strong one right now.
A soft cry and a splash from the bathroom, and he was at the door before the knife hit the counter. She blinked wildly, and he knelt by her, drawing her to him.
“It’s okay, sugar. Flashback. They happen a bit at first, whenever you doze off.
You’re okay.”
“God.” She pushed her hands through her hair. “I am so pathetic.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, tightening his hands on her. “You want to know what I did the first time I took a life?”
She nodded, her arms folded against her front. It was an unconscious gesture of someone trying to shield herself from a pain that was attacking her from the inside. He rubbed his hands over her wet bare back, fingers marking each bump of her spine, trying to soothe.
“At first, I tried to blow it off like it was any other day. You think, when you’re a rookie, you’re supposed to be as tough about it as the older guys. I pretended like I was fine, even got a little snappish when the vets tried to bolster me up, like Hank did for you. Later, I remembered the way they looked at me, not snapping back like they normally would. They knew I was going to break. They tried to get me to go for drinks with them. No way, I was fine. I went home because you know, that was standard, I didn’t have any choice. They let me go for the rest of the day.” He nudged his chin against her forehead, and she burrowed her head deeper into the crevice between his head and chest.
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“I woke up at two in the morning in a sweat,” he continued. “The perp’s face, those shots, roaring in my head. I put on my clothes, drove a hundred and twenty miles and knocked on my mother’s door at four in the morning. Not a smart thing for a guy to do when the woman in question has two sons who are cops. I probably took ten years off her life, making her think one of us had been killed.
“But she knew. She looked at my face and knew. I was too manly and old to let her undress me and put me in a tub of course.” He smiled against her temple. “But she ran me a bath, fed me, sat with me, and held my hand when I finally fell asleep on her couch next to her. I know she didn’t let go. Not until I woke up and felt I could face it, because I’d managed to get through the first night, thanks to her.”
“You’re not making that up.” She lifted her head, looked hard at him.
“No, I’m not.” He smoothed back her hair, kissed her brow.
“How many times…?”
“Seven times in twenty years,” he said. “Once it was a woman. Once it was a fourteen-year-old kid.” He framed her face in his hands. “Just some advice. Give yourself time to accept it, mourn it. Let it run around in your head awhile, wait a few days to analyze. In our line of work, there’s no walking away. Sometimes the choice has to be made, and sometimes it’s made for us. I can tell you from experience, the first way is a lot harder to live with than the second. It’s that simple. Okay?” She nodded, thinking, and he brushed his thumb over her lips. “Let me get you something to wear, if you’re ready to get out.” Violet was, and she waited in the tub until he brought her one of his T-shirts. He didn’t let her dry herself. He had her step out onto a soft floor mat, and then rubbed her gently with a thick terry cloth towel. A dark heavy cotton that had his musky smell, the T-shirt was so large it fell to mid-thigh and slipped off one shoulder. When he had it on her, he picked her up, carried her out onto the back porch where the sun was setting on the marsh in a glory of rose and gold, a confirmation of life, and miracles. She looked at him as he settled her, his face intent, and knew it was a confirmation of something else, something too clearly present in this past hour to be anything else.
Of love.
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Chapter 19
After they ate, he curled up behind her on the bed in his room, stroking her hair until she fell asleep watching the moon rise over the marsh out the window. When she woke, its light was streaming in. She held her hand up to it, watched the play of silver on her pale skin.
I’m alive.
A large hand lifted into her vision, entwined its fingers with her own, and she felt Mac’s broad chest pressed into her shoulder blades.
And I’m not alone.
In that quiet moment she saw what she was and could be to him – Mistress, lover, woman. What she already might be to him. Everything. A humbling, terrifying and exhilarating thought all at once.
“Okay?” he murmured, his voice like a soothing stroke over every raw nerve, drawing a curtain over the things she could not bear to face right now, that her consciousness would have to accept a small piece at a time. A bullet firing, a man’s face turning into meat, the stop of a heartbeat.
“Let it go for tonight, sugar.” His hand whispered down over her back, the curve of her waist, her hip, his fingertips smoothing over her skin like raindrops sliding down, the touch of something natural, expected, known. Something that sustained life. Hope.
“Do you know what I thought when he lifted the gun, and I knew it was going to fire?” She kept her eyes on the movement of the waters through the marsh grass, stirred from the movement of some creature who dwelled there, she expected.
She could have chosen not to tell him, knew it probably was not wise to tell him, but in the loneliest hour of the night, there was only truth, and a trust that she could tell him anything.
“What, baby?”
Her lips curved at the endearment, one a Mistress didn’t often get to hear. Her alpha male.
“I thought, ‘What if I never see Mac again?’”
She looked up at him then and found him leaning over her, those silver eyes so close and alive, silver filled with moonlight. “That was the last thought I had before that gun fired.”
His arms closed around her and he lifted her up against his chest, enclosing her in his heat and strength. Warmth. Life. He was pure, pulsing life. She kept her arms 163
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tucked into her body, letting him hold her completely, surround her, her forehead and lips pressed to his chest.
“Make love to me, Mackenzie,” she whispered. “Please. Nothing but you and me.” He eased her back, looked into her face. He didn’t ask if she was sure, but he gave her that moment. She reached up, touched his jaw.