A Merciful Silence (Mercy Kilpatrick #4)(77)

Mercy snuggled beside him, and they whispered in the dark and touched each other’s skin, hair, and face. He couldn’t stop touching her to make certain he wasn’t dreaming, and she seemed to feel the same. She asked a lot of questions, and he told her the bare minimum. Talking about it brought back too many memories. He pushed aside the flashbacks of extreme thirst and fear of losing circulation in his arm.

“What was it like for you?” he asked her.

“I had a lot of bad days,” she admitted. “My emotions were all over the place. The longer you were gone, the deeper I sank. The not knowing . . .” Her voice was raw and earnest. It was a poignant side she rarely exposed.

“This sounds stupid, but I think that you were in a worse mental and emotional situation than I was,” Truman told her. “Once Ollie got me out, I knew I’d be okay. You didn’t have that luxury.”

“You can’t say I had it worse. I saw the shed.”

“Yes, that was hell.” He shuddered. “My mind wants to block most of it. At least I wasn’t in there long.”

She told him she needed a shower, gave him a long kiss, and disappeared into his bathroom.

It’d been a very, very long day.

Truman would never take his home or mattress or gas heat for granted again. He closed his eyes and appreciated the soft pillow beneath his head, and the vibration of the cat purring on his chest.

Even under the cover of the sound of the shower, he heard Mercy’s sobs. Against every desire in his heart, he didn’t go to her. She needed to expel the pain and fear in private. She’d come to him when she was ready.

He’d nearly drifted to sleep on a glorious sea of painkillers when he felt her crawl back in bed, smelling of soap and fresh water.

“I love you,” she whispered as she formed her body to his.

“I love you more,” he answered and then remembered nothing else.

The next morning he woke to the scent of eggs, bacon, and pancakes. And coffee. The heavenly odors reached his starving caffeine receptors and lifted him out of bed. Ollie was coming out of the guest room as Truman stepped into the hall. The teen was following the smells too. Even Shep’s nose twitched. Ollie’s usually greasy hair was a wild but clean mop on his head. Truman ran a hand over his own facial hair. He hadn’t hated the sight of it in the mirror, but he had been shocked at the change in his facial shape caused by his weight loss. He shook his wrist, still not used to his single handcuff bracelet’s absence. Mercy had removed it at the hospital.

He and Ollie stepped into the kitchen, where the sight of Mercy cooking while wearing simple yoga pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt brought tears to his eyes. He kissed her long and hard, not caring if Ollie was watching. The teen might as well get used to it. They all sat down at the table and feasted.

“I wasn’t sure what to feed Shep, so I cooked some ground beef from the freezer and mixed it with oatmeal,” Mercy told Ollie. “I figured that would be fine until we could buy dog food.” The way Shep was attacking his bowl of food on the floor indicated he was pleased.

The boy simply nodded, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth as fast as he could. Truman watched in amusement. Ollie’s eyes had grown huge at the sight of all the food, and he had served himself tiny helpings. Truman had finally loaded the teen’s plate for him. Mercy watched Ollie inhale the eggs, raised a brow, got up, and started scrambling more.

Simon wandered into the room and Shep lunged at the cat with a sharp bark. Simon promptly swatted the dog’s nose, and Shep howled and dashed to hide under Ollie’s chair, where he watched the cat with terrified eyes. Simon sat in the center of the room, ignored him, and groomed her back leg.

“That was settled quickly,” commented Truman.

Then the parade of visitors started. Kaylie was first, stopping in on her way to school. She’d insisted on FaceTiming Truman last night in the emergency room and had been horrified by his condition. This morning she launched herself at him, hugged him for a long twenty seconds, and then grabbed a tissue to dry her eyes. She eyed him critically over the tissue. “You look much better than last night.”

“Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“I don’t know about the beard, though.” She patted one of his hairy cheeks, her eyebrows coming together in concentration. “Maybe.”

She left for school after giving him a short lecture on never disappearing again.

As if I had control over it.

Mercy’s sister Pearl was next with a huge plate of pastries from the café and clothes for Ollie. Mercy had called her last night, asking if her son had some clothing that no longer fit. Her son was thin like Ollie but had sprouted several inches in the last year. Pearl had two paper grocery bags full of jeans, shoes, and shirts. “What doesn’t fit you can give away. None of it fits him anymore.”

Ollie vanished into his room with his bags of riches as Pearl hugged Truman and ran her fingers over his beard.

“What do you think, Mercy? Do you want him to keep it?”

Why does everyone need to touch it?

Mercy tipped her head, pretending to look thoughtful. “I haven’t decided yet. The mountain man look has never appealed to me. But it does make him look rugged, doesn’t it? Or maybe we could trim it down to a Tony Stark look.”

Both women eyed him with fresh speculation. “No Iron Man,” stated Truman.