For You (The 'Burg #1)(180)

Then I heard Dee saying, “Sorry, Colt, I tried to stop him.”

I thought I heard Colt grumble something and I looked at the clock. It was nine-oh-eight.

I rolled to my back, mumbling, “Fucking hell.”

Firstly, I mumbled this because I was going into protective custody with Colt and I wanted to have a lazy Sunday morning in bed with him. His bed. Our bed. Secondly, I mumbled this because I was going into protective custody at all. Lastly, I mumbled this because I wanted to sleep more.

I was up on an elbow with the covers pulled over my chest when Colt stalked back in and announced, “Command performance, February.”

By the look on his face I was guessing he was about as happy as I was to have early morning Sunday company.

“You wanna change your mind about that answer of you ownin’ a hatchet?” I asked.

“Be cleaner usin’ my gun,” Colt returned, giving me the impression he was really thinking about this option even though I knew he wasn’t really thinking about this option.

I smiled then said, “We gotta count on Tuesday and Palmer takin’ care of us in our old age. You murder their father, I doubt that’ll happen.”

For some reason this was the wrong thing to say. I watched as Colt’s face changed, pain slicing through it before it went blank.

I sat up fully in bed, still holding the covers to my chest and called, “Colt?”

He shook his head, his face relaxed and he said softly, “Get up, baby.”

“Colt.”

He ignored me and went to the bathroom. I got out of bed, pulled on my underwear and Colt’s tee and waited until I heard him brushing his teeth. Then I knocked on the bathroom door and came in at his call.

I walked to him at the basin and leaned a hip against the counter, watching him brush. His eyes didn’t meet mine.

“What’s on your mind?” I asked quietly when he spit the foam in the sink.

Colt avoided my question, turned on the tap in preparation to rinse and said, “I’ll call Jack and Jackie, they won’t want to miss a frittata and, they’re here, we can tell them all at the same time we’re goin’ into custody.”

I got closer as he bent at the waist and rinsed his mouth.

I put my hand to the skin of his back. “Okay, but Colt,” I said low, “something happened in there, baby. I saw it. Honey, tell me what’s on your mind.”

His head tipped back so he could look at himself in the mirror, he held his own gaze for several beats and I waited. He made me wait awhile before he straightened, turned, my hand dropped from his back and I held my breath at what I saw in his face when he finally caught my eyes.

“Woulda talked you into namin’ a boy Jack, we had one. Jacqueline, we had a girl,” he whispered and I closed my eyes and swallowed back the pain.

He’d wanted kids and I did too. Even back in the day, both of us young, we’d talked about it. We didn’t talk about it a lot but we talked about it enough that it was understood, when we made it official, we weren’t going to waste time building a family. Then he went through the heartbreak of Melanie not being able to conceive. Now, with him forty-four and me forty-two and us just starting out again and needing time, it wasn’t impossible but it also maybe wasn’t smart for us to try to start a family at this juncture. If we tried and it didn’t happen, we’d both just have more heartbreak and we’d had enough of that.

His hand came to the back of my neck, curling around, warm and reassuring and I loved it when he did that. Even now, when yet another thing Denny stole from us tore through our consciousness, his hand there felt good, it felt right and it made the pain hurt a whole lot less.

“Honey,” he called and I opened my eyes.

“You wouldn’t have had to talk me into that,” I told him and he grinned, not a happy grin or one filled with humor. It was a grin that broke my heart.

“Don’t ‘spect I would,” he said.

I moved closer and his hand at my neck gave me a squeeze as his other arm went around my waist. I put my palms on his bare chest and pressed my cheek there.

“You think there’ll come a time when this shit quits hittin’ us, stuff we missed, things he stole?”

“Yeah, baby,” he said reassuringly, though I didn’t quite believe him mainly because he didn’t sound like he believed himself.

“You sure?”

Another squeeze at my neck. “Yeah.”

I nodded, my cheek sliding against the warm skin of his chest.

“One thing…” I started and then my throat closed and I couldn’t go on.

This time I got a squeeze from his arm at my waist before he prompted, “Baby?”

I cleared my throat and slid my hands around him, holding him around his waist too.

“One thing,” I said into his chest, “one thing that’s good, Colt, and that is, every day, for all these years, I thought of you, dozens of times a day. Every day. Every single f**king day.”

“February,” Colt whispered.

“Still do, except, now… it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

His hand at my neck went into my hair and gave it a tug. When my head went back, his face was already there and his mouth was on mine.

Colt tasted of toothpaste when he kissed me and I thought it was the best thing I ever tasted in my life.