Leave a Trail (Signal Bend #7)(27)

He knew he wasn’t through his trouble; he knew he’d feel that need for a long time, maybe forever. But on this day, after seeing Adrienne and finding the spine to just be straight with her and tell her what he wanted, after finding out that she still wanted it, too—on this day, he did okay. And that was a lot.

While he was still watching her pretty little ass as she walked to her car, he’d known that he was going to have to face Show right away. They couldn’t be ‘private’—they couldn’t sneak. He was working to make his brothers trust him again, and that was the wrong way to start. He didn’t know how much more his face could take, but he’d go to Show tomorrow, when they got back from the weed run, after the debrief in the Keep. And he’d tell him straight. And then he’d take his lumps, and hopefully he’d still be breathing afterward.

But tonight, he wasn’t going to worry about that. He didn’t know how far she’d want to go, and he didn’t know how far he’d try to go. Maybe they just needed a night like others they’d had—watching scary movies, eating pizza, him happy with the feel of her hiding against his arm during the scary parts. Or, during the really scary parts, hiding against his chest.

No. Shit. Not that. Shit.

He couldn’t let her see him. Or touch him. He couldn’t take that. God, if she turned away from him in disgust…

So what the f*ck was he doing?

You don’t walk away from someone you love. Ever. Len was in Badger’s head again. He was kind of a nag. Badger stood in the middle of the barn, trying to work through the anxiety and need that had dropped on his head all at once. The animals were put up for the night. Weasel had already done his compulsive circling around his bed and settled in, nose at the door, pointing out toward his charges. It was time to go up to Adrienne’s room. And now he didn’t know if he could.

Fuck it. He was going up. He went into his office and shrugged off his kutte. Then he opened the top drawer of the file cabinet he’d been using as a dresser and pulled out two clean t-shirts. After he pulled them both on over the one he’d already been wearing, he put his kutte back on. He was off the clock and on private time, so he could have left the kutte off, but having gotten it back, he didn’t want it out of sight.

Three t-shirts should be enough. He’d just stay dressed. They’d take things slow. That was right anyway, and it would give him time to—to what? To get a chest transplant? To hope that she’d go blind—and numb?

No. To figure it out. He needed time to figure out how to tell her, and how to deal with it if she couldn’t deal with it. He just needed time. A few hours ago, he didn’t think she’d ever talk to him again. He needed some time. They’d take things slow.

“Badge?”

At the sound of her voice, Badger went to the office doorway. She was standing just inside the main doors, holding a flat box. She was so f*cking pretty. The late afternoon light shone through her long skirt just enough that he could see the silhouette of her legs. His cock stirred.

“Hey, you.” He had to raise his voice a little to carry the length of the aisle.

“Hey! I got the pizza—half macho meat and half veggie. Come up while it’s hot.”

“Right behind you. Five minutes.”

With a perky little nod, she turned, her skirt floating a little around her legs, and went off toward the main house.



oOo





Another thing he hadn’t thought out: there were no couches in the B&B rooms. They were just bedrooms—nice ones, but the only seating was a little chair at a little desk and one upholstered armchair.

So they sat on the bed. At first, it was fine. They sat up and ate pizza and drank soda and started Scream, a movie they’d watched together several times but that still managed to scare her. They’d developed at riff for it, and spent a lot of time talking back to the screen. She always shouted at Drew Barrymore in the first part and could never watch what happened to her.

This night was no different. Except that Badger couldn’t watch Drew Barrymore get gutted, either. Not until scant moments before that scene did it occur to him what was about to happen and how it resonated now in his head. His stomach rolled, but he held it together, staring down at the pizza still left in the box.

He hadn’t even seen what had happened to Havoc. He’d been unconscious. But he knew. He’d been told.

When it was over, Adrienne laughed. “I’m such a baby. That scene freaks me out more every time I see it.”

Badger shook it off and laughed with her. “Yeah. Total wuss. Want another piece of your grass pizza?”

“Totally. And my grass half is way better than your animal carcass half.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You should come to the dark side.”

In that light, companionable mood, they ate and watched the movie. When it started to get more intense and they’d finished off about half the pie, Badge set it aside. He took off his boots and his kutte, and they sat together, side by side, against the headboard, their legs stretched out. Whenever somebody died or was chased, Adrienne grabbed his arm and hid her face against it, as she’d always done.

He’d always been turned on by it, but he’d always sat still and let her. He didn’t have to just sit there now. But he wasn’t sure if—he cut off that thought and thought instead of his three t-shirts. He could bring her closer.