An accidental shooting. Man, that was a nightmare.
“It wasn’t me who had the gun,” she said, “and sometimes I think if I went back and shot Nathan, killed him, like he killed our baby, that maybe it would help.”
Nathan had been her first husband, back when she’d been in her early twenties.
“Probably not.” He told her the truth. He wasn’t against revenge for people who had the stomach for it, but he knew it was a dangerous indulgence for those who didn’t. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
She let him help her out of the car and hold on to her through the whole elevator ride. He hadn’t thought either of them had the strength for the stairs, and it didn’t take more than one look at her for Marcella and Marceline to call a temporary truce on the action in the lift.
Inside the room, he turned the radio on low to have something to break the quiet, and he opened the doors onto the balcony to let the moonlight and the sounds of the city night in.
While he set out the food he’d gotten for her before he’d gone to El Caribe, she stayed next to the closed door to the hall, her back literally up against the wall.
“Do you want to eat something?” he asked.
She shook her head, standing in Marcella’s too-high platform heels, looking like she could either collapse or bolt-and he’d be damned if he let her bolt.
“You might feel better.” He opened the room’s small refrigerator again and pulled out a beer.
She let out a short laugh. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“So tell me.” He sat down at the table and popped the top off the beer.
He saw her sigh, and he took a drink-and from across the room, she met his gaze.
“That’s a nice wooden shipping crate you’ve got there on the table.”
Yes, it was, or it would have been if it had still had its contents.
“Thank you.” He wasn’t going to deny anything.
“It wasn’t in the room when I left for El Caribe.”
“No,” he agreed. “At that point, it was still hidden in the cistern at Beranger’s.” He reached inside, took out the top half of the foam core, and showed it to her. The cut-out area for the Sphinx was very clear. “And for all the trouble I went to, I got nothing.”
Suzi tilted her head back against the wall, exposing the slender column of her throat, and he felt the first coiling promise of desire come to life deep inside his body. Inappropriate, yeah, but undeniable. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, and he’d been chasing her for six long months, even if it had only been the facts of her life he’d been getting.
Denver-that’s where he’d been heading as soon as he’d finished his business with Erich Warner. He would have been there a long time before now if this deal hadn’t come up.
“As bad as it’s been for me, as bad as it is,” she said, her voice so low he could barely hear her, “I know it’s worse for Nathan, and… sometimes… that’s the only thing that keeps me going, knowing he’s suffering even more than me and still living, day after day.”
He took another long swallow off his beer. Suzanna Royale Toussi, Suzi Q with her lush body and sophisticated style, with her designer clothes and highbrow art, living in the wasteland. He knew what it was like. He’d seen it. He’d felt it. He’d been there.
But he’d never lost a child, and he knew that place was different from all the others.
Inconsolable.
She started to tremble over on her side of the room. He saw it in her shoulders and in the way she wrapped her arms around herself, like she was trying to hold herself together.
Before the first sob broke free from her lips, he was there, holding her.
“No,” she said, covering her face with her hand. “Don’t touch me.”
She was still backed up against the wall, her body so stiff, and yet shaking-everywhere, all over.
“D-don’t,” she repeated, not looking at him, keeping her hand over her face.
“Suzi,” he said, wanting to help and yet feeling so helpless.
“No.” Another sob broke free, and then another, and she dropped her hand, looking at him, everything awful showing in her stricken gaze.
He moved in closer. This was going bad fast, and there wasn’t any help for it.
Tears started running down her face in dark tracks of smudged makeup, and inch by inch, he felt her crumple and begin to slide down the wall, her knees weakening. He tightened his grip, with predictable results.
She sobbed and slapped him, and he let it happen. He could have stopped her. He’d seen it coming.
Oh, hell yeah. He’d seen it coming from a mile off, the flash of fear and anger and anguish in her eyes, the tension holding her on the edge of an abyss. Hell, for what she needed, he’d have let her hit him twice.
Not that it didn’t hurt. The side of his face stung like hell, but he couldn’t have cared less about getting his face slapped. Not when everything was welling up inside her and getting ready to break her the hard way.
“You… y-you bastard.”
That’s right, baby. That was him, the bastard.
He kept her backed up against the wall, and he didn’t have a regret in the world about using his physical advantage against her.
She lifted her hand again, but instead of slapping him, she made a fist and hit him on the shoulder-and he let her.
Life was complicated, a real fucking mess most of the time.
She hit him again. “How dare y-you…you…”
He had his hands on her waist, holding on to her, but she wasn’t fighting to get away from him. She was fighting for the sake of it, and she was fighting herself far more than she was fighting him. She was hitting him, yeah, but she was the one who was hurting. Oh, baby, she was hurting bad.
“You sonuvabitching bastard.”
All day, every day. She could count on it.
She twisted against him, but not to get away, just to twist and squirm and ache with the pain.
He was no rocket scientist, never had been. He’d been damn lucky to have even graduated from good old East High in Denver. School had not been his strong suit, despite his half a moment of brilliance in calculus, before it had all gone to hell. He’d never actually seen a point in it, not from kindergarten on, not until he’d joined the Army and started learning stuff that counted. So, yeah, the sheer, cosmic expanse of all the things he didn’t know was pretty damn vast-but give him a compass, a map, a weapon, and a target, and he was the fucking valedictorian of that class. It didn’t matter how complex the problem was, how many countries he had to cross, how many enemies he had to vanquish, he knew how to come out on top-and he knew her. He knew this, where she was in her head, what was driving her, and where she was going to end up, which was the abyss-and he knew how to save her. He knew what she needed, and he knew he was the only guy in the whole world who did-because what she needed was him.
No one else.
Only him.
He pressed closer to her and lowered his head to hers, resting his forehead on her brow, and he let her rant at him, let her vent her anger and her pain, let her pound on his chest until she was clutching his shirt in her hands and just holding on.
“Dax… “ she whispered his name, burying her face in the curve of his neck. “Oh, Dax.”
Yeah, baby. Oh, Dax was here for her.
He kissed the top of her head, let his lips slide over the silken strands of her hair-and he pulled her closer. Even at midnight, it was a hundred degrees in this town, but he was offering her his warmth. He was the man for her.
“Dax… “ She gripped him tighter, buried herself deeper, clinging to him. “Dax. Oh, Dax.” She loosened her hold on his shirt, and her arms came up and around his neck.
Yeah, that was right-and so were the tears. She wasn’t sobbing. She was just crying silently, nearly immobile in his arms now. He felt the wetness on his neck, and it broke his heart. God, life could be so fucking hard, harder than a person could bear.