“Everybody alright?” Collier asked.
Maggie took another of those hated shaky breaths. “Yeah. Just a little eggy.”
Ghost came to her side, pulled her into a much-needed hug.
“It makes me so damn angry, is all,” she said, as his strong arms made the tremors worse; knowing she could lean against him always made her more vulnerable.
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
When she stepped back, Ghost said, “Aidan and Tango are on their way. I told Collier that Jackie could come have dinner with us.” His eyes told her he would explain later.
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Tell your little kids they can stay too.” He gestured to Harry and Carter. “I don’t want them going anywhere alone.”
Because right now, it wasn’t a city at the outlaws’ mercy, but the other way around.
“Christ,” Mercy said, sinking down onto the sofa and letting his head flop back. “Learn to take a fucking hint.”
Ava smiled. “They missed you.”
He snorted. “Right now, that’s not a mutual feeling.
She laughed.
After an early dinner, and another round of drinks, they’d finally managed to get Larry and Evie out the door. Mercy was just back from walking them to their bateau. Ava had breathed a huge sigh of relief to see them go out the door, but Mercy’s theatrics were cute enough to keep her from feeling too robbed.
Mercy sat up, leaning forward to brace his forearms on his thighs. He’d put on a white t-shirt for dinner, and taken his hair down; she loved it loose like that. “What are you doing?”
She sat cross-legged on the rug, looking through the box Evie had brought. She was fizzing with excitement as she walked her fingers through packets of photos, little figurines whittled from wood, old paperbacks, old shell casings and fishing lures, little odds and ends. She pulled out a small cassette player and a handful of tapes with handwritten labels.
“Your old mix tapes,” she said, grinning, as she held one up to the light.
For one quick flash, his expression was sad and vulnerable, then he smoothed it over with the usual bravado. “Somebody call the Smithsonian,” he said. “She found my old mix tapes.”
Undeterred, she read the label. “Good Stuff.” She gave it a little shake. “What’s on here?”
“Dunno. It’s been, like, a thousand years.”
Ava slid the tape and player across the carpet toward him. “Go plug it in.”
He gave her a petulant frown.
“Pretty please?”
He heaved an overdramatic sigh and picked them up, dragged his feet like it was a real effort as he went to the nearest wall outlet and got everything set up. There was that fuzzy sound of the cassette beginning to turn, one she hadn’t heard in a long time thanks to iPods and CDs. And as he resumed his seat on the couch, the solemn opening chords of “Rooster” filled the cottage.
“Alice in Chains,” she said, allowing herself a moment to enjoy the first vocal notes of the song. “This is the good stuff.”
“There’s nothing worth a damn in there,” he said, as she returned her attention to the box.
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
He sank back against the sofa with a face that made her want to laugh.
“You know everything there is to know about me,” she said, carefully opening a yellowed photo packet. “Why can’t I…” The pictures slid out into her palm. “Oh, Mercy,” she said quietly, transfixed.
It was him – of course it was, the only child of a single father – too tall, all knobby knees and elbows, his hair cut short, his face soft with boyhood. His father, standing beside him, an arm around his shoulders, looked so much like Mercy did now, as an adult. There was no mistaking the parentage. A handsome, lean-faced, big-shouldered man, a shade darker than his son, more of that Cherokee blood in his veins than in Mercy’s. They stood on a pier, and hanging beside them from a strong pulley was a dead gator, strung up by its tail.
