She settled her head on his warm, bare skin again and nodded. “Yeah.”
His fingers stroked along her spine, a slow, absent petting. He exhaled deeply, chest dropping and then lifting once more against her cheek. His body generated such heat, his skin so warm, and the day’s events had left Ava so cold inside, like all the evil had lowered her core temperature. She was grateful to snuggle naked along his side like this, the familiar hard length of his body a comfort.
When they’d returned to the cottage, after dumping the body, they’d eaten their not-at-all bad pasta, reheating it on the stove first. Mercy ate as always, but Ava picked, unsettled and chilled and not even in the mood to celebrate her handiwork.
After, greasy with dried sweat and mosquito-bite-speckled, they’d showered, not seeing any sense in going about the process separately. Amid the steam and the slide of soaped hands on skin, the worries had been pushed back. Still dripping-wet, Mercy laid her down on the bathroom rug and mounted her right there beside the tub, the idea of walking to the bed too awful to bear. They’d air-dried on top of the sheets. Sleep came in uneasy handfuls, punctuated by a gnawing anxiety.
“What are we going to do?” Ava asked quietly.
“Not much we can do, ‘cept be ready.”
She nodded, and as she drifted, she thought again about how warm his skin was. It was almost hot to the touch. Dry and smooth.
Fever, she thought, but she was already too far gone.
Forty-Seven
Standing five feet away, Ava could hear the ferocious growl of her father’s voice on the other end of the phone Mercy held pressed to his ear. She tried to make out what he was saying as she monitored the snapping bacon in the skillet in front of her. She had no luck with the listening, but so far, the bacon was coming along nicely.
“No, I hear you,” Mercy said, leaning back against the wall. He looked put out. “I just don’t know what kinda good it’ll do.”
As anticipated, the news of their hoodie stalker hadn’t gone over well with the home front.
Ava flipped the bacon strips with a fork and took her chance to really scrutinize her husband. He was his usual towering, golden self. His sleeveless muscle shirt put his biceps on glorious display. She’d always loved his arms. They weren’t the ridiculous, bulked up arms of a pro wrestler, but rather the sculpted, long limbs of a man who worked hard for a living. Like all of him. Beautifully contoured, but never intentionally chiseled.
Shit, focus.
She took a good look at his face, and saw the redness in the corners of his eyes, the dark shadows beneath them. Despite his scowl, there was a fatigue in his face, a slackening between his features. A stranger might not have noticed, but to her, who knew every part of him so well, he looked sick.
Her stomach tightened. It was his shoulder. Had to be.
“No, I…” He sighed. “Fine. Yeah. Okay.” He pulled the phone from his ear and held it out to her. “He wants to talk to you.”
She took a fortifying breath and swapped places with Mercy, handing him her fork and taking the phone. It was warm from his hand. Very warm.
Frowning, she put it to her face and said, “Hi, Dad.”
“You haven’t been eaten by an alligator yet, have you?” Ghost demanded, his voice like sandpaper.
Ava bit down hard on the sudden laugh that wanted to explode out of her. She said, “Yes, in fact, I have. I’m talking to you from his stomach right now.”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
She smiled, only because he couldn’t see her. “Sorry.”
He took a deep breath and seemed more composed when he spoke again. “Merc said that guy was following you around the French Quarter.”
“He was.” At his prodding, she repeated the entire story that Mercy had already told him, down to the gator body dump. When Ghost seemed skeptical of that, she said, “That’s how they do it down here, Dad. You’ve got the cattle pasture; the NOLA guys have the gators.”
He made a disgruntled sound. “I didn’t send you down there so you could be feeding corpses to lizards.”
All of this worry was actually touching. She’d spent so much time being angry with him the last few weeks that it was nice to be reminded that he did see her as his daughter, that he loved her and fretted about her.
“Is it any safer up there?” she countered.
A beat passed. “Nah. It’s not.”
“I’m okay,” she assured. “I’ve got the best bodyguard a girl could want.” She glanced over at Mercy, as he removed the bacon from the skillet onto a plate.
