~*~
“Go get some rest,” Fox had suggested. “I’ll come get everyone when he wakes up,” he’d said of their prisoner.
Reese went to the clubhouse kitchen to make a mug of tea, then he went outside, into the pleasant coolness of the evening, the stars wheeling overhead. He walked aimlessly, until the soft lights of Maggie’s parking lot garden drew him. He went up the little stairs, into the sprawling raised bed full of benches, and fruit trees, and flowers, and fountains, and paths, and found Tenny there.
He sat on a curved stone bench beneath an apple tree strung with fairy lights, staring down into the goldfish pond at his feet, knees splayed and feet hooked together. Slumped down with his elbows braced on his thighs. In the fraction of a second before he heard Reese and looked his way, his expression was one of deep contemplation – but not unhappiness, Reese didn’t think. The notch between his brows spoke of mulling things over, but not of misery.
When he lifted his head, he’d smoothed his expression into its perfect mask. He didn’t speak.
Reese wasn’t sure what to do for a moment. He couldn’t remember a time when Tenny hadn’t made the first overture, whether it was friendly or vicious, or, as was the case most of the time, viciously friendly.
He said, “I can leave. If you want.”
“No.” Tenny shrugged and looked back at the pond again. “You can stay.”
Reese knew it was the closest he’d get to an invitation, so he went slowly down the path, and sat down on the opposite end of the bench, giving Tenny plenty of time to get up and move if he wanted to. He didn’t. “I’m not sleepy,” he explained.
“Me neither.” Tenny sat back, and stretched out his long legs; the heels of his boots rested on the flat rocks that edged the pond. “Thought about going for a run.”
“Or call Stephanie,” Reese suggested, though his stomach twisted unpleasantly at the suggestion. “I won’t get in the way. Just you and her this time.”
Tenny sucked in a sharp breath…and then let it out slowly. “You stupid fucking tit,” he muttered, not quite under his breath. Then he sighed, and in a more normal voice, said, “Walsh’s wife asked me to come help exercise some of her training horses.”
Reese paused mid-sip and turned to look at him. No part of that sentence had made any sense.
Tenny seemed to know it, if the way he rolled his eyes was any indication. “I had dinner over there.”
“At the farm.”
“Yes, at the farm, where else would I have spoken with Walsh’s wife?” he snapped, impatiently.
“At the clubhouse,” Reese pointed out.
“Hmph. At the farm. She asked me, then.”
“Do you know how to ride a horse?”
Tenny turned to meet his gaze, his usual sneer in place, haughty and overconfident. “Do you honestly think there’s anything I don’t know how to do?”
Explain what you’re thinking and feeling, Reese thought.Be polite. He didn’t say that, though, and it turned out he didn’t need to.
Tenny made a face and said, “Nevermind, don’t answer that. Yes, I know how to ride a horse. Quite well, actually.”
“Walsh used to be a jockey.”
“Yes, yes.” Impatient again. Then he sighed, and stared out across the garden. Reese didn’t have words for the atmosphere of the place, couldn’t have begun to describe it to someone else with any kind of artistry, but he’d been drawn to it tonight. He felt more at peace here. It was easier to let the daily concerns fade into the background, here in this most unlikely of oases.
When Tenny spoke again, his tone had shifted. Light, airy, careless – but Reese picked up on a subtle vibration of tension. “I’m going Tuesday afternoon. You should come.”
He felt his brows go up in surprise. “You want me to come?”
Tenny didn’t answer for a long moment, but Reese, studying his profile, saw his lashes flicker, and his throat move. Finally, he said, “Yes.” Just that, no further explanation.
Reese didn’t need one. “Okay.” A thought struck. “We might still be busy. Ghost will want to go after the mayor.”
“Oh, that.” Tenny dismissed it with a wave. “We’ll have that settled before then. Wait and see.”
Thirty-Six
