A horse stamped in its stall, thump of hoof in deep shavings. It let out a low whicker, wanting breakfast, wondering why the person on the steps wasn’t getting up and rattling buckets around. Emmie would be down soon, swaddled in a raincoat, driving the Rhino rather than walking through this downpour. It was a Saturday, which meant George had the morning off. When she spotted Tenny, she’d ask if he wanted to help, and he'd wind up pouring feed and tossing hay.
He sipped his coffee, and his stomach rolled. His fingers itched for Reese, for the sleep tangles in his hair and the scrape of his morning stubble. He wanted to bear him down to the mattress and ruin him for anyone else – almost as badly as he wanted to enfold him and shield him and never see anything harm him again.
He'd thought what happened in New York would have damaged Reese.
But it had damagedhiminstead.
His phone startled him went it started to ring. He wasn’t one for calls, generally, and the person most likely to call him had gone upstairs to take a shower.
At some point, he’d programmed the Dogs’ numbers into his phone at Fox’s insistence, but was surprised nevertheless when the screen read: MERCY.
“Yeah?” he answered, uncertainly.
“Morning, sunshine.” Why was that giant weirdo always so chipper? “What are you doing today?”
“It’s raining.” He took a sip of coffee. “So probably mucking out stalls. Why?”
Mercy chuckled. “You don’t like small talk, do you?”
“No.”
“Alright. I can respect that. But I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“What?”
“A surprise. A good one.” His tone shifted, his glee sharpening into something sinister. “Ask Walsh for the key to the side gate later. Meet me next door at eight tonight.”
“Next door?”
“The cattle property,mon mi. You’ll see. Eight, yeah? Don’t bring Reese. This is just for you.Au revoir.” The line went dead.
Tenny stared at his phone a long moment, afterward, until the screen went black.
A surprise.
He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he liked Mercy…but he liked Mercy’s affinity for violence.
Down beneath the glacial layers of self-restraint he’d cloaked himself in these past weeks, something hungry stirred.
Fifty
Walsh arched a single brow in a very Fox-like manner when asked about the key to the side gate. But when Tenny said, “Mercy invited me,” a look of understanding dawned. He pulled the key from a drawer in his desk and handed it over with a simple, “Don’t lose it.”
“I’m going for a walk,” he told Reese, when he found him shrugging into his jacket, too late to hide the guns and knives strapped to his hips.
Reese glanced out through the skylights, and the velvet indigo sky studded with stars. “It’s dark out.”
“I’ll take a flashlight.”
“You’re wearing two guns.”
“There might be bears.”
When he glanced at him, finally, Reese wasn’t just frowning: his face had gone downright stony. The sight of it sent a pulse of wild fear through Tenny; hollowed out his stomach and left him cold inside. Reese had been stuck to him like a barnacle ever since their gig in Texas…but maybe there was a limit to the amount of pushing away he’d tolerate. Maybe his affection and loyalty were finite.
But…
“I’ll come with you,” Reese said, and it was a declaration, rather than a request.
