A slow grin wreathed Cole’s face, and his deep chuckles did uncomfortable things to my stomach. “I knew we kept him around for some damn reason.”
“We have to learn to play nice with Wu. We’re stuck with him for the time being.” I let my head fall back on my neck and stared at the ceiling. “I have to put in my notice.” It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but it was out there now. “Once I do that, this gets real.”
Cole palmed my knee and squeezed once, his fingers stretching up my thigh in hot streaks that burned like starbursts. “We’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Covering his hand with mine crossed lines, but I couldn’t resist the scratch of his scarred knuckles under my palm for the fleeting seconds he allowed the contact before withdrawing. “I appreciate that.” Cole got to his feet and offered me a hand up, but I shook my head. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed early tonight.”
“I have something to show you.” He kept his arm extended. “The fresh air will do you good.”
“I don’t know.” I stared at my knee, where I still felt the imprint of each of his fingers, and wished I was strong enough to boot him out the same way he got in. “Can this wait?”
“You hung up on me,” he said for the third time. “You owe me.”
I scoffed at his gall. “I owe you for many things, but not for that.”
“Fine.” His shoulders tightened. “I’ll cash in a different token. Take your pick, but get dressed. You’re coming with me even if I have to carry you out of the house barefoot and in pajamas.”
I glared up at him. “You’re bossy, you know that?”
“Get moving.” He snapped his fingers. “I’m giving you ten minutes, and then I’m taking you however I can get you.”
Shutting my eyes, I allowed myself a second to hold onto the wish he meant those words differently before releasing them into the ether. “What’s the dress code?”
“Wear something comfortable.” He tromped to the far corner of the room, snagged my waterproof boots, then dumped them at my feet. “Nine minutes.” He turned his back and crossed his arms over his chest, his muscles pulling his shirt taut. “Eight.”
“That wasn’t a full minute,” I grumbled while scurrying to meet his deadline. I stripped down to my underwear, pulled on fresh socks, jeans, boots, and then a shirt suitable for public consumption before knotting my hair at the base of my neck and shrugging on my backpack. “Ready.”
Cole raked his gaze over me, assessing my choice of outfit, then nodded. “Let’s go.”
“How did you —? Ah. Never mind.” I crossed the room to the window. “You fit through that?”
“I’m flexible,” he deadpanned.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” I teased. “Your contortionist routine?”
A low growl pumped through his chest as he eased past me and shoved up the sash. “Watch and learn.”
“Too bad this show doesn’t come with popcorn,” I mused as Cole maneuvered until he sat on the windowsill, his back to me. “I could have greased you up with some of that butter-flavored oil theaters float their kernels in.” I bit my tongue. “Um, pretend I didn’t say that.”
“Say what?” Bracing his hands on the jambs, he slid his hips forward until he poured himself out the window. He ended up kneeling on mulch in the front flower bed and shot a daring grin over his shoulder as if challenging me to compete with his exit. “Get a move on.”
I was an old pro at sneaking out, and I had the advantage of having less mass than some mountains I could name. All I had to do was throw one leg out the window, brace it on the ground, duck under the sash, then straighten and pull my other leg out to be standing. This was a cake walk compared to the stunts I’d pulled climbing out of my second-floor bedroom back home. Those late-night escapes had required stealth, rope, and sneakers for outrunning Dad’s sixth sense for when I was about to get up to no good.
“You’re lucky you didn’t trample the azaleas.” I breezed past him. “Aunt Nancy would have dragged you by the ear to Mervin’s to buy her new ones, and then she would have stood over your shoulder and watched while you planted the replacements and redid her mulch.”
His long strides overtook me in two steps. “Is that the voice of experience I hear?”
“I might have smashed her impatiens once. And there was an incident with caladiums.” I let him keep pace with me since I had no idea where he had hidden his SUV. “I had to buy replacements out of my allowance, and I spent the weekends doing penance. I missed more than one softball game on account of midnight shenanigans.”
He palmed his keys. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere and everywhere.” Just me and Mags against the world, against our parents, a united front too stubborn to realize how much better we had it than most. “Usually it was just Maggie and me doing our worst, which was still pretty tame. We drank beers in hayfields, drove too fast, went too far, sneaked into clubs down in Jackson where folks were less likely to know who to call if I got caught. Dumb teenager stuff.”
Lights flashed ahead as Cole unlocked the SUV. “Why did you do it?”
“You might have noticed Dad can be guilty of smothering me at times. Busting out of my room and going to hang with my bestie without his permission? It was downright illicit as far as I was concerned. I felt so badass breaking his rules and getting a taste of freedom when I had none. Things are better now that I’m grown and carry a firearm when I leave the house, but we could have fallen out in a big way if we hadn’t worked so hard to find middle ground.” Patience must be Dad’s middle name. It sure wasn’t mine. I had the adoption papers to prove it. “Mags was on the run from her parents’ expectations. They’re old money, and they anticipated she would marry well and young, pop out heirs, then spend her days planning parties and playing hostess.”
We reached the SUV, and he held my door open for me. “She broke the mold.”
“Smashed it.” I smiled through the twinge in my chest as I climbed in and got buckled. “She chose her own path. I’ve always been proud of her for that. I rebelled enough to fill my quota, but I never made a clean break from my roots.”
“I disagree.” His hand, where it rested on the doorframe, flexed as though he were fighting the impulse to slam the door in my face before he finished his thought. “The person you are now is nothing like who you used to be. You might not have made a conscious choice to break from tradition, to turn your back on your past, but you created this life all on your own. You have a family who loves you, friends who are loyal to you, a job that serves your community. This person is remarkable.”
The door closed before I formulated a response, and he took his time joining me. I hadn’t noticed him taking the backpack from my hand, but he stowed it in the rear then got behind the wheel.
Heaviness weighted the air, stretching into infinity before shattering when he flipped on his blinker, and I realized where he was taking me. “We’re going to Cypress Swamp?”
“Yep.”
We parked the SUV in a well-worn patch of grass that had mostly gone to dirt. While I got out and took a look around to see what held his interest in this part of the swamp, he pulled a cooler from the rear and started walking down to the waterline. We had to pass through a patch of brambles to get the full view, and I hesitated when I spotted White Horse’s airboat lying in wait for us.
“We’re going on a boat ride?” I hadn’t been out here since the night I helped fish Jane Doe from the water. “I hadn’t been on an airboat in years until I met you.”