Houndstooth rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe I just want to go with you. Keep you company.”
Hero dropped their saddlebag beside his, taking his hand. “Or maybe you don’t know how to stay behind?” Houndstooth grimaced at the insight. “I’ll be with Ruby. You can’t come with me, not riding Abigail—she’s louder in the water than a passel of fighting alligators, and if she sees ferals, she’ll probably try to make friends. Besides, you need to stay here. If Travers catches wind of this . . . you can say I went rogue, that you didn’t know I had this planned. You can say that the whole idea was to get the hippos out one at a time, nice and slow, like they thought. If they catch both of us, though—it would be bad for everyone, Houndstooth. You know that.” Hero kept going before Houndstooth could interrupt them. “Plus, you’ve got to dispose of the rest of the madre del Diablo—it only took about half of what Archie brought to get us set up, and we don’t want to leave that stuff lying around.”
Houndstooth was silent for a long moment, staring at Hero’s face as though trying to find a constellation in a sea of stars. “I wish you weren’t so damnably brilliant, Hero. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” He touched Hero’s face with a tentative hand. “You’ll be a hero, Hero. If this works. You’ll be a hero. I just don’t want you to be a dead hero.”
“I’ll be fine,” Hero said, smiling. “Ruby’s the best there is. She won’t let anything happen to me. You can trust her, and you can trust me. You don’t have to w—”
But Hero’s words were stopped by Houndstooth’s mouth on theirs, his hands on their waist. “I do trust you, you know,” he whispered against their lips—and just like that, there was nothing left to say.
*
Adelia found Houndstooth at the bar half an hour later. He was already half drunk, and well on his way to getting whole drunk, if the speed at which he gulped his whiskey meant anything.
“Mind if I join you?” she said, hoisting herself onto a bar stool.
“Of course, please do,” he said politely, signaling the bartender to get her a glass of water.
“Ever the gentleman.”
“Ever the Englishman, you mean,” he replied, speaking into his nearly empty glass.
Adelia handed Houndstooth the ivory-handled knife. “Here—cleaned and sharpened. Sorry for, you know.” She gestured to his jacket pocket, wiggling her fingers. “Reaching in there, like that. Without asking first.”
Houndstooth turned the knife in his hand a few times, examining the blade. “It looks better than it has since I got it. You have a gift, Adelia.”
She smiled. “I suppose you could say I have the touch.” She sipped her water. “You left England to open a ranch here in the States, didn’t you, Houndstooth?”
He nodded. “Left home for good when I was fifteen. It was all I wanted. I didn’t know any better.”
“Do you miss it?”
“What? England? Every day. And, not at all. They didn’t like me there, you know,” he said, swaying a little on his bar stool. “They didn’t like a damn thing about me, other than my name.”
Adelia laughed. “I meant being a rancher. You used to own a ranch, sì? You used to breed your very own, like Ruby.” She put a hand on his arm, steadying him, then quickly withdrew her hand.
Houndstooth signaled for another drink. “I’d rather not discuss it, if you don’t mind. It ended . . . badly. And I am, after all, English. We don’t like to discuss.”
“It’s okay,” she said, resting a hand on her belly. “I actually already know about what happened. About the fire. Cal told me.” She watched Houndstooth closely. He stared into the glass of brown liquor that appeared in front of him.
“Did he now?” he murmured to the whiskey. “Did he tell you?”
Adelia waited.
“Did he tell you?” Houndstooth repeated. “Did he tell you about who burned down my ranch? Did he tell you about why he hid on the Harriet for all these years, knowing Travers wouldn’t let me in? Oh, he knew,” Houndstooth said, mistaking Adelia’s stillness for doubt. “Travers would never let me through the Gate. I turned him down when he asked me to help introduce more vicious strains into the feral population. He spent years trying to change my mind, but I wouldn’t budge. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t burn my ranch down himself—” He glanced over at Adelia, understanding dawning across his face. She interrupted, talking fast and low.
“Don’t you ever wish you could go back to it, Houndstooth? Just . . . leave this place, give up the capers, give up the vendetta? Just take the money and run?”
He stared at her, his brow knit. “Run?”
“You know.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Leave.”
He shook his head, and it made him sway hard. “I can’t just—”
She grabbed his face in both hands, steadying him. She looked into his eyes with urgent intensity—he feared for a moment that she was going to try to kiss him. She hissed through her teeth. “Forget what you came here to do, Houndstooth. Forget revenge. Leave. Leave tonight.”
“’Oundstooth, you rascal, I ’ave been looking for you everywhere!” Archie’s voice filled the bar, and Adelia jumped away from Houndstooth. He looked at her as though she’d suddenly grown hippo ears, bewilderment writ plain across his normally stoic Englishman’s face. Archie stood in the doorway, beaming, and walked toward them.
“Adelia, ma nénette, ’ow are you feeling? Do your feet pain you at the end of such a long day? Ah, I thought they might, so I asked the bellboy to prepare you a soak of warm water and lavender in the lounge.” Ignoring Adelia’s protests, Archie helped her down from the barstool and began walking her toward the lounge. “I asked ’im to bring a little glass of wine with honey in it, to settle the bébé.” Her voice was as bright as the edge of a freshly sharpened knife. “I know she ’as been kicking you right in the gut these past few days.”
They rounded the corner to the lounge, leaving Houndstooth to stare, lost, into his whiskey at the bar. The moment he was out of sight, Archie rounded on Adelia, sticking a finger into her face.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?”
Adelia’s nostrils flared. She jutted her jaw toward Archie, saying, “It’s called flirting.”
Archie snorted. “I would ’ardly call it anything that advanced. What are you thinking? For the first time in the ten years I’ve known ’im, ’e likes someone who’s worth ’is time. You stay out of it, Adelia.” Archie’s eyes went wide with surprise as she registered pain in her side.