He tossed her a cookie. “Here.”
It flew past her and she scrambled after it.
“We’re going to be living rough for a while,” he said. “Get used to it.”
“We could look in the restaurant.”
Yeah, they could. He probably should. But the chances of her agreeing to stay behind were shit. “We’ve got energy bars from the drugstore. That’ll do.”
She sat back on the edge of the bed and tore into the cookie.
“I’ve been thinking about what we should do next,” he said.
She nodded and munched away. A crumb sat at the corner of her mouth, messing with his thinking. The urge to lick it away was distractingly strong. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “As your former captive, I just wanted to say how much I like this use of the word we. Especially when you actually mean it. Go team.”
The pistol sat beside her on the bed, silently accusing him. “Ros …”
The smile she gave him turned him inside out and upside down. She’d clearly been a happy person before everything had gone to shit, you could tell. He’d never imagined ending up with a chirpy chatterbox. Nothing had worked out how he’d imagined. But to see her smiling despite everything and no matter the state of the world did something to him.
“So what are our choices?” she asked.
“There is somewhere to go.” Not a place he could go, but for her Blackstone would be perfect. The alternative would be to have her running amok in a world she couldn’t handle. A world likely to kill her if he didn’t watch her every second of every day. He didn’t trust himself that far, not now. What if he f**ked up? What then? She died.
Nick stretched out his hand, splaying his fingers. All of his choices sucked. He hated each and every one of them. Her safety came first, but he didn’t know if he could do it. He didn’t know if he could give her up and he didn’t know if he could give her what she needed.
Whatever the f**k that might be.
“Where can we go?” she asked, trust burning bright in her eyes.
Thought he’d had it all figured out, but he didn’t know shit. There was the truth. He had no business demanding she believe in him and rely on him. Not with the way he treated her.
“There are no bullets in the gun,” he said softly.
She paused. “What did you say?”
“The gun I gave you. It’s empty.”
Her words, when they came, were slow, careful. “Why would you do that, Nick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. Was it some kind of test?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She nodded and looked away, face carefully set. No surprise, though. That’s what was wrong with this picture. Shit.
“You knew?” he asked, voice incredulous.
She gave him a grim smile. “I told you I knew about guns. You emptied the clip when I was gathering clothes in the shop, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This is never going to work, is it?” Her lips looked pinched and she stared at her hands for a long moment. “Of course it isn’t. I was so angry at you but now … I’m, um, I’m tired.”
“Roslyn.”
“You know, I wondered how long it would take you to admit it. How much guilt I’d have to heap on you till you cracked,” she said. “If you’d crack …”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” She slipped the half-eaten cookie back into its plastic bag. “You always are, Nick. But things stay the same.” Her face turned away from him and she crawled onto the bed, placing the remains of the cookie on the bedside table. “You can’t possibly guarantee you’ll always be there for me, because accidents happen. You don’t know what the future will bring. But you won’t help me to protect myself. You say you want me, but what you really want is some pathetic doll, completely dependent on you and available to f**k at your convenience. That’s the truth.”
The quiet in the room was complete when she stopped speaking. She lay down on her side, facing away from him. A pretty obvious message that he chose to ignore.
“I don’t want a doll,” he said. “I just don’t want you to die.”
Silence.
“Roslyn—”
“I have made some bad decisions, I’m not denying it. Thing is, those situations will keep occurring if we don’t change what we’re doing. The way we’re behaving toward each other has to shift. Either that, or we need to part ways.” Her voice sounded scarily matter-of-fact. “I don’t see any other choices.”
Panic stirred inside him. Without thought, he moved to her side, lying down behind her. She stiffened, but didn’t otherwise object to the arm he put around her waist. The sunlight had started to fade, the room dulling down to shadows. There’d been a torch out the back of the shop they’d raided and some girly scented candles in the drugstore. All of them sat in their packs in the back of the pickup. He should go get them. But for the moment, he needed to stay with her more. He needed to fix this.
Problem was, in the past he’d always bailed at times like these. Chances were he’d say the wrong thing now for sure. His mind scrambled to come up with something he could use. Something to soothe her.
“Thank you for trying to come back yesterday,” he said, getting close enough to press up against as much of her as possible, his front to her back. “It does matter.”
“It didn’t work out so well.”
“No. But you tried.”
She made a humming noise. “I am sorry about the cabin.”
“I know,” he said, fingers daring to toy with hers. “We’ll find somewhere else.”
A small nod.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’m going to go out to the truck and bring in our stuff. Then I’m going to put the bullets back in your clip. Tomorrow, we’re going to start talking over scenarios. Situations you might face and how you’d deal with them. Stuff like that. I’ll teach you some skills. Okay?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes. We might even work our way to looking at clearing a room together. Maybe. When I judge you’re ready, and not before.”
Ros wriggled about, rolling over to face him. Cautious eyes studied his face. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”