AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turned back to her dishes, standing still. “I’m a mother and a wife. A mother takes care of her child, a wife takes care of her husband.”
“And a husband takes care of his wife, Claire,” he added. “I’m your husband and I want to take care of you.”
“And if I ever want that, I’ll…well, I’ll…I suppose I’d tell you so.”
At hearing that day would likely never come, he stood. It wouldn’t come not because she didn’t want it but because she’d never tell him.
“Then I’m striking a new deal with you.”
She lowered her head, keeping her back to him. “What is it?”
“You willnottouch me that way ever again. Not until you let me do the same.”
He stared at her for many seconds, his breath stuck in his chest.
She snatched another dish and began drying again. “Sounds like a fair deal to me, then.”
He wanted to punch something now. “Where’s Troy Abner?”
“Playin’ down at the bayou, why?”
“The water’s on?” he realized.
“Your men came early this morning and fixed everything. They insisted you stay sleeping.”
He searched the tree lines for his son. “You were going to write me a note. Explaining things to me.”
“I am. Almost done with it.”
“Where exactly is Troy Abner, Momma?”
She suddenly threw down her towel and hurried out the door. “Troy Abner,” she yelled, running down the steps.
He hurried after her, his guts twisted with her sudden fear. “He helped them like a big boy with the well,” she said, looking frantically all around. She gave a sharp cry and took off running.
Hurricane’s breath gushed at seeing little Troy making his way toward her. He hurried after them, watching her drop to the ground and wrap him in her arms, petting his head. He lowered to his knees, putting his arms around both of them, his stomach fucking sick at how she cried and little Troy Abner comforted her. “It’s okay momma, I wasn’t lost. I’ll never get lost.”
Hurricane pressed kisses on Claire’s temple and Troy Abner’s head. “Cause you know these bayous like you know momma’s rice and gravy, is that it?”
He stood and picked his boy up, holding him tight. “I heard you helped my men fix the water?”
He nodded a lot, his big boy pucker all smiles.
“Well, I gotta see this. You wanna show me?”
He scrambled out of his arms and shot toward the house. Hurricane turned to find Claire next to him, her lips quivering still. He stood before her and took her face in his hands. The second her pretty eyes met his, he pressed his lips right on hers, not moving them until the tremble in hers left. He slowly pulled away and hurried to the house, not daring to look back and see what kind of damage he’d done with that move. He didn’t care. She needed that kiss as much as he did. Was a downpayment toward what they owed each other. Every bit. That's what he had to have and what she deserved. She’d get it all, and not a damn thing less.
****
Ace was out of ideas and strength with keeping a safe distance with Sophie. He’d ridden her all over the levees and she was ready to give him whatever shehadto, the thing that required him to bathe, the thing he desperately wanted her to give minus the last outcome.
“Can we go back to the cute little hobbit house?” she asked sweetly when he made it to the land dock. He’d decided that if she continued to beg, he’d rather be somewhere closer if something happened again despite her insistence that nothing would. The episodes were a one time thing with a single person and only a handful caused them in her life.
He realized after all his brainstorming thatherplace was literally the safest place to go since the infirmary was in the same building. He remembered Rukem mentioning their evening date at his apartment where she’d cook for him. “What if we go back to your place and you let me cook for you?” he said. “And then after, you can give me what you’re dying to give.”
She spun from gazing at the bayou and he braced for one of her hugs. She gave them often and each one put a crack in his resistance. He was hanging on by a thread.
“I’m being very good for you, can you tell?” she whispered in his ear, the question arousing him for some reason.
