Page 19 of Wilder’s Mistake

I remove my cut and place it within reach. The gun stays beside the bed. My boots stay on.

Lucy watches me check the window, corridor and front-gate camera.

“You do that every night?”

“Most.”

“Even before Perdition knew my name?”

“The world was dangerous before you saw this part of it.” She’s quiet for a moment. I lie beside her on top of the covers. Lucy rolls toward me and rests her head against my shoulder as though the place has always belonged to her.

My hand settles at her hip and she falls asleep first.

I stay on top of the covers with one hand at her hip and my gun within reach. A radio crackles twice in the corridor. Somewhere near the garage, an engine turns over and settles into idle before a pair of brothers leave for the next watch.

Lucy doesn’t wake. She trusts the room because I’m in it. The knowledge should calm me. Instead, it sharpens the fear I haven’t said aloud. She can learn where the exits are. She can sleep beside a weapon and accept the sound of bikes at one in the morning. None of that means she will want it every day.

I listen to the radios beyond the door and wonder whether she will still fit against me this easily once the gates open again and she has the choice to leave and choose a different life.

CHAPTER 5

LUCY

At nine Tuesday morning, I sit at the Kingdom Come bar in yesterday’s skirt and Wilder’s black shirt while Cash counts ammunition ten feet away.

Wilder has been awake since before dawn. He moves between bikes and brothers with a folded map in one hand, his cut open over a dark T-shirt. Men older than he is listen to him. Tank changes position after two quiet words. A prospect runs for another radio when Wilder points toward the east fence.

The authority is not loud. It doesn’t need to be. I’ve spent six years imagining him in bed. I gave far less thought to the man he would be everywhere else. He enters the clubhouse carrying heat and the smell of fuel.

“You need to eat,” he says.

Cash pushes a plate toward me. The eggs are overcooked and the toast is black along one edge.

“A prospect made it,” Cash says.

“I should have guessed.” I laugh.

He takes his ammunition into the back corridor, leaving us alone at the end of the bar.

Wilder drinks from my coffee.

“Hey! That was mine.”

“You can have it back.” He starts to push it back my way.

“It’s okay. It looks like you need it more.”

I watch him set down the cup. The same steady expression has carried him through waking up accidentally married, a threat from Perdition and a sleepless night.

“Why were you so calm in Vegas?”

His eyes meet mine. “What do you mean?”

“When we woke up. I was naked in a destroyed hotel room with a marriage certificate on the floor. You looked as though the morning had gone according to plan.”

He glances toward the men by the front windows. “My room.” He offers his hand. I take it.

His room still carries the traces of us. My blouse hangs over the chair with one button missing, and the missing black pin is still somewhere on the floor.