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Drev returned while Teresa’s clothes were being dried and I cornered him before he could see her.
I’d managed to put on clothes of my own by then. I caught him just inside the front door, with the truck still ticking in the yard behind him. He tried to look past me down the hall.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Otho took him. The guy said his name was Jason, but then he clammed up and refused to say anything else. I went straight to Korfas and told him that he had a mess on his hands. He cursed me out and I came home.”
Drev rubbed the back of his neck. He still had mud on him, dried into the folds of his shirt and crusted along one arm. I’d left him to deal with all of it while I was in the showers with Teresa.
He leaned sideways to get another look around me. “Oh, and Otho’s pissed at me and Teresa.”
That sounded more like a normal visit to town. “For any reason?”
“Probably because I ditched my shift to come out here with Drev.”
Teresa had come up behind me. I turned, and there went every decent thought I’d managed to have since leaving her in the showers.
She’d buttoned my shirt. The sleeves were rolled back unevenly, and the hem brushed her knees. It was too big for her everywhere, but I wanted to see her wearing it when she woke up beside me. She smiled a little when she caught me looking, and I nearly forgot Drev was there.
Drev looked at her, then at me. His ears lifted.
I stared at him until he shut his mouth.
I couldn’t take a wife. I knew that. There was too much wrong with me, too much I’d done that didn’t go away because I’d washed and put on a clean shirt. I’d spent years making a life here that I could stand. I didn’t need some damned female coming around and messing with it.
But what if it wasn’t some damned female?
What if it was Teresa, standing in my hall, waiting for me to get out of her way?
No.
I stepped aside. She came to stand beside me, and I could smell the soap in her hair.
“That’s it,” Drev told her, with a last glance at me. “He’s even gone so far as to draft the other women from your dorm to help him. Robin, and, uh, what’s her name? The sad one who was married to Dezan?”
Teresa’s hand stopped at her rolled cuff. “That would be Julia.”
“Yeah, I guess they’re the unlucky draftees.” Drev leaned against the doorframe. Now that he wasn’t busy staring at my shirt, he looked tired.
Teresa glanced toward the truck. “Do you think they’re safe there with that guy?”
“His name is Jason.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Okay, do you think they’re safe with Jason?”
Drev shrugged. “Probably? He was pretty banged up.”
“We should probably get you back to town so we can talk to Korfas.”
That brought Drev away from the frame. “We’re talking to Korfas?”
He sounded as though I’d announced we were inviting the deputy to move in.
“You’re staying here. Go get Teresa’s clothes; they should be ready by now.”
Drev looked down the hall. “I just got back.”
“Go.”
