They say that time heals all wounds, and I suppose that it must be true. It didn’t take long for me to recover from the skinwalker attack. Despite my apparently dramatic collapse, I was up in the afternoon of the following day, gingerly testing my injured leg and earning disapproving but slightly relieved looks from my husband. He came to bed that night pensive, stretching out next to me on the mattress and laying there on his back staring at the ceiling, watching the play of lamplight against the rafters.
I rolled onto my side and rested my hand gently on his breastbone. “What’s the matter, Thom?”
“I’m worried,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” I waited for him to continue, knowing there must be more than just those two words coming. But he stayed silent next to me, just staring upward. I frowned a little. “What are you worried about this time?”
“Some of the others are talking about establishing something like trade routes,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure how I feel about it. I don’t think I like it.”
“That would be exactly why nobody told you,” I said, probably more tartly than I should have. But it was the truth. No one had mentioned it to him because everyone was afraid of his possibly vehement reaction to the whole idea.
If anyone among us was paranoid about our security, it was Thomas Ambrose.
Then again, if there was anyone who had a right to be, it was him.
He shot me a look that was as betrayed as it was hurt. I winced.
“Thom—”
“You knew,” he said, his voice soft.
Definitely more hurt than angry. “Of course I knew,” I said quietly. “Thom, how could I not know? I’m surprised this is the first you’ve heard of it. We’ve been working on this for weeks—almost two months. It’s not anything new or surprising. At least, it shouldn’t be.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
I winced. “I just didn’t,” I said, not wanting to tell him that I was as afraid as the others of what his reaction would be and that I hadn’t wanted to deal with the brunt of it.
He winced, too, then rolled onto his side. “Mar,” he whispered, “I don’t want you to hesitate telling me anything because you’re afraid of what I’m going to say or do.”
“There’s always going to be things I don’t want to tell you, Thom.” I rested my forehead against his as his hands slid up underneath my nightshirt, skimming the flesh of my ribcage and sides. “But I didn’t tell you this time because it wasn’t my place to tell you. Kellin’s spearheading this effort—it’s her thing, her place to tell you. Not mine.”
“You still could have—”
I pressed a finger against his lips, silencing him. “I made a choice not to and I stand by that choice. I know that my telling you that I don’t think it’s a bad idea is going to make you change your mind about how you feel about all of it, but I’ll throw it out there anyway. I do think it’s a good and necessary idea, though we’ll have to make sure that we have some fail-safes and some safety measures built into all of it.”
“Oh yeah?” he said softly. “Like what?”
“Like we establish a trading post that’s not here, but within a few hours’ ride of here,” I said. “No one comes directly to the settlement to trade—not early on, anyway. We’ll meet at our trading outpost and then things will be brought back and forth. It’s not much, but it’ll give us a buffer, right?”
“Right,” he echoed. He was still running his hand up and down my side. I shivered.
I don’t know if he’s doing that absentmindedly or on purpose, but I sure as hell know what it’s doing to me. “Thom,” I said.
“Mm?”
“If you’re going to keep doing that, blow out the lamp. We can work through the rest of my precautions later.”
His brows lifted, his face a play of light and shadow as the lamp flickered.
I kissed him gently. “If you won’t, I will.”
He grinned and blew out the light.
