Page 47 of Lone Star Showdown

“Another way of coping is distraction,” he went on, moving her toward the sofa. “For instance, we can read through the reports you were trying to access. Or we can sit here and watch the sun come up. That window has a particularly good view of the sunrise.”

Jericho motioned toward the large window to the right of the fireplace. It did indeed have a good view, and the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. Normally, it would have been soothing to watch as the sunlight spread over the pastures and trees.

Normally.

But there was nothing normal about this.

“How do you do it?” she came out and asked. “How do you forget what happened and just move on?”

He shrugged. Then, winced since the movement obviously tugged at his stitches. That was her reminder to get him off his feet.

The sofa would have been safer, but instead, Rachel led him back into the bedroom, where she could hopefully coax him into getting some actual rest. She had him sit, resting his back against the headboard, and she joined him. Thanks to the design of the house, the window here also had great eastern views where they would be able to watch the sunrise after all.

“How do I forget?” he repeated. “I don’t,” he said, his voice soothing.

So soothing. And he slipped his arm around her, gently moving her so they were body to body. Thankfully, not touching his stitched shoulder.

“I just accept that I used my training and wits to outwit a sonofabitch,” Jericho tacked onto that. “Which, by the way, pisses me off.”

That last part definitely wasn’t so soothing, and she turned to look at him. She saw the anger in his eyes.

“No way should I have let Arnez get me in that position,” Jericho finished.

Rachel gave him a flat stare. “He blew up your van with a grenade,” she spelled out. “And you didn’t even know he had grenades since the report about that didn’t come in until after you’d left.” She stopped, and she felt another round of tears burning her eyes.

“No, no, no,” Jericho was quick to respond. “You’re not going to say you should have somehow managed to warn me because it wouldn’t have done any good. Do you know how incredibly lucky Arnez was to hit a moving vehicle with a grenade? Sure, he used a launcher, but that still took a lot of luck on his part.”

She shook her head. “But if you had known—”

“Nothing would have changed,” he interrupted. “Marco thinks Arnez was driving on an old ranch trail that runs parallel to the road. He saw the van’s headlights, picked a spot and fired the launcher. Then, he hurried to stun the three of us. Chickenshit coward,” he added in a mutter. “You couldn’t have stopped any of this.”

She so wanted to believe that, but her heart felt wounded and crushed over what’d happened. All the while she’d been safe at his place.

“I wish I could have helped,” she said under her breath.

“You did.” Jericho smiled. “Oh, trust me, you did. You were a great motivation for me to get the hell out of there and come back to you.”

That seemed so…serious. And it was. Rachel could feel this attraction for him rushing toward something stronger. Something that had been there before life had gotten in the way. Before she’d made the decision to let him leave.

Now, that felt like a huge mistake.

But she wasn’t so sure it had been back then. Back then, it felt as if neither of them had been ready for what was happening now.

Of course, her mind began to spin with all sorts of questions. The timing though seemed off for getting the answers. Not with so much uncertainty. Yes, Arnez was dead, but there were indications he hadn’t been the one who’d done those revenge killings.

And that meant the danger could happen all over again.

The timing was definitely not right for asking those what-ifs.

“We should read any new reports,” she said, and even she could hear the lack of enthusiasm for that in her voice. Not good. Because those reports could stop someone else from being murdered.

“Reports,” Jericho repeated, clearly not enthusiastic either. Still, that didn’t stop him from giving the command. “Spike, reports on screen. Most recent first. We can read while we watch the sunrise,” he added in a whisper to Rachel.

“Reports loading,” Spike replied, and then added, “What can I tell you, baby? I’ve always been bad.” A line she recalled from one of the Buffy episodes.

Despite everything, it made her smile.

“Did you program in all of Spike’s dialogue from the TV show?” she asked.

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