Page 178 of Heartbeats & Highways

“We’re going to stand up and I’m going to wash your body. And then I’m gonna wrap you in a towel and dry you off. Then you’re going to eat. Then I’m curling myself around you and we’re going to sleep.”

“What about all the other stuff?”

“What other stuff?”

“Ikilledher. I know it was self-defense, but God, it was so bloody and violent. I bashed in her skull. That image is branded in my mind, Savage. Every time I close my eyes, I’ll see her like that and I’ll never?—”

“Hey, I know. I know exactly what you’re going through.”

He scooted away from me and hoisted himself up and then he reached down to help me rise. He gently turned me to him. His gaze searched my face and then dropped to my belly.

“The three of you are safe. Nothing else matters. Nothing.”

I let Savage wash me—he seemed to need to touch me as much as I needed to be touched. He was gentle, and with each stroke of his hands against my skin, I came back into my body, little by little.

While I was dragging a comb through my wet hair, I heard a knock on the motel door.

“Probably Crow with your food.” Savage went to investigate. I didn’t shut the bathroom door all the way, so I heard a murmur of conversation but nothing definitive.

“Food’s here!” Savage called out.

I set the comb down, tightened the towel around my body, and went into the bedroom. Savage was already pulling to-go containers out of the bags, but I went to get my change of clothes.

“Oh,” I said with a soft smile, lifting a pair of fuzzy pajama bottoms.

“I told Crow to buy you something comfortable,” he said.

I quickly pulled on my clothes, including a pair of socks, and then I took a seat on the bed. We ate in silence, but every now and again I’d catch Savage watching me.

“I’m okay,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to look at me like I’m going to fall apart.”

“I cleaned the blood from your face. And you were sitting in the tub, letting the water beat down on you,” he replied.

“I feel so . . . heavy,” I said slowly. I closed the Styrofoam to-go container and placed it in the empty bag.

Savage cleared away the rest of the containers and I got up to brush my teeth. Then I slid beneath the covers of the full-sized bed and rolled onto my side. He hit the light and then crawled in behind me. He took me into his arms and rested his chin in the nook where my neck met my shoulder.

Savage pressed a kiss there as his hand went to my belly, resting protectively over it.

“I’m sorry, Evie.”

“For what?”

“For killing him so quickly. I should’ve made him suffer. I should’ve tortured him for the things he’s done to you.”

What did it say about me that I wished he’d suffered more too?

I took a deep breath. “It’s over now.”

I fell asleep, cradled in the safety of Savage’s embrace.

Chapter 47

A soft knockon the motel room door woke me, but I didn’t move. Savage stirred and got out of bed. The front door opened, letting in a slash of early morning light.

“Gimme a sec,” Savage whispered. “I’ll be right out.”

He shut the door.

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