Page 240 of Hidden Nature

“They found a box with personal items of the victims. Like… keepsakes. And then?”

She pressed a hand to her belly. “Oh God, they found a well, they found bone saws, lye. It looks like they cut up the victims, dumped them in there, threw in lye.”

“Tell me she’s not going to do some time in an institution. Tell me she’s going to prison.”

“Not up to me. Either way, she’ll never get out. Not with what they’ve found.”

“Why don’t we sit outside? You sit on the porch. Water or wine?”

“Oh. Can I have both?”

“I’ll get you both. One thing first.”

Now he pulled her in, hung on. “I need to do that leaning. I heard those shots… I love you.”

“When you ran in, and Tic? Part of me knew it was all right. I could get through it. I felt sick, my hands were shaking, but I knew I could get through it.”

“Sit.” He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. “I’ll be right back.”

She sat, breathed in and out, listened to the birds. It wasn’t like a dream this time, she thought. And if it all played back in dreams?

She’d done what she had to do.

He brought her a glass of water, a glass of wine, and one for himself.

“Can you put it away now?”

“It’ll take a few days. I fired my weapon, and a man’s dead. Self-defense, and there’s no question of that. But there’s a process. I’m fine with it. And Terry Brown will get married in a few weeks.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She looked at him. “Yes, it’ll take time, but I can put it away. Janet Anderson, and all the rest, their families… It’ll be horrible for them, but they’ll know. And Terry? His family won’t have to grieve.”

“This didn’t ruin the house for you?”

“No.” She took a sip of wine and stared at the greening trees, the splashes of color from the redbuds. “I won’t let it.”

“I don’t want it to, but I want you to move in here.”

“Nash, I’ll be fine.”

“Sure, but I want you to move in here. Tonight moved that step up. I’d planned to take it when I had the library done, your office planned out.”

“My office?”

He shot her a look. “Did you really think I wanted a sitting room? You can keep your place as a sanctuary when you need it, if you do. Or we finish it, and you fold it into the family business, whatever.

“It’s your house, so you do what you want with it. But I’m asking you to live with me. Here.”

He drank some wine. “Maybe it’s not altogether fair to push you on this when you’re still a little shaky, but I am anyway.”

“You want to live together?”

“I want to live with you. I want you to help make this house home, for both of us. That’s this step.”

“It’s a big one. And there are more?”

“I’m not going to take the shine off Theo, or Drea. They plan their wedding, they have their wedding. Then we can start planning ours.”

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