Page 149 of The Badger in His Burrow

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to make some for you,” I told his back, shooting off a text to Judy Hart.

“That biscuit pie stuff you made once,” he said.

“Seriously?”

He turned, then winced, and I felt bad. “I liked it,” he mumbled, then took another bite of burger.

“Then I’ll make it,” I told him, writing down a variety of vegetables and the baking ingredients I’d need for the biscuit crust.

“Pie and ice cream?”

“Can do.” I added another message to Judy—I knew how much he loved her apple pie. The ice cream I could manage. And the block of cheddar cheese that everyone else would forget that I didn’t just have lying around my fridge, unlike every other kitchen in the state of Wisconsin, apparently.

“Cocoa?” he asked. “It doesn’t have to be whatever crack Taavi makes, either. The regular powdered stuff is good.”

I smiled a little, even though he couldn’t see me. “I can do that, too.” I had vegan hot cocoa, but I knew he liked the regular kind better from the tenseness around his lips every time he had mine. He’d never said a word—he never complained about the dairy-free versions of anything that I inflicted on him—but I could tell. “Anything else?”

He was quiet a moment, chewing the last bite of his burger. “Just you,” he answered.

“You don’t have to request me,” I told him, typing out a couple more things that had occurred to me to add to the list—bread, sandwich fixings, cereal and eggs and bacon.

“Seth?”

I looked up, finding him having turned to look at me, his expression clouded. I immediately put the phone down on the counter, going over to him. He looked up at me, hazel eyes wide and deep with pain and something else I couldn’t identify.

“What is it?” I asked him, reaching out and gently brushing my fingers against an unbruised part of his cheek.

“I—”

I crouched down, one hand on the top of the table, still afraid of hurting him. “Tell me,” I pressed, gently.

“You don’t want to touch me,” he whispered.

“I don’t want tohurtyou,” I replied, surprised at the intensity in my own voice. “The last thing Ieverwant is to hurt you.”

“Please,” he whispered, and I pushed myself standing, ignoring the pain in my knee, and gently pulled him against my stomach. His one good arm came around me, the fingers gripping the fabric of my sweatshirt. I ran my fingers gently through his hair, my other hand resting on his less-injured shoulder.

“El, I love you,” I murmured to him. “I just don’t want to make it any worse.”

He tightened his grip. “I don’t want to hate my own house,” he rasped. “I don’t want to be afraid of it.”

“And you won’t have to be,” I told him, hating myself a little because I didn’t fully believe it. “Smith will catch these assholes, and then it’ll be safe.”

“He came to see me,” Elliot mumbled.

“He?” My heart rate jumped.

“Smith.”Of course. I let out a breath, getting myself under control again. “To get my statement. A description of the ATV driver.” A shudder rolled through him, followed by a hiss of pain.

“El—”

“It’s fine,” he said shortly. “I couldn’t tell him anything,” he half-spat. “Other than the fact that the asshole was human-shaped. He had on full gear—mask, goggles, everything. I couldn’t even tell you skin tone.”

“You were run over by an ATV,” I said gently. “He couldn’t really expect you to have gotten good information.”

He sighed, his breath making a warm spot through my shirt against my belly. “I wanted to,” he replied.

I understood that. Wanting to be able to stop the people hunting him. Tormenting him. People who maybe sympathized with the men who had killed his father. Who had tried to kill him. “I know,” I murmured, stroking his hair. “I wish there was more we could do.”

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