Page 80 of Mongrels United
“And I’m coming with you,” Grady added.
Nash sat up with a jerk. “No! No way in hell are you stepping into that forest, Grady! Are youcrazy?”
Grady realized she’d threaded her hands together anyway. She squeezed them to make them stay still and waited out Nash’s reaction.
He fumed. Swore.
She waited.
Nash scrubbed at his hair with his fingers, making the thick mass even messier than it had been. “You set me up,” he said, his voice quieter. “You wanted me to see it from your side, first.”
Grady nodded. “You still have trouble doing that, sometimes.”
Nash gave a frustrated growl. “I can see why you think you have to go with me. This has been your project all along. But you know they’re going to try and kill me. If you’re there, they’re not going to step around you because you’re the Chief of Staff.”
“I know,” she said softly. “But that’s why I have to be there. It has to be official, Nash.”
“Then send in Westcott. I’ll put up with having her there. It’s her sort of business.”
“She has a different role to play,” Grady said. “And if I can’t stop you doing this, I want to be there with you.”
Nash swore again. Then, reluctantly, with a great heaving sigh, he nodded.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Shortly after midday on the day of the grand final tankball game, Grady and Nash set out on foot from the tavern building, to walk across the open edges of the Meadow, which stretched nearly all the way to the forest.
Grady wore utilitarian engineer’s pants, with the multipockets, in a dark blue color, with a sleeveless shirt, for it was warm under the sunlights—summer had come to the Palatine. She had pinned her hair back in a tight roll at the back of her neck, to keep it out of the way.
Nash wore similar pants, a collarless white shirt, and a light jacket. For the first half kilometer, he walked with his hands in his pockets, his head down.
When the forest was close enough for Grady to make out individual trees, she said, “The party will be underway by now. I hope attendance is good.”
“Free liquor guarantees it will be,” Nash assured her.
“I got the idea from you, so if it doesn’t work, I’ll know who to blame.” Grady looked around. “It certainly feels deserted to me, here. But I’m not used to the Palatine. Do you normally walk this far and not seeanyone?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Nash said blandly. “I’ve never walked this far in the Palatine.”
She gave a soft laugh. “You burn off your calories a different way.” She was thinking of the bare knuckle fighting she had first seen him doing.
“I do,” Nash said, his voice low, and she realized he meant something else entirely. “That’s the redwood, there. See it? The tallest one, almost directly in front of us.”
The tree certainly did stand out. It was the only very tall tree with an upright trunk that looked as though it had been machined to symmetrical perfection and straightness. The forest was made of a huge variety of trees—Grady remembered that from early school lessons. Tree seeds were carefully collected, and when one tree died, another tree of the same species was planted in their place. But the original redwoods had endured right along with the ship. So had some of the oaks and a single baobab, with its twisted, swollen trunk and gnarled limbs.
Nash took Grady’s hand in his.
“Should we be seen like—”
“Don’t care,” Nash said firmly. He angled their direction a few degrees so they were heading directly for the redwood.
She glanced at his face. At the tight jaw and his gaze, which remained firmly fixed ahead. Suddenly, she understood. He was afraid of what was to come. He would never admit it to anyone, including her, but his fear was building the closer they came to the trees.
And he’d reached for her hand, to drive it away.
Grady’s own chest and belly had been tight with worry and fear, but now the tension evaporated. It didn’t matter what happened in the forest. Nash had reached for her. He needed her. He wasn’t invulnerable. He wasn’t unfeeling. And he’d let her see it all.
They came up on the edge of the forest, the big redwood soaring overhead. By unspoken agreement, they came to a halt at the foot of the monstrous tree. Grady could hear crickets chirping, somewhere inside the trees.
