Page 39 of Coyote

He sat back.

I slipped the report into my pocket. I felt it against my thigh the whole way down the hall.

"Tell him after he eats," Rafe said. "He's had enough put in front of him on an empty stomach."

I stood and picked up my burrito. Rafe didn't stop me, and he didn't make me promise, so I gave him nothing.

In the hallway, I could hear Sierra talking. John answered him in that low voice of his. The sound reached into my chest and closed around something.

I could tell him. I could walk into the kitchen, lay the report on the table, and put Sarah's name between us. John would look at me. Then at the paper. After that, he might look toward the door.

When I entered the kitchen, John was halfway through his second burrito. He had turned the chair sideways to make room for his legs.

His eyes found me immediately. "What did Rafe want?"

I sat beside him. "Nothing that can't wait."

John studied my face.

My pulse sped up. I set the foil on the table and peeled it open.

If anyone tried to take him away from me, they'd do it over my dead body. Zaroff. Sarah. Anybody.

There were too many damn people on that ranch.

By noon, every sound had started landing directly behind my eyes.

Boots crossed the porch. Chairs scraped across the kitchen floor. Somebody hammered at the equipment shed while two men argued over a motorcycle engine near the barn. Ransom kept asking if I was okay. Cruz wanted to know if I needed anything. Sierra checked the bandage on my ribs every time he passed, as if the answer might have changed since the last time.

None of them meant any harm.

That almost made it worse.

I found Coyote beyond the second barn, driving in a new fence post. He had his shirt off despite the sun, Nimue looped around his shoulders, and a line of sweat running down his spine.

He heard me coming and looked over his shoulder. "You're supposed to be resting."

"So I've been told."

He set the hammer against the post. His eyes moved over my face, then dropped to the hand I had braced over my ribs. "Something wrong?"

"Can you take me somewhere?"

His whole body stilled. "Where?"

"I don't care." I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. Even out here, the hammering at the shed reached me. "Somewhere quiet. Somewhere nobody needs anything for a few hours."

He breathed out and nodded. "Yeah, I know somewhere."

He gathered his tools and called Sierra on the radio while I waited in the shade.

"North cave," he said. "John's with me."

The radio crackled. "You tell Rafe?" Sierra asked.

Coyote looked toward the house. "You can tell him."

Sierra didn't answer right away.