Part 8 (1/2)

”With your hand, at least,” she insisted, crossing the room to his bag. She poked through it until she found the first-aid kit they'd tucked inside, and a brown paper bag full of medicinal supplies they'd grabbed from a convenience store near the motel. He was already trying to sputter out some kind of protest, but she shook her head. ”I can help you,” she said again. ”Go stand over there by the sink. We'll change your bandages.”

He sighed, his shoulders hunching in resignation, but stood still and unflinching as she slowly unrolled the white gauze bandage from around his palm. Although he'd regained a small amount of mobility in the maimed appendage, any healing was from the inside out.

Underneath the stark glare of the vanity's overhead fluorescent lights, the wounds looked as gruesome as ever.

The edges of torn flesh were jagged and ashen, the exposed meat bright red and spongy. It looked painful as h.e.l.l, and as she dabbed at his palm gently with cotton b.a.l.l.s soaked in hydrogen peroxide, she glanced into his eyes. ”I'm sorry.”

”It doesn't sting,” he said. ”It's just cold.”

Earlier in the day, there had been enough damage from the bullet that Tessa had been able to see clear through Rene's hand at a point in the center. That part of the wound, at least, had closed, for which she was grateful, because that had been disturbing. Rene, in fact, had held his hand up to his face, pretending to peek through the hole in a morbid attempt to amuse her.

He'd been doing that all day, as if her concern for him bothered him more than his hand. Which is kind of sweet, she thought, glancing up at him again.

”You know, you surprise me, pischouette,” he said.

”How's that?”

”This,” he said with a nod at his hand. ”Everything that happened today. I really thought you'd fall apart on me. But you did real good.”

She laughed, pressing squares of gauze against either side of his wound. ”Thank you, I think.”

He helped her hold the pads in place as she wound a fresh ribbon of bandage around them. ”Come on, pischouette. You know what I mean. Your clothes...your makeup...it takes you three G.o.dd.a.m.n hours in the bathroom every morning.”

Only earlier that day, this might have p.i.s.sed her off, but now, Tessa just laughed along with Rene.

”You aren't exactly what I'd call 'low maintenance,' chere,” he told her. Her smile faltered as she reached for a roll of white first-aid tape. ”My grandmother taught me to appreciate nice things,” she said, peeling back a strip. ”She was very beautiful and very elegant, and I always wanted to be like her.”

She pressed the tape in place against his hand, then tore off another. ”She was the only woman in the Brethren who ever got to leave the compound. My Grandfather would take her with him whenever he'd travel. She visited all over the world. He loved her very much.” She looked up at Rene as she finished bandaging his hand. ”I know you probably think the Grandfather is a monster, and he is in a lot of ways. But he wasn't always like that.”

It had always occurred to her that one of the reasons the Grandfather had always been so hard on Brandon, and yet at the same time had allowed her brother to enjoy a private tutor and to forgo his bloodletting for as long as he had-luxuries other Brethren never would have been allowed-was because of Eleanor's intercession.

”I think after my grandmother died, Brandon reminded him too much of her in too many ways,” she said, her mind turning back to the afternoon in which she'd confronted Augustus about breaking Brandon's hands. That had been the last straw for the Grandfather, she suspected; Brandon's determination not only to escape the Brethren, but to go to college, as well. It would have been something that Eleanor might have tried; a moment of Eleanor in Brandon's otherwise ordinarily quiet and reserved nature that must have just seemed too reminiscent in the Grandfather's eyes.

”I think a part of him died along with her,” she said softly, her eyes distant, her voice nearly a whisper. She cradled Rene's swaddled hand gently between hers and felt dim tears well in her eyes. She blinked against them, snapping out of the reverie of her distant, melancholy thoughts, and managed a small laugh. ”Anyway, that's where I get it-all of that with my hair, makeup, clothes and whatnot. My grandmother taught me.”

And for four years, I couldn't have any of it.

Martin had stripped her of all the fine clothes Eleanor had bought for her. In the Davenant house, Tessa had worn plain clothes, often hand-me-downs from other women in the clan. She hadn't been allowed to put on makeup. On the occasions she was allowed to leave and visit her family, she remembered pinching her cheeks like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind just to lend them some semblance of healthy color.

When she'd left Kentucky, she'd taken several thousand dollars with her, money that Martin kept tucked inside a large manila envelope. He stowed the envelope away with a leather-bound ledger in a hollowed-out book in the library and over the years, Tessa had seen him put cash in and take it out of this secret cache, even though he'd been unaware of her.

She'd taken both the money and the ledger and gone to a department store in Lexington. Here, she'd bought a pair of suitcases and filled them to overflowing capacity with all of the designer clothes and shoes she could afford.

My way of saying a great big f.u.c.k you to Martin, she thought.

At that moment, she sensed the warm, fluttering presence of the baby in her mind as it stirred within her womb and pressed her hand to her belly reflexively.

”etes-tu bien?” Rene asked, his brows raised in concern. Are you all right?

”Yes.” She smiled. ”It's just the baby. It moves sometimes. I can sense it. Do you want to feel?”

He blinked, taking a small, hedging step back, as if surprised, and Tessa laughed. ”Come on. You grabbed hold of the barrel of a loaded gun today. I think touching my stomach will be a piece of cake.”

She caught him by his uninjured hand and pulled her s.h.i.+rt up, exposing the slightly rounded swell of her belly. ”Here.” She pressed his hand against her and was immediately, acutely aware of the warmth of his palm against her skin. In that moment, her mind snapped back to the night before, when he'd pressed her down against the couch, laying atop her, and his hand had slid with electrifying friction along the length of her thigh, caressing the outermost curve of her b.u.t.tock.

Tessa blinked up at Rene and found him looking back at her, directly in the eyes. He didn't say anything, but she could feel the hesitation and tension in his arm.

”Is it kicking?” he asked after a moment, giving his head a small shake and averting his gaze to his hand.

”No.” Tessa giggled quietly. ”It's too little to feel anything like that yet. You have to open your mind.”

His brow arched slightly. ”Oh. Je suis desole.” Sorry.

She watched his expression change as for the first time he allowed himself to be aware of the tiny, delicate life growing inside of her.

Any hint of uncertainty drained from his face as his eyes widened, his brows lifting with wonder. He stared at his hand, at her belly beneath, the corners of his mouth unfolding in a soft, marveling smile.

”Saint merde,” he said. Holy s.h.i.+t.

”Do you feel it?” she asked, even though she could see the answer plainly in his face.

His smile widened as he nodded. ”That's amazing, pischouette,” he said, his voice small and quiet. ”That...that's d.a.m.n likely the most amazing thing I've ever felt in my life.”

”I can't sense it all of the time,” Tessa said. ”Not yet anyway. It's still too early. But sometimes I do, like right now. It doesn't have thoughts yet, not like you or I do. There's just that-all warm inside, light somehow.”

”Like suns.h.i.+ne,” he said, and when she nodded, he glanced at her, raising his brow. ”So if all we can do is sense it in our minds, why are you holding my hand against your belly?”

She could have told him that it was because the baby must have been able to feel it whenever someone pressed against her stomach, that this awareness was enough to stimulate the little growing bundle of neurons that served as its primitive brain stem. She could have told him that this was what they were sensing together, the baby's reaction to his touch, the pressure of his hand against the shelter of her womb. She could have told him this, but instead, she said something else, something equally as true. ”Maybe I like it there.”

She'd never met a man like Rene before, someone who could make her laugh out loud or want to wring his neck all in the course of one conversation; one who could charm her, move her, infuriate, amuse, challenge and fascinate her. All that afternoon, she'd been reminded of how her grandmother Eleanor had been with the Grandfather, how they had behaved together, interacted with each other, how much emotion they had been able to convey without saying a single word. She'd been reminded because she'd seen it happening with her and Rene, and she'd come to realize that it had been growing between them all along.

Grandmother Eleanor would have loved Rene, she thought. And oh, dear G.o.d, I think I do, too.

His brow arched a bit more and he stepped toward her, collapsing the s.p.a.ce between them to no more than mere inches. He moved his hand from her stomach, trailing the cuff of his knuckles up between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, caressing the side of her neck, making her s.h.i.+ver. ”Is that so?” he murmured, his fingers uncurling against her face, his palm cradling her cheek.

He leaned toward her, and Tessa felt her heart-which had started pounding beneath her sternum in a frantic, fluttering rhythm- quicken all the more. Her breath hitched once, twice, then fell still, caught in the back of her throat. The pad of his thumb brushed lightly against her lips, making her hiccup softly, a shudder going through her entire body. He smiled and c.o.c.ked his head, leaning closer, until the front of his s.h.i.+rt touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

His lips lightly brushed hers as he used his hand to guide her face, tilting her chin up. Then his mouth settled against her, a gentle, lingering kiss that made her heart hammer, and sent chills trembling all the way through her. The tip of his tongue slipped between her lips, dancing against her own, and he uttered a low, hungry sound, like a cross between a growl and a groan as he pulled her near, kissing her deeply. He pressed her so tightly against him, she could feel the heat from his chest through the fabric of his s.h.i.+rt, and the hardening strain of his growing arousal against her through his jeans.

When he pulled back, just enough to draw his lips away from hers, leaving their foreheads nearly touching, the tips of their noses together, Tessa gasped quietly, trembling.”Merde,” Rene breathed with a quiet, shaky laugh. s.h.i.+t. After a moment, he stepped back, leaving an abrupt chill in the air and against her body. ”I...I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry, Tessa. I don't...I don't know what got into my head.”

”It's all right,” Tessa whispered. She didn't seem to be able to summon any more voice than this.

He shook his head. ”No, it's not.” He forked his fingers through his hair and turned, walking away. ”You're married, pischouette. I mean, your husband may have had six wives, but I'm sure he still cares about you and wouldn't-”

”He doesn't care,” Tessa said. ”Trust me.”