“Wanna bet?” Mace asked.
I stared at him. He stared at me.
He didn’t look blank and broody and that emotional flash didn’t cut through his eyes. He looked determined and angry and I got the weird impression that it didn’t have to do simply with Linnie being dead, me getting shot and us being sequestered at The Castle.
I changed tactics. “God! Were you this overbearing when we were together?”
“I should have been,” Mace fired his shot without hesitation.
My head jerked and my hands formed into fists. I couldn’t believe he just said that. I didn’t even know what he meant by that.
What did he mean by that?
“Girlie, hate to break this up, it’s great for entertainment value alone, but you do know you two have an audience,” Tod cal ed from somewhere behind me.
I sucked in breath through my nose, too angry to be embarrassed.
“Thank God we’re over,” I threw at Mace as my parting shot.
That’s when I saw the flash dart through his eyes again. It was there then gone before I could read it.
“I’m keeping your phone,” Mace informed me.
“Have at it.” I gave up and walked away.
“Have at it.” I gave up and walked away.
That was it. Daisy got busy getting everyone settled and we disbursed.
Juno put her front paws on the pul out bed, taking my mind from my thoughts.
“You can’t get up here. Momma’s got a gunshot wound and there isn’t enough room.”
Juno woofed.
“I know, baby. The floor is cold and hard but it’s al you’ve got tonight. We’l be home soon.”
Juno woofed again.
“Quiet, girl. It’s six o’clock in the morning and there’s a house ful of people trying to sleep.”
A soft woof then Juno plopped down. I heard her big dog groan as she stretched out on the floor. Then another big dog groan slash sigh as she fel to her side.
“You’re such a good dog,” I whispered and I meant it.
I heard an even softer woof and I felt my lips form a smal smile.
I punched my pil ows, rol ed to rest on my unwounded side and laid smack in the middle of the bed. The doctor said the painkil ers might make me drowsy. He was not wrong.
Within minutes, I was asleep.
* * * * *
It was an awake/asleep dream. I knew it because I had a lot of them. Always morning, my favorite time of the day when I was with Mace. For your information, I would have welcomed asleep/asleep dreams of Mace but I normal y dreamed of asleep/asleep dreams of Mace but I normal y dreamed of weird shit like mutant snakes terrorizing Denver or being on a road trip with Charo, her shouting, “Coochie Coochie,” at passing truckers. I didn’t know what these dreams said about me or the state of my unconscious mind and I didn’t want to know.
The awake/asleep dreams were always like this, part-conscious, part-unconscious, right when I woke up but before I was real y awake. It was then I would feel Mace’s imaginary heat behind me, his hard body pressed to mine, his arm tucked tight around my bel y, his breath against my neck.
I went with it as I always did, liking the memory. It was one of the seven hundred, twenty-five thousand things about him I missed most, waking up with him holding me, feeling safe, feeling wanted, feeling loved, al three of those feelings I’d never real y felt in my whole life.