I am a mechanic.
Adam's first wife had been all soft curves, and I am mostly muscle.
Not very feminine, my mother liked to complain.
And then there were those idiosyncrasies that were the aftermath of rape.
Adam held out his hand to me, and I put mine in his.
He had gotten very good at inviting my touch.
At not touching me first.
I looked at our clasped hands as we went down the porch stairs.
I'd thought that I was getting better, that the involuntary flinching, the fear, was leaving.
It occurred to me that maybe he was just getting better at working around my fears.
"What's wrong?" he asked, as we stopped beside his truck.
It was so new there was still a sticker on the rear-seat window.
He'd replaced his SUV after one of his wolves had dented the fender defending me--followed by a separate incident when an ice elf (honking huge fae) who was chasing me dropped the front half of a building on it.
"Mercy--" He frowned at me.
"You don't owe me for the damned truck." His hand was still holding mine, and I had a moment to realize that our fickle mate bond had given him an insight into what I was thinking, before a vision dropped me to my knees.
IT WAS DARK, AND ADAM WAS AT HIS COMPUTER IN HIS home office.
His eyes burned, his hands ached, and his back was stiff from so many hours of work.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
No wife to protect from the world.
It had been a long time since he'd loved her--it is dangerous to love someone who doesn't love you in return.
He'd been a soldier too long to put himself deliberately in danger without a good reason.
She loved his status, his money, and his power.
She'd have loved it better if it had belonged to someone who did as she told him.
He didn't love her, but he'd loved taking care of her.
Loved buying her little presents, loved the idea of her.
Losing her had been bad; losing his daughter was much, much worse.
Jesse trailed noise and cheer everywhere she went-- and her absence was .
.
.