He was sitting on the sofa watching television. He tilted his head back so he could see her. “You okay?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But I will be.”
And she would. She knew she would. Just not tonight. Tonight, it was all still too close, her nerves were still too raw. When she got into bed, Tricks jumped up and snuggled against her, as if she somehow knew Bo needed comforting.
The need to touch Tricks was overwhelming. Bo stroked the soft fur, trying not to think how close she had come to losing her. “Sweet girl,” she whispered, remembering Tricks as a puppy, a lightning-fast ball of white fuzz hell-bent on attacking life and sampling everything she could, tripping over her own paws, diving at Bo’s shoelaces, splashing wildly in the plastic wading pool Bo had bought for her. She tried to hold on to that line of thought, to make herself smile and use the good memories to keep the bad ones at bay.
She couldn’t do it. The fragile smile in the dark faded, and the other memories rushed in. Lying there, she was swamped by that horrible moment when she’d been fighting to get to Tricks, knowing she was too late. For a few minutes that were so devastating she could barely think about them, she’d thought she had just seen Tricks killed in front of her. That yelp—what if it had been the last sound Tricks ever made?
The raw sound of anguish tore from her throat. She buried her face against Tricks’s neck as sobs shook her. She hated crying; she kept her emotions battened down and buttoned up, because viewing everything pragmatically and evenly was the best way to get through life. She wanted to stop, wanted to put this behind her and get back in balance.
She had always tried so hard to keep Tricks safe, and today she hadn’t been able to. If Morgan hadn’t been there, Kyle would have killed her.
She was so mired in distress that she didn’t hear the bedroom door open, but she wasn’t startled when the bed gave under Morgan’s weight as he sat down with his hip against her back. “Hey,” he murmured as he smoothed strands of hair away from her wet face. “It didn’t happen. Keep that thought front and center: it didn’t happen.”
“I know,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “But it was so close. I couldn’t get to her. I saw what he was about to do, and I couldn’t move fast enough. I felt as if my feet had been glued down.”
“For what it’s worth, in a crisis like that how things feel and how they really are are two different things. You were moving like you’d been shot out of a cannon.”
“And I still wouldn’t have been there fast enough.” Heartbreak was plain in her tone. She would have failed. Tricks would have died.
The bedroom wasn’t dark because of the light from the landing coming through the open door; she could see Tricks’s brows quirking quizzically at this unusual behavior from both her main human and her auxiliary human, her face so expressive she might as well be speaking. Bo’s heart swelled as she trailed a tender finger down the golden head to rub between Tricks’s eyes.
For all of Tricks’s life, Bo had done everything she could to keep her safe and healthy, to give her a happy, secure life. Dogs didn’t live that long; every day was precious. But despite everything she’d done, all the precautions she’d taken and the care she’d given, she could have lost Tricks today, and it had been out of her control. Things happened. Some people were stupid-ass idiots. She couldn’t anticipate everything, couldn’t control everything, or even most things. Loss happened. It was random, striking without warning and despite all efforts to ward it off. Lightning could strike a hermit alone on a mountain as easily as it could someone in a town.
“Don’t,” Morgan said, and she realized she was sobbing again. She could no more stop the tears than she’d have been able to stop the bullet.
She could have lost him today, too. He wasn’t hers to lose but . . . she cared. She couldn’t deny that she cared. Tricks hadn’t been the only one in danger; Kyle could have turned the gun on Morgan just as easily. Today had all but slapped her in the face with a hard truth: there were no guarantees. She could safeguard her emotions to the best of her ability, and still be blindsided by events she couldn’t control. She could have lost Tricks today. She could lose Morgan tomorrow. Whether or not she slept with him, let herself show how much she cared for him, wouldn’t affect the amount of pain she would feel if anything happened to him. She would instead bear the extra burden of regret, regret that she hadn’t made the most of their time together.
He might stay, or he might go. She had no control over that. The only thing she could control was how fully she lived now because now was all she had. That realization was almost as terrifying as that moment when she thought Tricks was going to die. She had been protecting herself with an illusion.
Silently he got up from the bed and went out onto the landing. The light went out. His absence speared through her, and she started to call out a strangled plea for him to come back when she saw his dark shape moving back to the bed.
He stood on the other side and she heard the rustling of fabric, the sound of his belt hitting the floor. Her heartbeat began a hard, thumping pace, sending heat through her body and banishing the cold. His voice came in the darkness, deep and firm. “C’mon, Tricks, find some other place to sleep.” He snapped his fingers, and Tricks, the treacherous hussy, bounced up as if she’d been longing to get on her own comfortable bed but had been keeping Bo company while she was so upset, but thank you very much for relieving her of the duty. Her paws hit the floor and she trotted out with great purpose, as if she had something important to do.