He kissed her lips, her throat, her breasts, her forehead, and then held her to him, feeling the hummingbird flutter of her heart against the walls of his chest.
They fell asleep like that. As one. Safe in the moment, safe in each other’s arms.
When he woke, though, she was gone.
Weak sunlight slanted through the shutters on the window and drew yellow lines on the floor.
Grey wondered if it had been a dream.
But the smell of her was there. Perfume and sweat and natural musk.
It was no dream.
For a long time he lay there and stared at the ceiling and thanked whoever was running the universe that the world was not so broken that it had run out of perfection.
Like Jenny Pearl.
Then he got up, washed, dressed, strapped on his guns, and braced himself to face whatever the new day offered.
Chapter Forty-Three
The morning was bright and cold. A wet wind whipped in off the ocean but there were no storm clouds anywhere to be seen. Grey stood on Jenny’s porch with a cup of coffee in his hand and a bellyful of eggs and grits. He watched a boy walk up the street leading Picky and Queenie. Looks Away walked with him, and he had a large canvas slung over his shoulder.
“Penny for your thoughts, cowboy,” said a voice and he turned with a smile to see Jenny Pearl standing in the open doorway. She wore a yellow dress that was buttoned primly to her throat, and a light wool shawl that was the exact color of her blue eyes. Her hair was tied into a loose tail by a ribbon that was the same color as her shawl. She also wore a knowing smile, but almost at once her throat and cheeks flushed a brilliant scarlet.
“What I’m thinking is worth more than a penny,” he said. “Maybe as much as a whole dollar.” He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You’re something else, Miss Pearl.”
The moment was sweet and they smiled at each other for the span of maybe three heartbeats before it suddenly changed, turned, became incredibly awkward. It was immediately clear to Grey that this kind of thing was new to Jenny. Maybe not the sex, because that was no virgin who’d swept like a ghost into his dreams, but maybe the rest of it. The tenderness after the fact. The intimacy of conversation that followed those times when the passion was right, when the connection was correct.
It had been a long time for Grey, too. He’d loved many women but had only been in love once. A sweet girl named Annabelle. She was dust and bones now. Though, sometimes at night, he feared that her ghost was part of that shambling horde that followed just beyond his line of vision. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he caught a glimpse of her as he’d last seen her — bloody and broken — staring accusingly from the corner of his eye. One of the many people he had failed and left behind.
Now here was Jenny.
Was he in love with her?
Last night was sweet and pure in its way, but had it ignited something important in both their hearts? Could love possibly blossom that quickly? It seemed perverse that it could happen in the midst of tragedy and horror.
Or maybe that meant something. A thing that was important to know when all other knowledge fails or is proven false.
These thoughts tumbled like an avalanche down the slopes of Grey’s mind as she stood there with her, feeling a tender moment turn sour.
“I—,” he began, but she just nodded and walked past him to stand at the edge of the porch to watch Looks Away and the boy lead the horses.
He tried again. “Jenny, about last night…”
“Last night?” she echoed softly. “Last night was a dream. Don’t you know that?”
She did not look at him as she said it, and before he could assemble a response, Jenny stepped down off the porch and went to meet Looks Away.
Grey resisted the urge to bang his head on the porch column, though it seemed like a reasonable choice. Instead he thrust his hands into his back pockets, pasted on an expression that he hoped looked entirely casual, and followed Jenny.
“I think I have everything we’ll need,” said Looks Away brightly. He set down the canvas sack and knelt to open it. His mouth tightened momentarily as he did so.
“How’s the back?” asked Grey.
“Medium rare. Brother Joe was kind enough to give me more of his entirely offensive-smelling salve.”
“Does it help?”
“Hard to say, though considering the amount of animal fat in it, I will probably attract every hopeful carrion bird in this end of the state.”
“You do smell… interesting.”
“Please go and stick your head in an ant hill.”
“It’s not that bad,” said Jenny. “And don’t worry — Brother Joe’s salves and poultices do a power of good. They work like magic.”
“Magic,” said Looks Away, “is not a word I want to hear just now.”
From the bag, Looks Away produced the Kingdom M1 rifle and its ammunition, along with a spare ghost gas cylinder. “We don’t have any rounds so if we use it, we should probably keep to single shots. And… besides, I’ve never fired it so I don’t know what kind of kick it has. Quite frankly the ruddy thing scares the bejeebers out of me.”
“That’s comforting,” complained Grey.
“Then take comfort in this.” Looks Away produced a conventional Winchester .30–30 and handed this to Grey. “Courtesy of Deputy Perkins. I found his horse and this was in a saddle scabbard. I doubt he’ll need it henceforth.”
Grey took it and checked the action. It had clearly been cleaned and oiled since the rain.
“I had the guns seen to,” said Looks Away. He removed a double-barreled shotgun from the bag, too. It was a snubby little thing with both stock and barrels hewn short. It came with a modified pistol holster.
Grey smiled. “Where the hell’d you find that?”
“It was among the weapons taken from the undead. Twelve gauge with lots of shells.”
“You expect me to carry that frigging thing?”
“No,” said Looks Away, “I expect me to carry that frigging thing. You’re the crack shot of this outfit. I’m okay on a good day with a stationary target, but overall I’m an indifferent shot. Scatterguns fire in a wide spray, so I’m likely to hit something useful.”
“It doesn’t have a stock. You can’t use your body to brace for the kick. Gun like that’ll knock you on your ass.”
Looks Away sniffed. “Then I’ll reload while sitting.”
“Fair enough. What else you got in there?”
“A pair of excellent hunting knives, a compass, and lots of ammunition. Two boxes for your Colt as well.”
“Nice.”
They shared the supplies between them, stowing the extra boxes of shells and cartridges in their saddlebags. Jenny watched all of this without comment. She stood with her arms folded, head cocked to one side like someone at a gallery appraising art. Or, Grey thought, someone judging pigs at a county fair.
As they swung up into their saddles, she broke her self-imposed silence. “I still think I should be going with you.”
Grey crossed his wrists on the saddle horn and leaned forward. “And for two pins I’d take you along.”
“But…,” she said, glancing at the boy from the stable and then past him to the center of town.
“But,” he agreed. He smiled at her, but her returning smile was filled with so many emotions that Grey couldn’t catalog them all. Doubt and anger, passion and compassion. Love, too? He didn’t know if he saw it or merely wished for it.
Looks Away glanced from Grey to Jenny and then down at his fingernails as if suddenly finding them deeply fascinating.