Chapter 10

A big hole in the bag. Tiny filaments of fabric frayed around the edges of the opening, dirt evident.

"Damn." Tish remonstrated an invisible universe. Or was it herself? "I can't believe I left these in here, out of sight. How stupid can I be!"

He reached over and grabbed them, laid them on a wider shelf. He tugged open the drawstring bag, pulled on the glittery red string keeping it closed. He couldn't talk, realized he was holding his breath.

Tish's cookies couldn't be...

But they were. He pulled out the bundle, wrapped tightly in wax paper that now lay in tatters.

The lovely cookies, those rich shortbread creations—were a mess.

Gram's Christmas cookies, the ones she'd looked forward to for three long years, were wrecked.

Holy god. It was weird how bad he felt.

"Rats."

Eli's gaze tracked over the area where the cookies had been, spied something odd. A little dark spot just where the particle-board shelf met the wall, partly covered. He moved an empty carton, and there it was.

A small but definite hole.

"It's an outside wall." He made the pronouncement, his mind already having scanned the position of the wall with respect to the layout of the house. "Between the walls here, if there's a hole or mortar or brick missing on the outside—it's like a rat walkway." He shrugged. "They come and go as they please."

Tish drew away in disgust, her features one big wince.

Eli marched out of the larder, and he almost bowled her over in his determination to get past her. "Hey!" she remonstrated.

But he had only one thing on his mind. He strode into the kitchen, grabbed a bunch of the dirty newspapers scattered on the floor. Winced himself at the yellowed, clingy dust that stuck to them, little bits of black speck there as well—looked like rodent droppings.

But he didn't care. He took them into the hallway, started balling up the sheets two at a time, angrily, all the while trying to keep the dirt inside the balls. Positioned his back so away from her so she wouldn't breathe in the excrement.

"What are you doing?"

He heard her but was too consumed with the need to fix things. The thought of answering her hit him for a split second, then disappeared.

"Eli?"

He grabbed a plastic bag from the floor, checked inside quickly, found nothing. Started to stuff it with newspaper balls.

"You're scaring me."

Those words registered, and he stopped and looked at her. Okay, she'd been exaggerating. She didn't look scared. And her gaze strayed again to the ruined package.

Did her bottom lip quiver a bit?

Something about the whole thing had gotten her emotional, and he needed to fix it. Wipe that sick look off her face.

He took the bag, went back into the larder, and started feeding it into the hole. As he did, a chunk of the plaster broke off—obviously an older part of the home that hadn't been updated to have dry wall. He poked at the crumbling medium, watched the hole get bigger.

He charged into the hallway. New mission. Her words rang in his ears. "What are you looking for?"

"Garbage. Anything I can stuff in there." He yanked the cupboards open in the kitchen. A pile of old rags, a bit of aluminum foil. He grimaced as he pulled them out, balled all of it up together, went back in the larder, and started cramming it into the opening.

Tish stood behind him, quiet. But the upset just oozed off her.

"Don't be hard on yourself. It was dark as pitch when you got here. You couldn't have seen it."

She adopted a wry expression. "What—I shouldn't have seen the damn hole at four-thirty in the afternoon?"

He snorted. "Is that when you got here?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to come here at night. I figured it would look worse, under cover of darkness, you know?"

"Oh, I see," he said, finding her reasoning a bit comedic. "You mean you wanted to break in during daylight, so it would look less like breaking in and more like someone having forgotten their keys or something?" He shoved the last bit into the hole. Yes. Finally, it met resistance. "So breaking in during the daytime checked more boxes."

She tilted her head to the side. "What?"

"Like the ‘avoiding the Jack’s Bay cops if they happened to be patrolling here’, so the staying out of prison box. Also the ‘not grabbing the attention of the loser drug addicts in the area’ box." He swiped the edge of a shelf free of a layer of grit quickly then rested his arm on its edge. "Those are the specific boxes I had in mind."

She frowned. "When did you become such a stickler on things?"

It was his turn now. "Such as?"

"Such as making sure you make the distinction to me that I broke in. Of course I broke in. It's going to be demolished—what's the big deal?"

And suddenly he knew not only was she skating a thin edge, ethically, but she was bothered by it. Other people's opinions didn't bother a person unless deep down, it bothered them. They could be as defensive as they wanted—it was really themselves they had to convince.

And that, he had an intimate acquaintance with. He'd had three years of learning, first hand, how skimming that line could mess with your mind, unless you were clear on it. And how important it was to stay on one’s own side. Only do what one could stomach, and if forced to do other things, not give in to the self-hate. Not poison oneself, deliberately.

That was death.

So distinctions were a big deal for him, now. After tonight he was desperately hoping he’d be free and clear. What he was doing was wrong. But it was the price that had been demanded to keep Ian alive, and he’d paid it. He’d made a dark peace with that.

But he knew he’d done wrong, regardless. There was no coloring it any other way.

She looked at him blankly. "Where did you just go?"

He couldn't tell her what he’d been thinking about. If she knew any of the details, it could potentially hurt her. There was a reason he'd cut ties with everyone he loved. With those who looked up to him, as a soldier. As part of Delta North.

And even though her breaking into the old house wasn't a biggie, compared to what he’d done, it touched on a whole cascade of things he'd struggled with personally, for the past three years.

And suddenly, it was very important for him to be clear, to Tish, about this.

"I know you didn't mean anything by coming here, doing what you did. I get that, and I understand it. But…”

He took a deep breath. "I’ve also learned, if you don't keep it clear, when you're breaking the law, bad shit happens to your mind and the lines blur. Until there are no lines at all. Aw hell, Tish. I’m talking to myself, not you. You’re so much better than me there’s no comparison. But the breaking in thing—it’s still breaking in. Sanity—at least my sanity, I’ve learned, requires lines. The clarity. The honesty. Regardless of the actions."

He was done.

But she stood there, staring at him wide-eyed. Angry.

He got it. She was pissed. She was relating to him from her own personal bubble, the one she was living in currently. Everyone dealt from their own, damn, personal bubble. Always. And protected anyone else from pricking that thin, tightly pulled membrane.

And yet, he suddenly found hers to be a very generous one. Her willingness to care for him, feed him, when he’d shown up out of the blue—the apparent villain of a former story that had played out already.

She’d been amazing.

And maybe it hadn't played out already, at all. Yeah. At least on some level, on his part.

She sent him a look of challenge. A freakin’ challenge, and he felt the warmth from her treatment of him tonight—plying him with cheese and crackers and wine in the old house—tangle with his desire for that hot body he'd known so well, for that expression on her face.

He’d always risen to the challenge before. Closed his mouth quickly over those lips set so impudently, even haughtily. Demanded the response he’d wanted out of them, got the sexy, no-holds-bar fight with her that led to… things.

And suddenly, he knew. He wanted that. Again. The desire was animal.

Paired with the desire to also fix every bloody thing in her life. Tell her everything that had gone on in his, though of course, he couldn't.

Enjoy it while it's here, Eli.

Soon he'd be out in that damn cold, unfeeling night again. Going full tilt the exact opposite direction from her and this old dump. Away from the town, the only home he’d ever known.

He looked around, saw with fresh eyes the old paint in the hallway, the high wooden baseboards, the dull yellow light. Felt a queer kinship with it, even though he'd only spent parts of two nights in it, separated by three years.

He left the larder hurriedly, angrily, feeling the heat from Tish as he brushed past her.

Suddenly, two-thirty loomed too damn close.

And she couldn't know that either.