I did not, and I didn’t enjoy how it felt. “He is not with Viktor?”
“Viktor left with Ranger.”
I darted a glance to the roof, noting Ranger was no longer there, a change in my surroundings I had missed for the sake of picturing Cam and Saint with someone else.
“What are you smiling about?” Cam turned me away from the window and cupped my face with his tattooed hands, his thumbs tracing the hollows beneath my eyes. “I mean, I’m not complaining, it looks good on you. But I thought you’d be pissed off I’d lost track of Saint.”
“Have you ever had track of Saint?”
Cam grinned, boyish and handsome beneath his menacing good looks. “What do you think?”
“I think I would like to go home with you and wait for him there.”
I did not expect Cam to humour my request any time soon. The crowds in the yard had thinned out, but he was, forever and always, a man with much to do. But he surprised me by delegating some of the many responsibilities he heaped upon himself to Rubi, and taking both my hands in his, kissing my knuckles as sweet as Saint. “Let’s go.”
Cam drove his car home, packed full of the food he and Rubi would cook together on Christmas Day, an acid test of their maturity that I had already topped up my vodka stash to endure.
I scanned the compound as we passed every landmark, the bar, the café, the sales building. The timber yard and the HGV hub. Out of habit, I counted the vehicles, matched them with the schedule imprinted on my brain. “Where is the white van?”
Cam glanced left. “I think Saint has it.”
“Why?”
“His hog is still here.”
I knew that, but Saint had many bikes. Even I lost track of which he rode on any given day, and I had never seen him drive the plain white van Decoy used for local firewood deliveries. “Where has he gone?”
“Lexi, if I knew, I’d tell you.”
“I know. It was rhetorical.”
Cam chuckled. “Can’t lie, I’m loving watching you learn to live with this version of him.”
“And what version is this?”
“The happy one. Trouble is, he never stays still long enough for you to see it.”
Whatever my face did in response to that made Cam laugh more, and as he drove through Whitness to the cottage on Beach Road, I considered what he meant. I consideredSaint, beyond how I’d spent most of the day picturing him. His devastation to realise we could’ve eased Folk’s grief for his dead friend far sooner, and the change in him since he’d put it right. Was he happy now? Was this feral behaviour how such things looked?
“We’re home.”
I turned my head to meet Cam’s dark gaze. “I know.”
“I thought you might be asleep.”
“Why?”
“You went quiet.”
“I am usually loud?”
Cam rolled his eyes, easing the car to a stop, but I had him field trained enough that he kept the engine running while I assessed the house, waiting for me to allow him into his home.
Inside, though, his deference evaporated. The door shut behind him and he gripped my collar, hauling me against him, peering into my face like he had in the chapel. “You’re tired.”
“Am I?”
“I haven’t seen you sleep since you got back from the road.”