Diego came in the front door, his gaze flicking from Rubin to Jonquille and back. He set his rifle down and took his boots off as well before coming all the way inside. He didn’t say anything to either of them. He simply put his rifle away, handling it with care, the way he always did.
Rubin noted that the dishes were done. Diego had done them before taking up his rifle and following them outside.
“Sit down, Jonquille,” Rubin advised when she looked toward the sink where her duffel bag was. “Right there, in that rocker where you were before. I’m done with the half-truths you were telling us.”
She hesitated, her gaze flicking toward the mudroom, where she’d just taken off her hiking boots. There was no doubt in his mind that she had more than one bag stashed in the forest so she could grab and go. She didn’t need anything in the cabin.
“Sit. I’m not messing around with this anymore. I’m pissed as hell and you do not want to make me any angrier. Either one of you.” He included his brother in that, daring Diego to say one more word against or about her.
Diego raised an eyebrow but remained silent. He knew Rubin better than anyone else. He wasn’t about to tangle with his brother when Rubin was in this mood. Apparently Jonquille had a good sense of self-preservation. She walked across the room, looking for all the world like a small fairy, one of the lightning bugs that danced and entertained at dusk and then mysteriously disappeared. That wasn’t happening.
The cabin was dark. No one had bothered to light candles or the gas lanterns, or even turn on the electrical lights. It was easy to see that Rubin’s energy, usually so low, was pouring off him in waves, rushing to feed the magnetic hunger in Jonquille’s body. Her skin had taken on a glow. Her hair seemed even whiter than usual. Her blue eyes had gone more silvery blue than that deep cornflower blue. Little forks of energy moved around her in blazing streaks of electricity, and the static buildup in the room heightened.
“Did you think I wouldn’t figure out why you came here, Jonquille? What you were planning? It’s not happening.”
Fury rode him so hard he could barely contain it. His voice shook with it. The walls trembled, contracted and expanded as if alive. As if breathing. For a moment the floor trembled as if an earthquake threatened.
“Sit down, Diego. I don’t need you pacing around.”
Diego didn’t object to his order as he ordinarily might. He simply chose the rocker beside Jonquille, whether to protect her or restrain her, Rubin couldn’t tell.
“Answer me, Jonquille,” Rubin hissed.
“You’re a brilliant man, Rubin,” Jonquille conceded. “I knew I didn’t have much time before you started figuring things out. I tried to get away before you did. I’d hoped I could get into the forest and disappear.”
Diego stirred as if he might say something, ask a question, but Rubin silenced him with a glare. He could barely breathe, he was so angry. Angry at himself. At Jonquille. At his team. At Diego. Mostly at Whitney.
“I wondered for a long time why Mama just gave up when she still had the rest of us left alive. I wondered for a long time, Diego.”
Diego nodded. “I wondered too. Never could get over that. The sight of her like that.” He glanced at Jonquille and then away, clearly not wanting to discuss their mother’s suicide in front of an outsider.
Rubin didn’t think of Jonquille as an outsider. Strangely, she was part of him, but he had no idea how to convince his brother of that when he couldn’t explain it to himself or to her. She was the reason he was trying to tell his brother how he felt. What it was coming to for him.
“She had gifts. Psychic gifts. We got them from somewhere. They didn’t just appear out of nowhere. She went to the neighbors when they were ill or giving birth. Remember? Sometimes people would come from far away just to see her. She had to be a healer. But she couldn’t save her children or her husband. That weighed on her until she couldn’t bear it anymore.”
Diego’s dark gaze jumped to him, intelligence there. Recognizing all the trips to the swamps when Rubin had gone alone after their missions. When more and more the laughter had faded and there were no more smiles, not even around Wyatt’s little girls—and the three mischievous triplets could make anyone smile.
“Rubin,” Diego began cautiously.
“All those boys, Diego,” Rubin said. “Those kids. No matter what I do, I can’t save them all. I think about their families. Their mothers, what I would have to say to them if I was facing them and they were asking me why I couldn’t save their son when I saved the one next to him. Holding their hands, looking into their eyes.”