She told him, and as she went through all of it, saw him fight the need to interrupt. To protest. She watched every emotion run over his face. Anger, fear, denial, grief.
When she’d finished it all, he got up, walked around the table. He went to the door, opened it for the dog, who waited, sad and patient.
He went into the kitchen, got a treat out of the jar.
“You’re the best dog there is. Don’t you worry.”
Then he came back, sat, looked straight into Breen’s eyes.
“You said you could’ve left it there, in that river.”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s a damn stupid thing to say. You never could. Not my Breen. All this bullshit about choice? It’s not always true. Sometimes, and most times, it’s just how you’re made. Maybe you were afraid—who the hell wouldn’t be? But when it came down to it, you picked it up and put it on. And you sure as hell didn’t do that because it’s pretty.”
“Marco—”
“You just shut up a damn minute.” Tears glimmered in his eyes, but he didn’t shed them. And behind them lived heat. “I listened to you. I don’t give a flying fuck what’s written or not written, what some asshole gods say or don’t. I know you. You got held down all those years, but you never let anybody down. And all that before you knew the truth. They’re not going to beat you.”
With the biscuit still clamped in his mouth, Bollocks came out to stand beside Marco. His tail whipped.
“You have to accept—”
“I don’t have to accept a goddamn thing, and neither do you. You’re a bitching powerful witch, a hell of a human being, and all the rest. And you listen to me, girl, and you listenhard. You’re going to kick that psycho son of a bitch’s ass, and after you do, we’re going to fucking dance on whatever’s left of him. Then we’re going to live happy as all fuck after. That’s not just what I believe. It’s what Iknow. Now you’d better know it, too.”
She let out a careful breath. “Of all I expected from you, it wasn’t this.”
“That’s another stupid, and that’s all you get. I believe in you, Breen. I believe in you.”
It took a moment for her to compose herself enough to say the words. “And of all the things I needed to hear since I picked this up, you just said it. Okay, okay. We’re going to win this.”
“Fucking A.”
“Okay, okay. Just need a minute, and I have to tell you some other things. I talked to the broker and a bunch of people after I got back last night.”
“Is that what you were doing upstairs all that time?”
“I needed to make arrangements. All the money, Marco—”
“Come on, Breen.”
“No, you come on. I’ve been thinking about it since I found out about it. A will—and it’s just common sense. I mean I’ve hardly spent any of it, at least since I got here. And it makes more just sitting there. And now I have income from my advance on the next Bollocks book. I’ve been using that to pay you for all the work you do, but if I get lucky and sell the new book—”
“It’s not luck.”
“Whatever, that’s more, and then the next Bollocks book, and anyway.”
She had to stop, breathe, shove hands through her hair.
“I don’t need all that money. I’ve been thinking about it, and after yesterday, I decided to get it going. A foundation sort of thing. I couldput some of it into that, so I needed to talk to all the people who know how that works. I’m going to talk to Sally, too, because he’s a smart, successful businessman.
“You’re not saying anything.”
“Because I’m listening.”
“Great. So at first I thought a kind of grant or endowment or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be for writers—people struggling like we were to make ends meet who are trying to write. Then I thought that’s narrow and self-serving, really. What about somebody who wants to be a musician or an artist or an engineer or scientist or anything? Maybe they can’t afford to go to college or they’re working two jobs like you did. So I put some of the money into this foundation thing, and the people who know how to deal with that deal with it, and Sally, I hope, would help. It could change a life, like mine changed. And yours. Whatever happens, I want to do this.”
She tried a smile. “I can still buy a new outfit in New York.”