His hands came to my face and his lips came to mine. “Don’t want out, Feb.”

“You say that but you don’t know what I mean.” My mouth moved under his. “I won’t let you out even if I make it so you want to leave.”

“Baby, I’ll never want to leave.”

My hands twisted in his shirt. “Promise me.”

He didn’t promise me, not then or, more to the point, not with words.

He kissed me, his mouth opening over mine, mine doing the same under his, his tongue spiking inside, his fingers gliding into my hair, fisting. I felt pain in my scalp but it didn’t register as I pressed into him, flattening my hands on his chest, caging them between us, caught up in a wordless promise that was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced, the most wondrous gift I’d ever been given in my life.

It was only after he lifted his head that he said the words he didn’t need to say anymore.

“I promise, February.”

I felt a weird, wonderful, warm whoosh flow through me, so much of it, whatever it was, I thought it had to start leaking out my pores, gushing right back out. Somehow, against the odds, my skin contained it and held it safe inside.

Once it settled, my hands glided up Colt’s chest, his neck and my fingers slid into his hair. I went up on my toes and I kissed him, giving him my own promise.

* * * * *

It was late when Colt closed the door behind Jimbo and Jessie, locked it and turned to the kitchen.

February and Jackie were in it, Feb drying a big stockpot with a kitchen towel, Jackie handwashing glasses and turning them upside down in the dish drainer.

At the sight something soothing slid through him, coating the rawness he’d felt all day. It didn’t do much to take the pain away, the pain of knowing what was done to him, to Amy, to Feb and the fact he had a son out there somewhere, but it helped, even just a little bit.

He knew that rawness would remain for a long time. He saw it in the eyes of a lot of people, rape victims who still had it stark on their faces months later while they sat on witness stands. Folks who’d been robbed who he’d see years later and he knew they now had dogs and alarms because that little sign was stuck in their yard warning those who might try again that they’d called Chip to install the system.

He couldn’t handle that now, trying to figure out what would heal the hurt, turn it to a scar, keep him from picking at it. Whatever happened earlier that night, and the shit of it was he didn’t help it by acting like a selfish ass; Feb was slipping through his fingers. She might have said she’d locked him tight but she was ready to bolt. Controlled panic was etched into her face and all along her frame and Colt had to put all his energy toward keeping his woman sane.

“Leave those to drip dry, baby girl,” Jackie said when Feb put away the stockpot and reached for a glass.

“Don’t like to face dishes in the morning,” Feb muttered and Jackie’s eyes moved to him.

He saw she was feeling what he was feeling but hers was double. All her energy was focused on keeping her daughter together and the same went for him. Two of her cubs got cornered under her watch and it tore at her.

Knowing Jackie was feeling that, Colt was struggling with his grip on justice, not knowing which was the better fate for Denny Lowe. Death riddled by bullets fired from the guns of an army of Feds or the rest of his life, rotting behind bars hopefully being gang raped at both ends.

It might make him sick but he decided instantly he preferred the last.

Colt shook his head at Jackie and she nodded. He wasn’t quite sure what he’d communicated to her but he was sure, whatever it was, she trusted it.

He walked to the couch and sat down, needing more than anything to take a load off while Jackie announced, “Welp, cookin’ for eleven people and cleanin’ up after them done wore me out. I’m hittin’ the hay.”

Feb kept drying glasses and reaching up to place them in the cupboard as she said, “You gonna be able to sleep in the midst of garlic smells and lingering paint fumes, Mamma Jamma?”

There it was, another balm, Feb calling Jackie “Mamma Jamma”, her nickname for her mother, something she used to say that also used to make him jealous, not having a mother he could nickname. Then his mother became Jackie and that jealousy slid clean away.

“So bushed, I could sleep while someone was painting around me,” Jackie said back, leaned into her daughter and kissed her cheek. “‘Night, my sweet child.”

Feb’s voice was rough when she replied, “‘Night, Mom.”

Jackie came to Colt, who’d put his feet up on the coffee table, crossed at the ankles and was too exhausted to move as she walked to him.

She didn’t mind. She just leaned down and put her hand to his face and kissed his opposite cheek.

“‘Sleep well, Jackie,” he muttered while she did this, thinking she’d move away but she stayed leaned over him, her hand on his face but her head came up and her eyes went to his.

“You know, long time ago, I looked it up,” she told him.

“What?” Colt asked.

“Your name,” she told him, her voice soft, her eyes on his unwavering and he held his breath, knowing what was coming was going to strike deep and he wasn’t wrong.

“‘Alexander’,” she said, “means warrior, defender. Colton, colt,” she smiled, “well, we all know a colt’s got so much energy, always beautiful little things, strong, fast, all of ‘em gonna grow up to be something magnificent.”

“Jackie –” Colt murmured, forgetting about that rawness. Her words, in that moment, swept it away.

“Can’t say much for your folks,” she whispered, “but in their miserable lives they did one thing right. They made you and after they gave you to this world, they gave you a name that fits. Don’t you think?”

He didn’t answer her and she didn’t wait for him to do it. She patted his face, straightened and walked quickly away.

Colt’s eyes followed her and a memory hit him as they did.

He heard her voice coming at him from a long time ago. It wasn’t soft, it wasn’t a whisper, it wasn’t like it was five seconds ago, filled with so much love, mixed with a mother’s longing to take away a hurt she couldn’t ease. It was filled with anger and determination.

He was sixteen and sitting on the side of an exam table in the ER. His nose was broken, a bandage across it, the cut under his eye stitched, his knuckles wrapped, his eye swollen shut. His father wasn’t stronger than him, not at that time, hard living had worn the strength right out of him and definitely not when he was as shitfaced as when he started it with Colt. But he was wily, he was mean and he didn’t have a problem not fighting fair. Colt gave him a good thrashing but his Dad got his licks in for certain.