Page 53 of Tourist Season

M Y EYES PEEL OPEN, ADJUSTING to the light in my bedroom. Scattered thoughts and fractured nightmares arrange into my first conscious thoughts.

Something is wrong.

There’s motion in the bed. A tremor. A foreign sound.

I roll onto my side and see Nolan facing away from me, his body shaking.

His back is exposed, his skin covered in a thin film of sweat.

Though I’ve caught glimpses of it before, I can now see the full length of the straight scar that runs down his neck, dotted on either side with the healed marks of sutures or staples.

A sound resonates from him, like a word he can’t quite form in sleep. It’s desperate. Like a plea.

I lay a hand on his shoulder. “Nolan …” He lets out another low, rumbling note of distress that forms a crevice in my heart. “Nolan … wake up …”

In a sudden flurry of movement, he flips over, his hand landing on my neck.

His fingers notch beneath my jaw as he looms over me.

His hair is damp with sweat, his eyes wild.

Fear is painted across his features. When a few beats of my hammering pulse thrum into his fingertips, he finally blinks away the nightmare, processing the world in front of him.

A shudder racks his body, and then he hangs his head, his forehead resting on my collarbone as he expels a long breath.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers against my skin.

“It was just a nightmare,” I say, laying a tentative hand on the nape of his neck. His skin is hot and slick beneath my palm.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I gently squeeze the back of his neck, but he doesn’t seem reassured, as though whatever he saw in his dreams is still too vivid to let go.

And I know what that’s like. At first, I was too exhausted to dream.

But the last two nights, he’s the one who’s woken me from visions of hitting the water.

Every time I thrashed or called out, he was there with a quiet word to wake me.

But this is the first time I’ve seen him sleep.

I wonder if he’s been suffering nightmares all this time, and I just never knew. “Are you?”

Nolan lifts his head. His haunted eyes travel over my face, his fingers still collecting every beat of my heart as though it could stop without his touch.

Though Arthur and Lukas and even Irene and Maya came to visit, it was Nolan who stayed.

He spent three days at my side in the hospital.

I don’t know how he convinced the staff to let him stay, but he did, and he remained at my side the whole time.

Whether it was waiting in the hall while I had X-rays to check for broken bones and fluid in my lungs, or watching from my bedside as I was given oxygen and IVs to combat edema and infection, or simply providing a steadying hand to help me out of bed to go to the bathroom, Nolan was there.

And it seems like he’s still not convinced that it’s enough.

He wasn’t enthusiastic about my insistence on leaving the hospital so quickly.

And he was absolutely not receptive to my suggestion that we resume our exhumations last night either.

We finally arrived at a compromise: I would tell him the location of the next three burial sites, and he would handle the dig on his own, returning to my cottage when he was done.

I tried to stay up and wait for him to get back, but the fatigue is still so consuming that I collapsed into bed shortly after dark and I never woke when he returned.

I didn’t expect him to lie in bed next to me, but now that he’s here, there’s a rightness to it.

It feels like he’s meant to be here. And I never expected it, but now I’m afraid of how much it will hurt when he’s not.

“It’s all I can see,” he finally says. His touch travels from my neck to lie on my chest. My sternum and ribs are sore and bruised beneath my thin tank top. But my heart beats through the pain because of him. “Why can’t you swim?”

I let out a breath of a laugh. “I fell into a pool when I was a toddler and nearly drowned. I refused to learn after that. I guess my parents didn’t want to deal with the theatrical tantrum I threw whenever they tried to take me for swimming lessons, so they just … gave up.”

“I hate that very much.”

“I’m not sure it would have made much of a difference given the circumstances, but yeah.

I think I hate it too,” I say. A crease deepens between his brows as Nolan shifts to the side, lifting the hem of my shirt to inspect the bandage that covers the slice made by his knife. “How’d it go at the river?”

“Fine,” he says, his attention still caught on the wound. “I found two bodies. I’ll get the other one tomorrow. I brought them back here and hid them in the garden shed for now. What have you been doing with them?”

“Woodchipper.”

Nolan’s eyes flick to mine. “You know the bones don’t just dissolve , right?”

“It’s not like I’m making them into wall hangings and selling them on Etsy. I am burying them.”

My joke doesn’t seem to soften his hard expression. “And what if someone decides they want to come along and dig them up?”

“They’d have to suspect me first.”

Nolan lets out a long sigh as he sits up, running a hand through his hair.

I let my eyes travel over every inch of his skin.

I’ve never had the chance to look at his body up close in the light before.

And now he’s casually sitting in my bed like he’s always been here, all his bruises and scars on display.

Those scars don’t just stop at his skin.

They run deep. I can almost see it, the way they tug and pull and warp his thoughts. He’s afraid.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, propping myself up on an elbow.

“Sam is watching you,” Nolan says, turning enough to give me a single eye, his expression one of torment. “He has pictures. Notes and dates and times. Observations of your behavior.”

I swallow, my pulse quickening. “I figured.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did, about the drone. And considering he had no qualms about trespassing on the Ballantyne River property, it was probably a given that he’d take no issue with following me around on occasion.”

“He could have followed us to the river. He could have seen something suspicious. We’re digging up dead bodies on Arthur’s land that he buried in rye sacks from the distillery, for fucksakes.”

“I have no choice,” I say as Nolan drags a hand down his face and levels me with a hard stare.

“There are only days left before the sale closes. We have to get all of them out before that happens. Viceroy could start work right away, and what happens then? Arthur’s last years on this planet will not be spent in prison.

I can’t let that happen.” I lay a hand on his arm, squeezing the snake beneath my palm.

“It’s only four bodies left. We can do that in a couple of nights, if we work together.

But I have to get it done. Even if I dig alone and you keep an eye on Sam, we can figure something out. ”

“I’m not letting you do it by yourself.” The sharp edge in his eyes softens just a little, and though it’s obvious he’s not pleased, it’s more worry than anger that I see. “I only saw a few photos of Arthur. Most of them were of you. Why?”

“Proximity probably has something to do with it,” I hedge. “But maybe he’s trying to work me out. I’m sure he already has a lot banked up on Arthur.”

“Is there something I need to know?”

I hesitate for a beat, sitting up with a wince that I hope he’ll attribute to my bruised ribs.

“You know the most important parts already,” I say.

“You know I’m not … good. I’ve done horrible things.

You know I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Arthur and Lukas and Cape Carnage.

” Nolan gives me a subtle, thoughtful nod, his eyes dropping from mine, resting on my lips for just a moment before his gaze lands on the bed.

He doesn’t say it, but I think he knows there’s so much more that I just can’t reveal.

But he also seems to know that asking again won’t yield a different result.

“You know how to bring me back to life.”

His focus snaps right back to me.

“I don’t just mean pulling me from the water, Nolan. I mean … I forgot what it was like. What I was missing. It’s been a long time since I let myself feel this way.”

“Feel what way?”

My lip slides between my teeth. His gaze drops to the motion and I’m sure he thinks I’ll just clamp down on my words.

Maybe I should, but when I reflect on our interactions, every time I’ve defied the rational voice that told me to stay away from him, the risk has paid off.

If I hadn’t walked with him the first time we met, maybe he would have found me and killed me right away.

If I hadn’t risked forcing an alliance, we wouldn’t be sitting in my bed, trying to figure out what we really mean to each other.

So I place my hand on his. I wait until he meets my eyes.

“It feels like I can take a risk and trust you with all the worst versions of myself without scaring you away. Like even when I want to fight against you, I’m still fighting with you, because I know you’re still on my side.

Like I can let you in at my own pace, even though I’m afraid.

” I let my hand travel up his arm, my touch slowing over the ouroboros tattoo, a gentle caress over its infinite battle to consume itself.

I trace the tense muscles, rising to his shoulder, not stopping until I fold my hand around the back of his neck.

My eyes never leave Nolan’s as I draw him closer, until I can see every variegated shade in the wedge of brown.

“It feels like I can finally take a deep breath.”