CHPTR 4°||

I shook my head. I was pretty sure I couldn't tolerate being held by anyone, for any reason, no matter how briefly.

"That's all right," Oliver murmured. "You just take your time, then." He stood and waited patiently while I struggled up from the bench, his hands half raised as if he had to stop himself from reaching for me. "Car's over there. The white Cadillac."

Together we walked slowly to the car, a gleaming pearl-colored sedan, and Oliver held the door open as I crawled in. "Would you be more comfortable with the seat back lowered?" he asked.

I closed my eyes, too exhausted to answer. Oliver leaned down, pressed a button, and eased the seat back until I was half reclining.

He went to the other side, got in and started the car. The Cadillac purred smoothly as we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. I heard the sound of a cell phone being flipped open, and a number being dialed. "Gage," Oliver said after a moment. "Yeah, I got her. Headed to DFW right now. Have to tell you, though . . . he knocked her around pretty good. She's a little out of it." A long pause, and Oliver answered quietly. "I know, man." More talking on the other end. "Yeah, I think she's okay to travel, but when she gets there . . . Uh-huh, I think so, definitely. I'll let you know when she takes off. No problem

There was no softer ride than a Cadillac — the closest thing to a mattress on wheels — but every delicate bounce sent fresh aches through my body. I tried to grit my teeth against the pain, only to gasp at the burst of fire in my jaw.

I heard Oliver's voice between the loud throbs of the pulse in my ears. "Feel like you're going to get sick, Miss Travis?"

I made a small negative sound. No way was I going to do that — it would hurt too much.

A small plastic trash receptacle was settled carefully in my lap. "Just in case."

I was silent, my eyes closed, as Oliver maneuvered carefully through the traffic. Lights from passing cars sent a dull red glow through my lids. I was vaguely worried by the difficulty I had in thinking coherently . . . I couldn't seem to come up with any idea of what would happen next. Trying to grab hold of a coherent thought was like standing under a big cloud and trying to catch raindrops with a teaspoon. I felt like I would never be in control of anything again.

"You know," I heard Oliver say, "my sister used to get beat up by her husband. Pretty often. For no reason. For any reason. I didn't know about it at the time, or I would have killed the son of a bitch. She finally left him and brought her kids to my mama's house, and stayed there till she got her life back together. Saw a shrink and everything. My sister told me the thing that helped her the most was to hear it wasn't her fault. She needed to hear that a lot. So I want to be the first one to tell you . . . it wasn't your fault."

I didn't move or speak. But I felt tears leak from beneath my closed eyelids.

"Not your fault," Oliver repeated firmly, and drove me the rest of the way in silence.

I dozed a little and woke a few minutes later when the car had topped and Oliver was opening the door. The roar of a departing jet tore through the cushioned quiet of the Cadillac, and the smells of fuel and equipment and humid Texas air drifted over me. Blinking and sitting up slowly, I realized we were on the tarmac.

"Let me help you out," Oliver said, reaching for me. I shrank from his outstretched hand and shook my head. Clasping an arm across the place on my ribs where Nick had kicked me, I struggled from the car by myself. When I got to my feet, my head swam and a gray mist covered my eyes. I swayed and Oliver caught my free arm to steady me.

"Miss Travis," he said, continuing to grip my arm even as I tried to shake him off. "Miss Travis, please listen to me. All I want to do is help you get on that plane. You've got to let me help you. If you fall trying to get up those steps by yourself, you'd have to go to the hospital for sure. And I'd have to go there with you, 'cause your brother would break both my legs."

I nodded and accepted his hold, even as my instincts screamed to throw him off. The last thing I wanted was to be touched by another man, no matter how apparently trustworthy or friendly. On the other hand, I wanted to be on that plane. I wanted to get the hell out of Dallas, away from Nick.

"Okay, now," Oliver murmured, helping me shuffle toward the plane. It was a Lear 31A, a light jet made to accommodate up to six passengers. With four-foot-high winglets and delta fins attached to the tail cone, it looked like a bird poised for flight. "Not far," Oliver said, "and then you'll get to sit again, and Gage will be there to pick you up at the other end." As we ascended the stairs with torturous slowness, Oliver kept up a running monologue as if he were trying to distract me from the agony of my jaw and ribs. "This is a nice plane. It belongs to a software company headquartered in Dallas. I know the pilot real well. He's good, he'll get you there safe and sound."

"Who owns the company?" I mumbled, wondering if it was someone I'd met before.

"Me." Oliver smiled and helped me to one of the front seats with great care, and buckled me in. He went to a minibar, wrapped a few pieces of ice in a cloth, and gave it to me. "For your face. Rest now. I'm gonna talk to the pilot for a minute and then you'll be on your way."

"Thanks," I whispered, holding the shifting icy weight of the bag against my jaw. I settled deeper into the seat, gingerly molding the ice bag to the swollen side of my face.

The flight was miserable but mercifully short, landing in southeast Houston at Hobby Airport. I was slow to react when the plane stopped on the tarmac, my fingers fumbling over and over with the seat belt fastener. After the Jetway stairs were brought to the plane, the copilot emerged from the cockpit and opened the entrance door. In a matter of seconds, my brother was on the plane.

Gage's eyes were an unusual pale gray, not like fog or ice, but lightning. His black lashes and brows stood out strongly on his worry-bleached face. He froze for a millisecond as he saw me, then swallowed hard and came forward.

"Haven," he said, sounding hoarse. He lowered to his knees and braced his hands on either chair arm, his gaze raking over me. I managed to free myself from the seat belt, and I leaned forward into his familiar smell. His arms closed around me tentatively, unlike his usual firm grip, and I realized he was trying to keep from hurting me. I felt the trembling beneath his stillness.

Overwhelmed with relief I laid my good cheek on his shoulder.

"Gage," I whispered. "Love you more than anybody."

He had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Love you too, baby girl."

"Don' take me to River Oaks."

He understood at once. "No, darlin'. You're coming home with me. I haven't told Dad you're here."

He helped me out to his car, a sleek silver Maybach. "Don't go to sleep," he said sharply as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest.

"I'm tired."

"There's a lump on the back of your head. You probably have a concussion, which means you shouldn't sleep."

"I slept on the plane," I said. "I'm fine, see? Jus' let me — "

"You're not fine," Gage said with a savagery that made me flinch. "You're — " He broke off and modulated his tone at once as he saw the effect it had on me. "Hell, I'm sorry. Don't be afraid. I won't yell. It's just . . . not easy . . . to stay calm when I see what he's done to you." He took a long, uneven breath. "Stay awake until we get to the hospital. It'll only be a few minutes."

"No hospital," I said, pulling out of my torpor. "They'll want to know how it happened." The police would be told, and they might file assault charges against Nick, and I wasn't nearly ready to deal with all of that.

"I'll handle it," Gage said.

He would too. He had the power and money to circumvent all the usual processes. Palms would be greased, favors would be exchanged. People would look the other way at precisely the right moment. In Houston the Travis name was a key to open all doors — or close them, if that was preferable.

"I want to go somewhere and rest." I tried to sound resolute. But my voice came out blurred and plaintive, and my head throbbed too much for me to keep up an argument.

"Your jaw might be broken," Gage said quietly. "And hell knows what he did to the rest of you." He let out an explosive sigh. "Can you tell me what happened?"

I shook my head. Sometimes a simple question could have a complicated answer. I wasn't really sure how or why it had happened, what it was about Nick or me or both of us together that had resulted in such damage. I wondered if he realized I was gone yet, if he'd gone out to the front doorstep and found it empty. Or if he was sleeping comfortably in our bed.

Gage was silent during the rest of the drive to the Houston Medical Center, the biggest medical district in the world. It consisted of many different hospitals, academic and research institutions. I had no doubt my family had donated new wings or equipment to at least a couple of them.

"Was this the first time?" Gage asked as we pulled up to the emergency room parking lot.

"No."

He muttered a few choice words. "If I'd ever thought the bastard would raise a hand to you, I'd never have let you go with him."

"You couldn' have stopped me," I said thickly. "I was determined. Stupid."

"Don't say that." Gage looked at me, his eyes filled with anguished fury. "You weren't stupid. You took a chance on someone, and he turned out to be . . . Shit, there's no word for it. A monster."

His tone was grim. "A walking dead man. Because when I get to him — "

"Please." I'd had enough of angry voices and violence for one night. "I don't know if Nick realized how much he hurt me."

"One small bruise is enough to warrant me killing him." He got me out of the car, picking me up and carrying me as if I were a child.

"I can walk," I protested.

"You're not walking through the parking lot in your socks. Damn it, Haven, give it a rest." He carried me to the emergency room waiting area, which was occupied by at least a dozen people, and set me gently beside the reception desk.

"Gage Travis," my brother said, handing a card to the woman behind the glass partition. "I need someone to see my sister right away."

I saw her eyes widen briefly, and she nodded to the door on the left of the reception desk. "I'll meet you at the door, Mr. Travis. Come right in."

"No," I whispered to my brother. "I don' want to cut in from of everyone. I want to wait with the other people."

"You don't have a choice." The door opened, and I found myself being pushed and pulled into the pale beige hallway. A wave of anger rushed over me at the manhandling from my brother. I didn't give a shit how well intentioned it was.

"It's not fair," I said fiercely, while a nurse approached. "I won't do it. I'm no more important than anyone else here — "

"You are to me."

I was outraged on behalf of the people in the waiting room, all taking their turn while I was whisked right on through. And I was mortified at playing the role of privileged heiress. "There were a couple of children out there," I said, pushing at Gage's restraining arm. "They need to see a doctor as much as I do."

"Haven," Gage said in a low, inexorable tone, "everyone in that waiting room is in better shape than you. Shut up, settle down, and follow the nurse."

With a strength fed on adrenaline, I jerked away from him and bumped against the wall. Pain, too much of it, too fast, came at me from various sources. My mouth watered, my eyes began to stream, and I felt a rising pressure of bile. "I'm going to throw up," I whispered.

With miraculous speed, a kidney-shaped plastic bowl was produced as if by sleight of hand, and I bent over it, moaning. Since I hadn't eaten dinner, there wasn't much to disgorge. I vomited painfully, finishing with a few dry heaves.

"I think she's got a concussion," I heard Gage tell the nurse. "She has a lump on the head, and slurred speech. And now nausea."

"We'll take good care of her, Mr. Travis." The nurse led me to a wheelchair. From that point on, there was nothing to do but surrender to the process. I was X-rayed, run through an MRI, checked for fractures and hematomas, then disinfected and bandaged and medicated. There were long periods of waiting between each procedure. It took most of the night.

As it turned out I had a middle rib fracture, but my jaw was only bruised, not broken. I had a slight concussion, but not enough to warrant a stay in the hospital. And I was dosed with enough Vicodin to make an elephant high.

I was too annoyed with Gage, and too exhausted, to say much of anything after I'd been checked out. I slept during the fifteen-minute ride to Gage's condo at 1800 Main, a Travis-owned building made of glass and steel. It was a mixed-use structure with multimillion-dollar condos at the top and offices and retail space at the base. The distinctive glass segmented-pyramid surmounting the building had earned 1800 Main a semi-iconic status in the city.

I had been inside 1800 Main a couple of times to eat at one of the downstairs restaurants, but I had never actually seen Gage's place.

He had always been intensely private.

We rode a swift elevator to the eighteenth floor. The condo door was open before we even made it to the end of the hallway. Liberty was standing there in a fuzzy peach-colored robe, her hair in a ponytail.

I wished she weren't there, my gorgeous, perfect sister-in-law who'd made all the right choices, the woman everybody in my family adored. She was one of the last people I would want to see me like this. I felt humiliated and troll-like as I lurched down the hallway toward her.

Liberty drew us both into the condo, which was ultramodern and starkly furnished, and closed the door. I saw her stand on her toes to kiss Gage. She turned to me.

"Hope you don' mind — " I began, and fell silent as she put her arms around me. She was so soft, smelling like scented powder and toothpaste, and her neck was warm and tender. I tried to pull back, but she didn't let go. It had been a long time since I'd been held this long by an adult woman, not since my mother. It was what I needed.

"I'm so glad you're here," she murmured. I felt myself relaxing, understanding there was going to be no judgment from Liberty, nothing but kindness.

She took me to the guest bedroom and helped me change into a nightshirt, and tucked me in as if I were no older than Carrington.

The room was pristine, decorated in shades of pale aqua and gray. "Sleep as long as you want," Liberty whispered, and closed the door.

I lay there dizzy and dazed. My cramped muscles released their tension, unraveling like braided cord. Somewhere in the condo a baby began to cry and was swiftly quieted. I heard Carrington's voice, asking where her purple sneakers were. She must have been getting ready for school. A few clanks of dishes and pans . . . breakfast being prepared. They were comforting sounds. Family sounds.

And I drifted gratefully to sleep, part of me wishing I would never wake up.

After you've been systematically abused, your judgment erodes to the point where it's nearly impossible to make decisions. Small decisions are as tough as big ones. Even choosing a breakfast cereal seems filled with peril. You are so scared about doing the wrong thing, being blamed and punished for it, you'd rather have someone else take the responsibility.

For me there was no relief in having left Nick. Whether or not I was still with him, I was buried in feelings of worthlessness. He had blamed me for causing the abuse, and his conviction had spread through me like a virus. Maybe I had caused it. Maybe I had deserved it.

Another side effect of having lived with Nick was that reality had acquired all the substance and stability of a jellyfish. I questioned myself and my reactions to everything. I didn't know what was true anymore. I couldn't tell if any of my feelings about anything were appropriate.

After sleeping about twenty-four hours, with Liberty checking on me occasionally, I finally got out of bed. I went to the bathroom and inspected my face in the mirror. I had a black eye, but the swelling had gone down. My jaw was still puffy and weird on one side, and I looked like I'd been in a car wreck. But I was hungry, which I thought was probably a good thing, and I was definitely feeling more human and less like roadkill.

As I shuffled into the main living area, groggy and hurting, I saw Gage sitting at a glass table.

Usually he was impeccably dressed, but at that moment he was wearing an old T-shirt and sweatpants, and his eyes were underpinned by dark circles.

"Wow," I said, going to sit by him, "you look terrible."

He didn't smile at my attempt at humor, just watched me with concern.

Liberty came in carrying a baby. "Here he is," she said cheerfully. My nephew, Matthew, was a chubby, adorable one-year-old with a gummy grin, big gray eyes, and a thatch of thick black hair.

"You gave the baby a Mohawk?" I asked as Liberty sat beside me with Matthew in her lap.

She grinned and nuzzled his head. "No, it just sort of fell off the sides and stayed on the top. I've been told it'll grow back in eventually."

"I like it. The family's Comanche streak is coming through." I wanted to reach for the baby, but I didn't think my cracked rib could take it, even with the support of the elastic rib belt around my midsection. So I settled for playing with his feet, while he giggled and crowed.

Liberty looked at me appraisingly. "It's time for your medicine again. Do you think you could eat some toast and eggs first?"

"Yes, please." I watched as she settled Matthew in a high chair and scattered some Cheerios on the surface. The baby began to rake the cereal bits with his fist, transferring them to his mouth.

"Coffee?" Liberty asked. "Hot tea?"

I usually preferred coffee, but I thought it might be tough on my stomach. "Tea would be great."

Gage drank his own coffee, set the cup down, and reached over to cover my hand with his. "How are you?" he asked.

As soon as he touched me, a nasty threatened feeling came over me. I couldn't stop myself from jerking my hand away. My brother, who had never done violence to a woman, looked at me with open-mouthed amazement.

"Sorry," I said, abashed as I saw his reaction.

He tore his gaze away, seeming occupied with a fierce inner struggle, and I saw that his color was high. "You're not the one who should be sorry," he muttered.

After Liberty had brought me tea and my prescription pills, Gage cleared his throat and asked gruffly, "Haven, how did you get away from Nick last night? How did you end up with no purse and no shoes?"

"Well, he . . . he sort of . . . threw me out. I think he expected me to wait on the doorstep until he let me back in."

I saw Liberty pause temporarily as she came to pour more coffee for him. I was surprised by how shocked she looked.

Gage reached for a glass of water, nearly knocking it over. He took a few deliberate gulps. "He beat you up and threw you out," he repeated. It wasn't a question, more a statement he was trying to make himself believe. I nodded yes and reached over to nudge one of Matthew's Cheerios more closely within reach.

"I'm not sure what Nick's going to do when he sees I'm gone," I heard myself say. "I'm afraid he might file a missing persons report. I guess I should call him. Although I'd rather not tell him where I am."

"I'm going to call one of our lawyers in a few minutes," Gage said. "I'll find out what we need to do next." He continued talking in a measured tone, about how we might need to take photos of my injuries, how to get the divorce over with as quickly as possible, how to minimize my involvement so I wouldn't have to face Nick or talk to him —

"Divorce?" I asked stupidly, while Liberty set a plate in front of me. "I don't know if I'm ready for that."

"You don't think you're ready? Have you looked in the mirror, Haven? How much more of a pounding do you need to be ready?"

I looked at him, so big and decisive and strong-willed, and everything in me rebelled.

"Gage, I just got here. Can I have a break? Just for a little while? Please?"

"The only way for you to get a break is to divorce the son of a"— Gage paused and glanced at his attentive baby — "gun."

I knew my brother was trying to protect me, that he wanted what was best for me. But his protectiveness felt like bullying. And it reminded me of Dad. "I know that," I said. "I just want to think about things before I talk to a lawyer."

"God help me, Haven, if you're actually considering going back to him — "

"I'm not. I'm just tired of being told what to do and when to do it. All the time! I feel like I'm on a runaway train. I don't want you making decisions about what I should do next."

"Fine. Then you make them. Fast. Or I will."

Liberty intervened before I could reply. "Gage," she murmured. Her slim fingers went to the taut surface of his clenched bicep and stroked lightly. His attention was instantly diverted. He looked at her, the lines on his face smoothing out, and he took a deep breath. I had never seen anyone wield that kind of power over my authoritative brother, and I was impressed. "This is a process," she said gently. "I know we want Haven to skip over the middle part and get right to the end . . . but I think the only way for her to get out of it is to go through it. Step by step."

He frowned but didn't argue. They exchanged a private glance. Clearly there would be more discussion later, out of my hearing. He turned back to me. "Haven," he said quietly, "what would you say if one of your friends told you her husband had thrown her out on the doorstep one night? What would your advice be?"

"I . . . I'd tell her to leave him right away," I admitted. "But it's different when it's me."

"Why?" he asked in genuine bewilderment.

"I don't know," I answered helplessly.

Gage rubbed his face with both hands. He stood from the table. "I'm going to get dressed and go to the office for a while. I won't make any calls." He paused deliberately before adding, "Yet." Going to the high chair, he lifted Matthew and held him aloft to make him squeal with delight. Lowering the wriggling body, Gage kissed his neck and cuddled him. "Hey, pardner. You be a good boy for Mommy while I'm gone. I'll come back later and we'll do some guy stuff."

Settling the baby back in the chair, Gage leaned down to kiss his wife, sliding his hand behind the back of her neck. It was more than a casual kiss, turning harder, longer, until she reached up and stroked his face. Breaking it off, he continued to look into her eyes, and it seemed an entire conversation passed between them.

Liberty waited until Gage had gone to take a shower before telling me gently, "He was so upset after he brought you home. He loves you. It drives him crazy, thinking of someone hurting you. It's all he can do to stop himself from going to Dallas and . . . doing something that's not in your best interests."

I blanched. "If he goes to Nick — "

"No, no, he won't. Gage is very self-controlled when it comes to getting the results he wants. Believe me, he'll do whatever is necessary to help you, no matter how hard it is."

"I'm sorry for involving you in this," I said. "I know it's the last thing you or Gage need."

We're your family." She leaned over and gathered me into another of those long, comfortable hugs. "We'll figure it out. And don't worry about Gage — I'm not going to let him bully you. He just wants you to be safe . . . but he's got to let you be in charge of how it's handled."

I felt a wave of affection and gratitude for her. If there was any lingering trace of resentment or jealousy in my heart, it vanished in that moment.

Once I started talking, I couldn't stop. I told Liberty everything, the way Nick had controlled the household, the shirts I'd had to iron, the way he called me "Marie." Her eyes widened at that last, and she said in a low voice, "Oh, Haven. It's like he was trying to erase you."

We had laid out a big quilt with a barnyard design, and Matthew had crawled among the hand-stitched animals until he drifted to sleep on top of a flock of sheep. Liberty opened a bottle of chilled white wine. "Your prescription instructions say that alcohol may magnify the effects of the medication," she warned.

"Good," I said, holding out my glass. "Don't be stingy."

Lounging on the quilt with the sleeping baby, I tried to find a comfortable position on the pile of pillows Liberty had set out for me. "What's confusing," I told her, still pondering my relationship with Nick, "are the times when he's okay, because then you think everything is getting better. You know what buttons not to push. But then there are new buttons. And no matter how sorry you are, no matter how hard you try, everything you say and do builds up the tension until there's an explosion."

"And the explosions get worse each time," she said with a quiet certainty that got my attention.

"Yeah, exactly. Did you ever date a guy like that?"

"My mother did." Her green eyes were distant. "His name was Louis. A Jekyll and Hyde type. He started out charming and nice, and he led Mama step by step into the relationship, and by the time things got bad enough for her to leave, her self-esteem was shredded. At the time I was too young to understand why she let him treat her so badly."

Her gaze wandered over Matthew's slumbering body, limp and heavy as a sack of flour. "I think the thing you've got to figure out is if Nick's behavior is something that could be helped with counseling. If your leaving him would he enough to make him want to change."

I sipped my wine and considered that for a while. Was Nick's abusiveness something that could be peeled away like an orange rind? Or was it marbled all the way through?

"I think with Nick, it's always going to be about control," I finally said. "I can't see him ever admitting something is his fault, or that he needs to change in any way. The fault is always mine." Set-ting aside my empty wine glass, I rubbed my forehead. "I keep wondering . . . did he ever love me at all? Was I anything more than just someone to push around and manipulate? Because if he never cared about me, it makes me even more of an idiot for having loved him."

"Maybe he cared about you as much as he was capable," Liberty said.

I smiled without humor. "Lucky me." I realized we were talking about my relationship with Nick as if it were already in the past tense. "If I had known him longer," I continued, "dated him longer, maybe I would have seen through the facade. It was my fault for rushing into marriage so quickly."

"No it wasn't," Liberty insisted. "Sometimes an imitation of love can be pretty damn convincing."

The words reminded me of something I'd heard her say a long time ago on her wedding night. A lifetime ago. "Like the imitation you had with Hardy Cates?"

She nodded, her expression turning thoughtful. "Yes, although I wouldn't care to put Hardy in the same company as Nick. He would never hurt a woman. In fact, Hardy had the opposite problem . . . always wanting to rescue someone . . . I forget the name for it . . ."

"A white knight complex."

"Yes. But after the rescue was done, that was Hardy's cue to leave."

"He wasn't such a white knight when he ruined Gage's business deal," I couldn't resist pointing out.

Liberty's smile turned rueful. "You're right But I think Hardy considered that a shot against Gage, not me." She shook her head dismissively. "About you and Nick . . . it's not your fault that he went after you. I've read that abusers choose women they can easily manipulate — they have a kind of radar for it. Like, if you filled the Astrodome with people and put one abusive man and one vulnerable woman in there, they'd find each other."

"Oh, great." I was indignant. "I'm a walking target."

"You're not a target, you're just. . . trusting. Loving. Any normal guy would appreciate that. But I think someone like Nick probably thinks of love as a weakness he can take advantage of."

Regardless of what I wanted to hear, that got to me. It was a truth I couldn't get over, under, or around . . . it stood right in my way, blocking any possible path back to Nick.

No matter how much I loved him, or what I did for him, Nick wouldn't change. The more I tried to please him, the more contempt he would have for me.

"I can't go back to him," I said slowly, "can I?"

Liberty just shook her head.

"I can imagine what Dad will say if I got a divorce," I muttered. "Starting with a big, fat 'I told you so.'"

"No," Liberty said earnestly. "Really. I've talked with Churchill more than once about the way he behaved. He's sorry about having been such a hard-ass."

I wasn't buying that. "Dad lives to be a hard-ass."

Liberty shrugged. "Whatever Churchill says or thinks is not important right now. The point is what you want."

I was about to tell her it might take a long time to figure that out. But as I lowered myself next to the baby's warm body and snuggled close, a few things had become very clear. I wanted to never be hit or yelled at again. I wanted to be called by my own name. I wanted my body to belong to me. I wanted all the things that anyone deserved by virtue of being human. Including love.

And I knew deep down it wasn't love when one person had all the power and the other person was completely dependent. Real love was not possible in a hierarchy.

I nuzzled Matthew's scalp. Nothing in the world smelled as good as a clean baby. How innocent and trusting he was in sleep. How would Nick treat a helpless creature like this?

"I want to talk to the lawyer," I said sleepily. "Because I don't want to be the woman in the Astrodome."

Liberty draped a throw blanket gently over the two of us. "Okay," she whispered. "You're in charge, Haven."