From atop the towel rack, Matalina smiled. “Oh, Rachel, you look fine,” she said, and I met her gaze, thinking that I must look ghastly if that’s what she thought I was sighing about. The woman appeared to be eighteen, but she and Jenks had forty-some kids, and she was nearing the end of her life span. Or so Jenks said. She looked awfully chipper for someone supposedly on her deathbed. Jax being here might have something to do with it. And I was worrying about who had my underwear?

“I’m out of the tub,” I said, listening to my pulse and feeling tired as she knitted from a ball of what was probably dyed spider silk. “Why don’t you go visit with Jax?”

“Because I’m angry with him for running off half trained, with a thief,” she said primly.

Her expression was fierce, and I wondered if it was the thief or the half-trained part that bothered her. Guilt hit me, and I gingerly rubbed the welts on my wrists. Matalina would never forgive herself if her eldest son left again before she could find it in her heart to talk to him.

I glanced at Matalina watching but not watching me as I sat on the edge of the tub and tried to dry my feet, reminded of my first few nights in the church. It was Matalina who had kept an eye on me the night Al had almost torn my throat out. A lot had happened since then, stuff that turned enemies to allies, and allies to enemies. But Matalina was unchanged, she and her family a point of normalcy in my chaotic life. I was glad she was looking so well.

“Go talk to Jax,” I said softly, and the woman sighed so loudly I could hear it.

“I will,” she said. “Life is too short to carry a grudge. Especially when it’s with family you thought you’d never see again.” She continued to knit, smiling. “He likes you, you know.”

“Jax?” I said, surprised.

“Gordian Pierce!” she exclaimed, looking up. “You can see it in his eyes.”

Funny. The only thing I ever see in his eyes is trouble. Taking the towel from my hair, I went to the mirror and wiped it, wincing. I’d never get through the tangles. Never. “Pierce is a teenage crush from when I was young and stupid, and thought impulsive, dangerous men were the catch of the day, not the death traps they are.”