“Janice.”
Coburn, who had continued talking while her mind wandered, looked at her strangely. “What?”
“Sorry. I was thinking about his wife. Her name is Janice, if I’m remembering correctly. She became a widow tonight.” Honor could empathize.
“Her husband should have been smarter,” Coburn said. “The naive bastard really thought we were all alone out there.”
“Somebody set him up to die.”
“Along with you.”
“Except that you took my place.”
He shrugged with seeming indifference.
She swallowed the emotion that was making her throat ache and focused on something else. She pointed toward his shoulder. “Does that hurt?”
He turned his head and looked at the patch of raw skin. “I think a piece of burning car upholstery fell on me. It stings a little. Not bad.” His eyes moved over her. “What about you? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No.”
“You could have been. Seriously. If you’d been closer to the car when it blew, you could have been killed.”
“Then I guess I’m lucky.”
“Why’d you leave the garage?”
The question took her off guard. “I don’t know. I just did.”
“You didn’t do what I told you to. You didn’t drive away.”
“No.”
“So why not? What did you plan to do?”
“I didn’t plan anything. I acted on impulse.”
“Were you going to throw yourself on VanAllen’s mercy?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know!” Before he could say anything further on that subject, she motioned toward his head. “Your hair’s singed.”
Absently he raked his hand over his hair as he moved to the chest of drawers. In one he found a T-shirt, in another a pair of jeans. The T-shirt would do, but the jeans were six inches too short and six inches too large in the waist. “I’ll have to make do with your dad’s khakis.”
“We’re both pretty much a mess.” She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when they’d fled her house yesterday morning. Since then she’d waded through a swamp, run through a marsh, and barely escaped an explosion.
“You use the shower first,” he said.
“You’re worse off than I am.”
“Which is why you won’t want to get in it after me. Go ahead. I’ll see if I can find us something to eat in the main house.”
Without another word, he left. Listlessly, Honor stared at the closed door and listened as he went down the outside stairs. Then for several minutes she stayed exactly as she was, lacking the wherewithal to move. Finally she forced herself.
The bar soap in the shower was locker room variety, but she used it liberally, even washed her hair with it. She could have luxuriated in the hot water all night, but, remembering that Coburn needed it even worse than she, she got out as soon as she had thoroughly rinsed.