The Oasis Trilogy by Colby Hodge

Author:Colby Hodge [Holby, Cindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: cindyholbybooks

Chapter 22

"Where do you come from?" They were twisted together, legs and arms tangled, skin against skin. Somehow he had taken off the rest of his clothes. He couldn't remember when or how. Tess's head lay on his chest, her ear pressed against the place where his heart thumped a steady rhythm.

"I don't remember," she said. "I don't remember anything before being sold to the slave trader. My first memory is of leaving what I think was an orphanage. I don't even know what planet I was on."

"Strange," Ruben said."Why?"

"It's almost as if you were reading my mind."

"I know."

"How could that be?" His fingers traced a lazy pattern over her shoulder. "Has it ever happened before?""No. I thought it was because... we were making love."

'It was," he said. "Tess, please believe me when I tell you I've never felt connected to anyone in this way before. I've never experienced anything like this before."

"Me either. Of course, you probably have a lot more history to draw on than I do."

"You did see everything,'" he laughed. What did it matter if she knew everything about him? He wanted her to know. He wanted to tell her. But since there was no time for that...

Tess felt the movement deep in his chest as laughter flowed out. How could he laugh when he would be dead in just a few hours?

The same way that she could joke about his past It was easier to pretend that none of this was happening. Pretend that Boone was safely asleep in his bed and there was no fear or death coming with the dawn. Pretend that the love they'd just discovered was going to last forever and they had all the time in the world to talk about their futures and their pasts.

But that wasn't true.

As if reading her sudden panic, he spoke again. "Will Boone be sorry that his father is dead?"

"Boone doesn't remember his father."

"I thought Joah—"

"It was Joah's son." She pushed herself up. "It was in this bed. Joah bought me from a slave trader saying he wanted me to be housekeeper; but when I got here I knew he had bought me for his son. No other woman would have had him. He was too evil, too mean. He would just grab me and drag me in here night after night."Ruben picked up her hand, linking his fingers through hers. "He hurt you." The fingertips of his free hand grazed one of the puckered scars on her breasts.

"He did," she said dismissively. What he had done to her was part of the past and best forgotten. "But he stopped when it was obvious that I was with child. He couldn't bear to look at me. It was almost as if I were parading his sin in his face. He never said a word when Boone was born, never acknowledged him. He died when some casks fell on him in the winery. Boone was nearly two. And that was when Joah started drinking."

"Boone is the image of you.

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