She shook her head as she picked up the glue gun and started attaching small beads around the exterior lip of the base container. The council wasn’t paying for the extra dazzle, but she had a reputation to maintain, and since her business was going to be listed in the program, it was important to create a centerpiece worthy of a second look.
“Ouch, dammit!” She wiped the hot glue off her fingertip and dipped it into the water pitcher sitting off to one side. Seriously, Dani, get a grip. You’re not doing your best work. And if you don’t snap out of this . . . funk, you won’t be doing any work. Then you’ll lose the only thing you have left. The only thing that matters.
What if there was something else that mattered? Or someone?
She lifted her head and closed her eyes. For the past nine months (plus one week, three days, and three hours now) she had been hearing her own voice in her head, but she hadn’t gone so far around the bend that she’d been hearing Jack’s.
“Dani.”
She swung her hands up, glue gun loaded and aimed. She couldn’t survive him leaving her twice.
“Jack,” she breathed. “Is it . . . are you really here?”
“I’m really here.”
She couldn’t gather her thoughts, it was all so sudden, and real. What came out next was not what she’d envisioned saying to him. “Do they still have flowers in your time?”
He frowned, even as his lips quirked. And damn if he didn’t look way more intoxicatingly sexy than she even remembered. Which was saying a hell of a lot. “We do, yes.”
“Then, I’m good.”
“Dani—”
“Did you . . . come back to see me?”
“I – I came back because of you.”
She tensed and her heart skipped a beat. “Is this about Stoecker?”
He shook his head. “He’s dead.”
She flinched at that.
“Not killed by you,” he said quickly.
“By you?”
His nod was almost imperceptible. “I told you I’d make sure you were safe.”
“So that’s it. You just came to tell me that?” She steadied her stance, glue gun still held out in front of her in a two-fisted grip. “Because, to be honest with you, I haven’t spent any time thinking about Stoecker.”
His expression flickered, but was still unreadable. “I see.”
“I’m glad he’s dead, though. If he did all those things you said he did, then I’m glad.”
“There will be others like him.”
“Are you chasing one of them now?”
He shook his head. “I’m retired. From active duty, anyway.”
The glue gun shook a little, and her composure slipped. “Are you okay? Did anything happen? Was it Stoecker? Did you get hurt, or . . . ?”
“I’m fine, I’m just done chasing bad guys.”
“What will you do now?”
“At the moment, I’m still working on figuring that out. Maybe train a team to do what I used to do. Did.
I can’t . . . I can’t seem to focus, though. It’s not enough, anymore.”
She swallowed. Hard. “And?”
“You didn’t think about Stoecker? No worry?”
“That he’d come back?” She shook her head. “I trusted you.”
“Then why are you holding me at glue gunpoint?”
“I – I don’t know. Self-preservation instinct, I guess. I’ve—” She broke off. He hadn’t given her much to work with, and she wasn’t about to make a complete fool of herself by spilling her guts.
“Dani, put the gun down.”
She looked up, found his gaze, and got lost in it, all over again.
He took a step forward, then another. “Do you still trust me?”
She nodded.
And then he was in front of her, his hand over her shaky one. Or was it his hand that was shaky? He gently pushed the gun down, until she dropped it on the work table.
“Let me ask you one thing.”
Anything. “Okay.”
“Did you think about me?”
She nodded. Every second of every day.
“Come here,” he said, his voice gravelly, but softer, gentler, than she’d ever imagined possible.
“Wait,” she said. “I – I don’t want—” She broke off, not sure what to say. That she didn’t want him to leave her again? Did she think he was back because he was staying? Was he going to ask her to go with him? “Why – why are you here?”
“For you.”
Her heart leapt so fast and hard it hurt. “With what in mind, exactly?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s possible. What you want. Or don’t want. I just know that I don’t want to not have you. Not for another day, another minute.”
“When did you know that?”
For the first time, his expression wavered, and she could see that this stoic act was costing him. “The moment I couldn’t see your eyes anymore.”
She smiled, even as her eyes grew a bit glassy. “I might have you beat on that, then.”
The relief she saw, the quick, sudden sag to his oh-so-broad shoulders, almost leveled what was left of her willpower. “It’s been almost a year,” she managed.
“That’s how long it took to figure out how Stoecker manipulated the fissure. And to make damn sure it would hold up.”
“Hold up to what?”
“Getting me here. Getting the both of us back.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Right now, what I want is to not be standing apart from you like this. So close, and still a lifetime away. The rest can figure itself out.” And the rest of his protective shield came crashing down. He let her see, for the first time, all the anxiety, the anguish, the frustration, and yes, even the fear. “Dani, sweetheart, I just want you.”
And that was all she needed. She literally leapt into his arms, and he caught her, hard and fast against him. “Then phone home, E.T.,” she murmured, smiling against his lips. “And tell them you’re bringing company with you.”
Tales from the Second Chance Saloon: Macawley’s List
Linnea Sinclair
Telling her he loved her was on his list of things to do.
Dying before he had a chance to do so, wasn’t.
The metal decking of Starbase Delta Five skewed suddenly under his boots. The shock wave of the first explosion blasted by him. He stumbled, slammed against the bulkhead. Debris cascaded down through the ruptured conduit panels. He swung his good arm up to shield his face and slid awkwardly to the floor.
“Macawley!” Her anguished voice called to him through the communications badge pinned to his shirt.
He almost said it, right then and there. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’m just too much of a coward to tell you.
He ripped the badge from his shirt, threw it across the wide corridor. It skittered against a chunk of ceiling tile. If he answered, she’d try to rescue him. Even though he’d given her a direct order to pull out.
But she had a propensity to ignore his direct orders. That was one of the things he loved about her.
The station rumbled again. A large section of the corridor collapsed into the level below, taking the chunk of tile and his badge with it.
He hooked his good arm around a curved support pylon and hung on, though he didn’t know why. He was already dead. A Duvri ion lance had severed his left arm at the elbow, cauterizing it neatly. And he was bleeding profusely from a shrapnel wound in his thigh.
But none of that mattered. What did was the destruction of Delta Five. His tactical team set the charges for that purpose an hour ago. That would bring the Duvri’s invasion of the Galleon Quadrant to a dead stop, like slamming into a black hole.