“Promises and secrets, and all the things I never understood. I want them with you. I love you so much. I love you. That’s already more than I ever had.”
“More still.” He drew her into the kiss, long and slow and deep, as the water showered over them. He’d have given her the moon itself if he could, and an ocean of wildflowers.
Promises. He could give her those. A promise to love her, to help her find peace of mind, a safe haven.
And moments like this, alone, where they could tend to each other, pleasure each other. Shut the world and all its troubles, its pressures and its demands away.
She washed him, and he her—inch by inch. Arousing, lingering, prolonging. Now the scent of honey and almond rising up, the slick, slippery slide of hands, of bodies, the quick catch of breath, the long, low sigh.
So when he braced her, when he filled her, there was moonlight and wildflowers, there were whispers and promises. And more.
There was, she thought as she surrendered, everything.
The sensation of contentment stayed with her as she stood in the kitchen, contemplating doing something interesting with potatoes—Brooks liked potatoes—to go with the steak and salad. She glanced, a little guiltily, at her computer as she poured wine for both of them.
“I should try again, now that we’ve had our break.”
“Give your big brain a little rest. Let’s sit down a minute. I’ve got a couple updates for you.”
“Updates? Why didn’t you already tell me?”
“You were involved when I first got home,” he reminded her. “Then I was distracted by shower sex.”
He sat at the counter, and since she’d already poured it for him, picked up his second glass of lemonade.
“I guess we’ll take them in order. I had a talk with Roland Babbett. The cameras I borrowed from you did the trick, caught him going into the Ozarks Suite using B-and-E tools to do it.”
“You arrested him?”
“In a manner of speaking. I have to say I liked the guy, once we got things aired and ironed out.”
He ran it through for her, but she didn’t sit. Instead, she kept her hands busy scrubbing then quartering small red-skinned potatoes.
“You told him he frightened me.”
“I may have colored your reaction a little differently than the reality of it, but I figure your pride can handle it.”
“You … prevaricated so he’d feel some sympathy toward me and less curiosity about the cameras, the gun and so on.”
“I like ‘prevaricated.’ It’s an important word, and classier than ‘lied.’”
“You believed him, too, believe he’ll just leave and not pursue his investigation.”
“I do. He’s a family man at the base of it, Abigail, and with his wife expecting their third child, he doesn’t want to risk his livelihood on this or go through the upset and pressures of a trial. His firm isn’t going to want to deal with the publicity we could generate, especially as one of their operatives saw photos of the damage on the hotel. And over that, he doesn’t like Blake or the boy.”
“But he works for them.”
“Roundabout, yeah. I work for them, roundabout, as I’m a public official. Doesn’t mean I have to like them, either.”
“You’re right, of course.”
“I made him a good deal, one he can live with. He can turn in his reports, fulfill the contract with the client, move on.”
“If there’s no more danger from that quarter, the logic you used to contact the authorities now, to move forward with testifying, doesn’t hold.”
He reached out to still her hands for a moment, to bring her eyes to his. “It does if you consider that down the road something like this may happen again. If you consider you’re never going to feel rooted here, the way I think we both want you to, until you finish this.”
“That’s true, but perhaps we could delay, take more time to …” She trailed off when he said nothing, only looked at her. “Delay is an excuse. It’s fear, not courage.”
“I’m never going to question your courage, or criticize the way you’ve coped.”
“That means a great deal to me. I want it over, Brooks. I do. And having taken appreciable steps toward that end is frightening, but it’s also a relief.”
“Then I hope you’ll be relieved to know Captain Anson’s in Chicago. He intends to contact Agent Garrison tonight.”
“He called you?”
“Late this afternoon, on the drop phone.”
“I’m grateful to him.” She began mincing garlic, her eyes trained on her hands, on the knife, as the pressure built in her chest. “I hope she’ll believe him.”
“You picked a smart, capable, honest woman.”
“Yes, I was very careful in my selection.”
“Anson’s a smart, capable, honest man. We couldn’t do better.”
“We both made logical choices. It’s good it’s happening quickly. Delay isn’t sensible once decisions are made, so it’s best it’s moving forward quickly.”
She poured olive oil, spooned some Dijon mustard with it in a bowl. After a distracted moment, she added a splash of balsamic vinegar. “Except for my part.”
“You’ll get there.”
“I’m not confident of that at this point.”
“I am, so take some of mine.” He watched her spoon a little Worcestershire in the bowl, then some Italian dressing he knew she used primarily for marinades. In went the garlic, some pepper, a little chopped fresh basil.
“What’re you doing there, Abigail?”
“I’m going to coat the potatoes with this and roast them. I’m making it up,” she added, as she began to whisk the mixture. “It’s science, and science keeps me grounded. Experimenting is satisfying when the results are pleasing. Even when they aren’t, the process of the experiment is interesting.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She whisked, sniffed, narrowed her own eyes, added a little something more.
Pretty as a picture, he thought, with her hair still a little damp from the shower and pulled back in a short, glossy brown ponytail. She’d put on a sleeveless shirt of quiet gray and jeans that rolled up into casual cuffs just above her knees.
One of her nines sat at easy reach on the counter by the back door.
Her face, those wide green eyes, stayed so sober, so serious, as she put the potatoes into a large bowl, poured the experimental mixture over them, reached for a wooden spoon.
“Marry me, Abigail.”
She dropped the spoon. Bert sauntered over to sniff at it politely.
“Well, that just popped out,” he said, when she just stared at him.
“You were joking.” She picked up the spoon, set it in the sink, lifted another from a pottery sleeve. “Because I’m cooking, and it’s a domestic area.”
“I’m not joking. I’d figured to set the scene a lot better when I asked you. That moonlight you want, flowers, maybe some champagne. A picnic’s what I had in mind. A moonlight picnic up at the spot you like with the view of the hills. But I’m sitting here, looking at you, and it just popped out.”
He came around the counter, took the spoon, set it aside so he could take both her hands. “So marry me, Abigail.”
“You’re not thinking clearly. This isn’t something we can consider, much less discuss, particularly when my situation remains in flux.”
“Things are always in flux. Not this,” he added. “I swear to you we’ll end this, we’ll fix this. But there’s always going to be something. And I think now’s the perfect time, before it’s ended, before it’s fixed, because we should be able to promise each other when things outside aren’t perfect.”
“If it goes wrong—”
“Then it goes wrong. We don’t.”
“Marriage …” She drew her hands free, used them to stir the coating on the potatoes. “It’s a civil contract broken at least half the time with another document. People enter into it promising forever, when in reality—”
“I’m promising you forever.”
“You can’t know.”
“I believe.”