I landed hard on the mattress still clenched greedily around him.
Afterwards we lay together, separated only by the width of our thoughts. We sprawled on our backs while the sweat cooled on our bodies and the only sound was the slowing beat of our hearts as we came back to ourselves.
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t trite.
Sean shifted, his short hair rasping against the pillow as he turned towards me. I tensed involuntarily. I couldn’t help it. Those dark unfathomable eyes probed mine. I knew I needed to say something but nothing came.
“I take it back,” Sean said then and I couldn’t get a lock on his tone. “If you’d been fucking Parker all the time you were away you wouldn’t have been so…”
“Desperate?” I supplied.
He almost smiled. “I was going to say ‘ardent’ but I suppose boils down to the same thing.”
I stared up at the high ceiling and felt my heart splintering into shards like a bullet through glass.
“I’ve never been unfaithful to you Sean.”
“It was mine, wasn’t it — the child you lost?” And when shock kept me mute he recounted with deadly accuracy, “You said you’d had a coil fitted, because you weren’t taking any chances ‘after last time’. Was it… before we left the UK?”
I rolled away from him slowly onto my side and curled my knees up toward my chest, resisting the urge to cry. “Was getting myself pregnant the only reason I got to tag along with you to New York you mean?” I asked with brittle dignity. “No, it wasn’t.”
I heard the gush of his outward breath, felt the mattress sway as he propped himself up on one elbow. His hand smoothed across my hip and gently tugged me over onto my back again so he could see my face.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” he said then, his voice low. “I know how hard this is — for both of us. We’re neither of us the people we remember.”
I recognised the olive branch for what it was, but still couldn’t prevent a hurt question. “Was I ever the kind of person who would have tried to trap you with an unwanted child?”
He rubbed his fingers across the scar at his temple and shook his head as much to clear it as in denial. “I just… don’t know,” he said helplessly. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I know, I still can’t shake the feeling we’re bad for each other — a disaster waiting to happen.”
“Maybe we are,” I agreed as images of earlier times and places cartwheeled through my mind. I stared into his eyes. “But I’ve risked my life for you, and I’d do it again tomorrow without hesitation.”
His hand dropped away from his face, a sudden intensity about him.
“Those two spent rounds you carry everywhere with you like a talisman,” he said at last, frowning as if until the words were out there he hadn’t known what he’d been about to say.
I nodded. “We were facing a gunman with a hostage,” I said, matter-of-fact. “I was wearing body armour. You weren’t. So, I… put myself between the two of you.”
Sean’s gaze flicked over my body as though searching for the extra scars. “Supposing he’d gone for a head shot?” he asked quietly.
“He might have done, but he didn’t,” I said. “I didn’t think he was good enough — and he wanted to be sure. Two in the chest will usually get the job done.”
His mouth twisted. “Is that something else I taught you?”
“Yes.”
I could have said more — there was so much more to be said — but I lapsed into silence, for all the good it did me. Sean always had been able to read me like an open book.
“What else is there, Charlie?” And when I would have rolled away again he caught my wrist, held it fast and demanded roughly, “Tell me.”
So I told him. It was only when I got that phone call from Parker I realised what a mistake it was but at the time it was a relief to finally get it out in the open.
About how being prepared to die for him was only part of the story. About how I discovered while he was in his coma that I was also prepared to kill for him. Not in the midst of a fire fight where saving one life gave you no choice but to take another. But later, with icy calculation. To stalk a target like prey.
“You told me once you thought I had all the makings of a cold-blooded killer. Someone who didn’t just have the ability to aim — someone who had what it took to pull the trigger for real,” I said. “Turns out you were right.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
On my fourth morning with R&R I found myself slated to work a new sector alongside Hope and Lemon again.
Hope was clearly uncomfortable about this. She was very subdued in the mess hall when I saw her first thing. Her anxiety communicated itself to Lemon, who remained glued to her side throughout breakfast. The dog even refused to be tempted by the offer of bacon strips from the squaddies manning the grill. Unsure of my welcome I didn’t sit at the same table, and as soon as Hope had shovelled down her usual healthy serving she scurried away without making eye contact.
I would have gone after her then but Joe Marcus stopped me with an ominous, “Charlie — a word.”
I followed him outside, noting that he pointedly turned away from the direction Hope had taken. I watched the yellow Lab trotting along at her heels, the dog’s face upturned to fix her with those unwavering green eyes. I schooled my expression into one of polite enquiry.
“What can I do for you, Joe?”
He stared at me for a moment in an attempt to flatten out any sign of flippancy, then said, “Hope’s acting kinda upset this morning.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “She’s—”
He chopped off my words with an abrupt slice of his hand. “I don’t need to know why. I just need her focused on the job. You hearing me?”
I nodded. I was hearing him all right.
“Without Hope — and Lemon — doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, everybody else on this team is just spinning their wheels. Your job is to let her work without distractions, not to be the cause of them.” He paused. “Lives depend on it, Charlie. Got that?”
“Loud and clear,” I murmured.
He gave a final sharp shake of his head as if he couldn’t believe my density and spun on his heel. I watched him stride away toward the morgue where Dr Bertrand stood waiting for him. They spoke briefly and she glanced in my direction before they went inside. I don’t know what they said and gathered from her bleak expression that I didn’t want to know either.
I went out of my way to be pleasantly chatty with Hope on the ride over the city but she remained hunched and withdrawn, only replying to Riley’s teasing banter in monosyllables. By the time we reached our designated sector even the laidback Aussie was handing me reproachful glances.
Great. She can’t keep her hands in her own pockets and suddenly it’s my fault.
Riley dropped us off with the usual comms check, to which Hope responded with a morose, “OK.” He lifted off again with a frown that was visible even from the ground.
“Look, are you going to lighten up, Hope?” I asked once we were alone. “Or are we all going to have a miserable day?”
She threw me a look of almost teenage disdain.
“What’s the point?” she demanded. “You’re going to get me sent home anyway, aren’t you?”
Joe Marcus’s warning at breakfast was still looming large in my mind — that he valued Hope and Lemon’s contribution to the team above almost all others. How far would he go to protect the girl, and why? I remembered the way she didn’t flinch that time he touched her arm and I couldn’t prevent a shiver of distaste. I hoped I was way off base with my suspicion — he was old enough to be her father for heaven’s sake. In terms of maturity, more like grandfather.