• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

She uncurled herself, rubbed her hands over her wet face as if she could rub away the embarrassment of the tears. “He shouldn’t worry.”

“He does and he will. You need rest, Lieutenant, and a few days without work and worry. And so does he. So very much does he. He won’t take his without you.”

“I can’t. Not now.”

“Won’t.”

She closed her eyes. “Go up to my office, look at the faces of the dead pinned to my board. Then tell me to step away.”

“He wouldn’t, would he? But to do what you need to do, you require your strength, energies, and wit.” He leaned over, picked up the glass. “Finish it.”

She frowned at the glass. She hated to admit whatever he’d given her was already working. So she wouldn’t. “It’s probably poison.”

“Poison,” he said, amused. “Why didn’t I think of that? Perhaps next time.”

“Har-har.” She took the glass, downed the remaining contents. “There must be a way to make this taste less like sewage.”

“Certainly.” He set the glass back on the tray, then got to his feet. “But I’m entitled to my small pleasures. I might suggest you try some moderate exercise now.”

She didn’t have time, but she took it anyway and went down to the gym. He wasn’t using the machines, he rarely did, but was steadily, sweatily, working his way through bench presses. He had the screen on, with the audio set to spew out the various stock reports.

She found she didn’t understand the words any more than she did the symbols.

She went to him, knelt by his head. “I’m sorry.”

He continued to lift, set, lower. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Roarke, I’m sorry. I was an idiot. Don’t be mad at me. I don’t think I could handle it right now.”

“I’m not mad at you.” He lifted the bar into the safety, then slid out from under. “The situation occasionally rips my throat out.”

“I can’t do anything else. I can’t be anything else.”

He reached down for his towel, rubbed it over his face. “I wouldn’t want you to do or be anything else. It’s beyond my capabilities not to react as I do when you run yourself into the ground.”

“You usually drag me back out before the ground closes over my head.”

He looked at her face. Still so pale, he thought. Nearly transparent. “Doesn’t seem I was quite quick enough this time.”

“Let’s go to Mexico.”

“Excuse me?”

“The house in Mexico.” She figured if she could surprise him, she was still in reasonable shape. “It’s been a while. Why don’t we take a long weekend once this is over?”

Considering her, he drew the towel between his hands, then hooked it behind her head to bring her closer. “Who’s dragging who back out now?”

“Let’s drag each other. Give me time to close this down, and you do whatever it is you do to clear a few days. Then we’ll run away. We’ll lie on the beach, we’ll get drunk and have monkey sex. We’ll watch film discs until our eyes fall out.”

“Go back to the monkey sex.”

She laid her hands on his cheeks. “I’ve got to get ready for the briefing. We’ve got a deal, right?”

“Yes.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, relieved to find it cool again. “We definitely have a deal.”

She got up, but when she reached the door, turned back to look at him. He still sat on the bench, lean and sweaty in a black muscle shirt. He’d tied his hair back and had yet to bother with shoes.

And he watched her through eyes so brilliantly blue, it seemed she could dive through them, and into him.

“There was never anybody before you,” she said. “I just wanted to say that. And when I did what I do, and it opened a crack in me like it did last night, there was nobody there to hold on to me. I didn’t want anyone to hold on to me. Until you. And I got through and I got by, and it was okay. But I think, maybe, if I’d just kept getting through and getting by, I’d have come to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore. And if I couldn’t do it anymore, it’d be the end of me, Roarke.”

She took a steadying breath. “So when you hold on to me, you’re helping me stand up, one more time. And the dead, you’re standing for them, too. I just wanted