Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Sit,” I say. “I’ll make tea.”
“I don’t want tea.”
“I know. Sit anyway.”
I find the kettle, fill it, locate mugs with the ease of someone who has spent enough time in this kitchen to know where things are. I make the tea she doesn’t want and carry both mugs to the living room. She accepts hers, curling around the heat and blowing across the top. I sit on the other end of the couch, and we exist in comfortable quiet for a bit.
I watch her from the corner of my eye and she stares across the room, and for a few minutes neither of us says anything.
Then she says my name. “Cole.”
I look at her.
“In the cabin,” she says in a measured tone. “After. You said—” She stops. Tries again. “Were you going to mention that, or would you like me to pretend I didn’t hear it?”
I keep my eyes trained on her so she knows I’m telling her the truth. “I meant it, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking.”
“Then yes,” I tell her truthfully. “I love you, Tessa. I’ve loved you longer than tonight and I loved you when we ended five years ago. Tonight I just—” The words are harder to say in the space of her living room than they were in the cabin with adrenaline still running hot. “Couldn’t not say it anymore.”
She looks at me across the couch with those blue eyes and her expression softens. But I also see the complication within. “I love you too,” she says softly. “Always have, always will.”
But what exactly do those words mean? Sitting here with her safe, warm and alive, it’s easy for me to see the future behind them. The possibility of a true second chance, what we tried to build five years ago and can build correctly now. We just have to come to an understanding of the consequences that occurred. We’re on the other side of this story, and the danger is in the rearview mirror, and I think the obvious answer is that we both probably learned a valuable lesson.
The thought arrives fully formed and certain and I say it before I’ve examined whether I should. “I think we can actually do this now. Move forward the way we couldn’t before.” I pause, then let loose the real truth of my feelings. “Now that you’re clear of this kind of work.”
I watch her go still and I can tell that she disagrees so fundamentally with what I just said that she’s giving herself a second before she responds. “Once I’m what?” she says.
I recognize the battle in her eyes, the line being drawn, and it raises my hackles. I enunciate my words. “Now that you’re clear of this line of work. Now that you’ve survived what was very nearly your death, surely you know that’s the only logical choice.”
There really can’t be any other path forward. She must give this up. I’ve built it in my head already—the version where she comes out the other side and understands, the way I understand, the way anyone who’s been through what she’s been through should understand, that some stories aren’t worth the cost.
“You thought I’d quit,” she murmurs flatly.
“Well, with you almost getting killed, I thought it might make you see things clearer,” I snap.
Heat flares in her eyes. “It only clarified that I’m damn good at what I do for a living.”
“Tessa—”
“Look at what I did.” She sits forward, placing the cup of tea on the coffee table. And there she is—the Tessa I know, the one who walked into an arson conspiracy and murder without flinching, fully present and completely certain. “Look at what we did. I followed a paper trail nobody else was following and I took down an arson ring that had been operating for years. I solved a murder that the Seattle PD was paid to ignore.” Her voice rises and she means every word of it. I can hear that, and some part of me that isn’t afraid is actually proud of her for it. “Erik Lanning died in that parking garage and tonight Gavin DelRey is in handcuffs. That matters.”
She’s so very right and I hate that to be true. “You were hanging from a hook,” I snarl, standing from the couch in fury. “Hanging from a fucking hook while being electrocuted.”
“I know that,” she retorts. “I’ve got the wounds to prove it.”
I can’t help but flinch at the reminder. “I heard you scream.” The words come out rough at the edges. “In those woods, I heard you and I couldn’t—” I stop. “Do you understand what that was like?”
“Yes,” she says quietly. “I think I do.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t think you can possibly understand what the worst moment of my life was truly like.”
She stares at me, eyes wide and misted.