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As she should be. He rarely bargained away something for nothing. “I’ll promise to chill here for the rest of the night, if you promise not to leave my sight.”
For a long moment, she just stared at him, her eyes searching his face.
He shrugged. “I may or may not be afraid of the dark.”
That quip drew an actual laugh.
He dug his fingers into the covers, forcing himself not to reach for her. Offer the comfort of a partner. Not just a friend.
Not the time, Scarborough. Definitely not the time.
She shrugged. “After that whack on the head, I was going to insist on staying anyway. You need a wakeup call every hour. Sorry. Not sorry.”
Yeah,despite the pounding in his head, he was definitely not sorry. Anything to keep her close.
He manufactured a deep sigh. “The things I do for my country.”
She stretched hard. “No kidding.” She wrinkled her nose. “This room smells like feet.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
One elegant eyebrow rose in response.Enough said.
He sniffed at his pits, relieved to note he didn’t smell as ripe as he expected. The two of them had spent countless nights racking out together, most of them in places as uncomfortable as they were exotic. But after her revelation, the air between them held a new intimacy.
And, he wanted to believe, the seeds of a deeper relationship to come.
But this wasn’t the time to get ahead of himself.
They had a bad guy to catch first.
But they’d be doing it together. He fell asleep with a smile on his lips.
20
Kate settledinto the lone chair in Fenn’s cramped room, her eyes drawn to his sleeping form. He looked peaceful, the lines of pain and worry smoothed from his face. She placed her weapon on the table beside her and reached for her Bible.
The worn pages felt familiar beneath her fingertips, but as she opened the book, her mind began to wander. She couldn’t focus on the words, couldn’t find the solace she usually did in the scriptures. Instead, her thoughts kept circling back to Fenn, to the way he’d reacted when she’d told him about her past.
She’d expected disgust, condemnation, a swift order to leave his room and never come back. But instead, he’d looked at her with understanding and compassion. He hadn’t pushed her away or treated her like a pariah. If anything, he’d drawn her closer, offering comfort and support when she needed it most.
And then, like he always did, he lightened the mood with a self-deprecating joke.
Gratitude surged through her. She closed her eyes, her lips moving in a silent prayer. She thanked God for Fenn, for his unwavering belief in her, for his ability to see past her mistakes and into her heart.
And as she prayed, she could feel something shifting inside her, a subtle but unmistakable change. The walls she’d built around her heart, the defenses she’d erected to keep everyone at a distance, began to crack and crumble. For the first time in a long time, she allowed herself to imagine a future with Fenn, a life beyond the confines of their dangerous missions and secret identities.
In her mind’s eye, she saw a house with a white picket fence, a couple of kids playing in the yard. She saw Fenn teaching them to throw a perfect spiral, while she showed them how to navigate by the stars. She saw a life filled with love and laughter, with purpose and partnership.
It was a beautiful dream, a tempting fantasy. But as she opened her eyes and looked at Fenn’s sleeping form once more, she knew it was more than that. It was a real possibility.
The chance for a future she’d never dared imagine.
She smiled to herself, a soft, secret smile. Maybe she could have it all. The thrill of flying, the satisfaction of serving her country, and the love of a good man by her side. It wouldn’t be easy, but then again, nothing worth having ever was.
She looked at her Bible once more, flipping to a favorite passage. This time, the words leapt off the page, filling her with a sense of peace and purpose. She knew, without a doubt, that whatever the future held, she was exactly where she was meant to be.
Kate’s eyes fell on a well-worn page, the edges softened by countless readings. The words in Romans 8:38-39 were as familiar to her as her own heartbeat, a source of comfort and strength in even the darkest of times.
