“Rav.”
“I’m not leaving.” Simple, final, no room for argument. “I wasn’t there last time. You woke up alone, went through everything alone. Not this time.”
“You were in worse shape than I was,” I said softly.
“But after I was out of the hospital, I should have called. Should have been there for you.” He dropped his forehead to my hand. “This time, I’m staying until you force me to go.”
I squeezed his hand, feeling the strength in it, the slight tremor that said he was more exhausted than he was letting on. “I just told you to go.”
“You’re too weak to actually force me.”
A tiny laugh formed in my chest, but I kept it down. “So stay.”
He lifted our joined hands and pressed his lips to my knuckles. “You were extraordinary, you know. The way you launched into action without any hesitation.”
“I was terrified.”
“But you did it anyway. That’s what courage is.”
I thought about Owen’s delusion that he could fix me. About Martinelli’s desperate grab for the lighter. About the choice between my safety and thousands of lives.
“It wasn’t really a choice,” I said. “Not when I thought about all those people. All those families who just wanted to watch fireworks.”
“Itwasa choice. And you chose them. You chose to be the protector.” He let out a long breath. “I’ve spent so many years thinking I failed you because I cared too much. I was distracted that day, and you got hurt because of it. I tried shutting off those emotions, but when I saw you up there with those men…”
“You’re my guardian angel, Rav.” I lifted my free hand—which was still so heavy—and touched his cheek. “You saved me. Both times.”
His thumb traced circles on my hand. “I’d do anything for you.”
I let my eyelids rest again, visions of the two of us swimming through time. Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Halifax, Naples. Something kept bringing us back together. I sniffled and looked at him again, my vision blurry this time from tears collecting on my lids. “Then promise you’ll never leave me again.”
“Never.” It was that simple. “You’re stuck with me now, Doc.”
“Good,” I said, trying not to laugh or cry and completely failing at both. “I’ve loved you for so long, Rav LaPierre. In Afghanistan, through all the silence and hurt, right up until now—I love you.”
“Oh, Brooke.” My name came out rough, his exhaustion catching up to him. “These past six days, sitting here, watching you breathe, terrified you wouldn’t wake up… I kept thinking about all the time we wasted. All the years we could have had.”
“We have them now.”
“We do.” He kissed my knuckles again. “We have whatever time we want.”
The future stretched ahead—complicated and uncertain, but undeniably ours. There would be research to do, though I wasn’t sure with whom. Who would I trust with this? The company that left the formula to be stolen? The government that’d allowed it to happen?
Worry about that tomorrow.
Epilogue 1
SCARLETT
Six months later…
The veil wouldn’t cooperate. I adjusted it for the third time. The hairstylist had pinned it on before she left, but it wasn’t perfect. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, letting my gaze wander around the beachside bridal prep suite at Gideon Tremaine’s Sapphire Cove Resort.
Six months ago, I’d been racing through Naples trying to stop a bioterrorism attack. Now I was sitting in a simple silk crepe wedding dress, about to marry the man who’d somehow gotten past every wall I’d ever built.
The door opened behind me. “Are we allowed in yet?”
I turned to find my parents in the doorway—my mother in a structured navy silk dress, and my father in a dark suit that fit better than the prison uniforms he’d worn for twenty years.
