She walked up to the second floor and down an acre of marble corridors until she arrived at a small office with its door open. It was a tiny room, crowded with crates, file cabinets, and a small desk where Nathaniel sat engrossed in some paperwork. A brass plate on the door read Bureau of Counterfeit Detection.
“Back to your one true love, I see,” she said.
His head shot up, and he stood. “Caroline!” He glanced around nervously, shoving papers into files and tossing a piece of canvas over a crate. Heavens, such secrecy. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You’re my one true love.”
She sent a pointed look at the brass plate. “Are you sure? It seems you’ve always loved counterfeit best.”
“You first, counterfeit second,” he said. “Come in. We’ve been discussing you.”
Caroline stepped into the office and only then noticed her older brother sitting in an alcove chair just behind the door.
“Gray!” she said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
He looked completely relaxed as he lounged in the chair, coat off and shirtsleeves rolled up. Rather than answer, he looked at Nathaniel. “Should we tell her?”
Nathaniel looked hesitant. “Her birthday isn’t for two more days.”
Caroline’s heart was already pumping faster. “Oh, don’t be such a stickler for details. Tell me now.”
Gray stood and reached for his suitcoat. “Go ahead and give it to her now. She’ll nag you incessantly if you make her wait. And I should be on my way. This office suddenly feels very crowded.”
She didn’t want to be rude by turning her brother out, but she lived under the same roof as Gray and saw him every day. Nathaniel was about to leave for Milwaukee, and there were so many things they needed to discuss before he vanished from her life for an unknown length of time.
Gray shrugged into his coat, kissed her on the forehead, and made his departure.
“What was that all about?” she asked as soon as they were alone again. Nathaniel barely knew Gray, but they’d seemed very cozy together just now.
Nathaniel pulled the recently vacated chair a little closer to his desk. It was the only visitor chair in the crowded office. “Please, have a seat.”
She preferred to remain standing in the open doorway, pretending to survey the office, because it hurt too much to look at his handsome face, carved with a combination of awkwardness and pleasure.
“Rumor has it you’ve been back in the city for two days. Couldn’t you spare ten minutes for me?”
“I spared you a lot more than that. Gray and I have been working on a birthday present for you. I also had some counterfeit work to handle here at the Treasury Department.”
“Preparing for Milwaukee?” Even saying the word made her feel queasy.
Nathaniel’s face gentled, and he moved to stand before her, taking her hands in his own. “I’m not going to Milwaukee.”
Her heart skipped a beat. The affection blazing in his eyes triggered a whirlwind inside, but she was too afraid to hope. She squeezed his hands and tried to keep her voice steady. “No?”
“No. I’d rather stay here.” He said it openly, with no conflicted feelings and only a wonderful tenderness in his face that made her want to gaze at him forever.
“Why?” she managed to ask, still not daring to hope. She knew how much tackling the Kestrel Gang meant to him. If he was willing to walk away from them,thatwould be the best possible birthday present.
“I find there’s a girl in Washington I care too much about to leave. I decided to stick around and pursue her.”
A whole new world of possibility was beginning to open up for her. She squeezed his hands tighter, still keeping her gaze locked with his but her voice carefully nonchalant. “My goodness. She must be something special to tempt you away from the lure of Milwaukee.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “I thought about her all the way to Key West and back.”
“What sort of thoughts?”
“I thought about how lucky I was to have found her. She’s as elegant and pretty as a rose, but she’s got a spine of pure steel. She’s loyal. And patient. She knows how to weather a storm without ever losing a bit of class. Mostly I thought about how grateful I am that she’s stuck with me through some of my own storms. Thank you for that, Caroline. I’ll never be able to express how much that meant to me.”
He gave her one of those famous closed-mouth smiles that always made her heart pound. But she still wasn’t ready to declare all forgiven.
“Why didn’t you come see me right away?”
