Eliza and Fisher remained rooted to the spot as the rest of the crew marched up to the War Room. Once they were alone, Fisher cupped her chin. “How are yareallyholdin’ up, darlin’?”
She refused to rub at the ache behind her eyes. She didn’t want him to know just how close she was to tears.
Shehad spent most of the day safely squirreled away whilehehad avoided taking a bullet to the face by mere inches, had participated in a highspeed chase, and had been arrested and confined to custody. If anyone deserved a good emotional breakdown, it was him. Not her.
“I’m tired,” she admitted with a self-deprecating twist of her lips.
“Me too if I’m bein’ honest,” he admitted with a heavy sigh. “And my achin’ bones are beggin’ for a shower.” The grin he shot her then was positively devilish. “I’d ask ya to join me. But part of my achin’ bones can be blamed on you shovin’ me off the bed. So I’ll save myself the pain and misery.”
She opened her mouth. But before she could say anything, Sam called down from the second floor. “Hey, Eliza? Mind bringing the coffeepot with you when you head this way?”
“Be right there!” she called and then made a face at Fisher. “All work and no play.”
He chucked her under the chin. “That’s what ya get for spoilin’ us like ya do. We’ve come to expect it.”
“I don’t mind. I like feeling needed.”
Something moved in his eyes. “We couldn’t do what we do without ya, Liza. Ya know that, right? You’re what makes this place a home.”
Home. Family. Love.
It’s what she’d yearned for since the day her mother died. And she might have lost it all today if that assassin’s bullet had found its mark.
The tears she’d managed to hold at bay threatened to overcome her control. Before he could see, she turned away, throwing back over her shoulder, “Forget about me and go get that shower that’s calling your name. You’ve earned it.”
“Forget about ya?” he called to her back. “Not likely. If I had a flower for every time I thought of ya, I could walk in my garden forever.”
She stopped and gave him her profile. “Alfred Lord Tennyson?”
He chuckled. “Woman, that settles it. You’ve been hangin’ around me too much.”
“Never,” she whispered and then quickly resumed her trip to the kitchen because there was no more stopping the tears.
27
Fisher stood beneath the showerhead, his hands pressed flat on the tile wall in front of him. He welcomed the steam that enveloped him like a warm embrace and was thankful for the force of the water that pummeled against his shoulders.
His whole body throbbed from the events of the day. Every muscle fiber he had had stayed flexed during the chase to the airport. He’d been slammed face-first onto the tarmac when the CPD had arrived with sirens blaring and guns drawn. And then he’d spent hours confined to the unforgiving hardness of a jail cell.
But it was the ache in the cold stone that was his heart that penetrated the deepest. The ache for Eliza.
If he thought he had yearned for her before, it was nothing compared to what he felt now. Now that he knew that were it not for the venomous, prickly legged thing inside him, then maybe…just maybe all those dreams he’d never dared to dream might actually have a chance of coming true.
“Fuck me,” he whispered as the memory of her leaping into his arms and kissing him replayed itself in his mind.
It hadn’t simply been a kiss of passion. It was as if every ounce of her being had been poured into that fleeting moment of intimacy.
A kiss of the heart.
A kiss of the soul.
A first kiss of its kind for him.
Which was strange to think about. Or maybe it wasn’t.
He’d been careful with women from the start. Careful to keep things casual. To honor and cherish them without letting them get too close lest they be bitten by the monster.
But Eliza had spent four years worming her way past all his barriers. Four years flirting with him and arguing with him and working with him and feeding him. Four years being a colleague and a friend.
