They walked down the stairs together. “I’m going to get the supplies Rook brought with him.” Elise followed him out and helped him make several trips back into the kitchen. Once they were done, Blake locked the car and made his way into the kitchen, where Elise was putting away the groceries. He added a few logs to the fire and rearranged the coals to encourage the fire to catch. Elise came back into the room and sat down across from him. The quiet stretched, with only the low crackle of the fire and the distant drip of water in the old kitchen sink filling the room. Elise turned her attention to Blake, and for the first time since he’d walked Rook inside, he let himself meet her stare.
She didn’t speak right away. Her eyes searched him, weighed him, her lips pressed into a line that carried both suspicion and restraint.
“He’s not telling the truth,” she said finally, soft but unwavering.
Blake exhaled, leaning back against the counter, crossing his arms. “Does it matter right now?”
“Yes,” she said, equally quiet. “Because it tells me what kind of danger you’re really in. And what kind of danger I’m in.”
Her words hit harder than the sight of Rook bleeding at the table. Blake kept his face calm, his voice steady. “Right now, it matters that he lives through the night. Tomorrow … we’ll talk.”
“Is there a chance he won’t?”
Blake sighed. “He’s lost a lot of blood. Then there’s a chance of infection, which is always a bitch, but I think he’ll be okay, or I would’ve called in medical support.” Her eyes narrowed, but she gave a small nod. She’d just started to trust him, but now, the suspicion was back in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. Trust was a luxury he wasn’t sure he could afford to give her, not when Zajac still breathed, not when enemies were searching for them. But God above, he wanted to trust her. He wanted to lay the entire agenda out and show her the monster that she’d been tracking. He wanted to tell her his plans to make the man pay, and he wanted to whisk her away from the situation she was in. Yet, the risk of doing any of those things was too high.
Blake checkedRook one more time before leaving him in the smaller bedroom upstairs. The man was out cold, breathing steady, bandaged tight. He pulled the door nearly shut and headed back downstairs, his mind already turning to Elise and the way she'd looked at him with a mix of fascination and horror when he'd stitched up his wounded colleague with clinical efficiency.
Elise had lit more candles, and their golden glow warmed the edges of the rough-hewn beams overhead and cast her in a honeyed light that made his chest tighten. The old stone fireplace snapped and crackled, heat pushing back the chillseeping in through the cottage walls. On the low table, she'd laid out some of what Rook had brought. A loaf of crusty bread, a wedge of sharp cheese, a packet of cured meat, and a bottle of wine.
She was already seated on the rug, legs tucked gracefully beneath her, the firelight playing across the elegant line of her neck as she poured deep red wine into two mismatched glasses. "Figured we'd need this." She looked up at him, her eyes beautiful in the candlelight. "Even if you don't, I sure as hell do."
Blake lowered himself onto the rug opposite her, close enough that their knees almost touched, the fire painting her face in soft, intimate light. He accepted the glass, hyperaware of how her fingers brushed his as she handed it to him. The brief contact sent heat up his arm.
For a while, they ate in companionable silence. Bread torn with fingers, cheese and meat cut into rough slivers with a dull kitchen knife. The wine was sharp, almost biting, but it eased the knot in his chest while doing nothing for the tension coiling lower. He watched her lips close around the rim of her glass, the way her tongue darted out to catch a drop of wine, and had to force himself to look away.
Her voice broke the quiet, husky from the wine. "So. Your friend shows up bleeding, stitched together with what looks like fishing line, and you don't even blink. I'm supposed to believe this is normal?"
Blake leaned back against the couch, glass in hand, his eyes never leaving her face. "It's not normal. Not for most people. For him, me, and others who do what we do, it is."
"Has this happened to you?" She shifted closer, ostensibly to reach for more bread, but the movement brought her within arm's reach, close enough that he could smell her shampoo mixed with the smoky scent of the wood fire.
He gave a half-shrug, fighting the urge to reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "Rook and I, and others like us … We've been through a lot. You learn to handle whatever walks through the door."
Her brow lifted, and she leaned forward on her hands, the pose taking on a sensual quality he wasn’t sure she was aware of. "That's vague. You going to tell me what really happened to him?"
Blake weighed his words. He was distracted by the way the candlelight caught in her hair and turned her skin to silk. She deserved honesty, but there were lines he couldn't cross. "Same thing that happens whenever one of us comes away injured. He ran into trouble. He was in the wrong place, or the wrong people got the drop on him. But he did what we all do. He covered his own exit and got himself here instead of going to a hospital."
"That's a choice most people wouldn't make." Her voice was softer now, understanding threading through it.
"Rook's not most people." Blake held her gaze, letting the weight of that truth rest between them, charged with everything he couldn't say about himself. "Neither am I."
“That’s not his name,” she whispered. “He called you Havoc.”
“Nicknames.” He shrugged, “Or call signs. Nothing more than that.”
Her lips pressed together, not satisfied but not pushing further. Instead, she sipped her wine, studying him over the rim with those intelligent eyes that saw too much. "You stitched him up like you've done it a hundred times."
He almost smiled at the way she watched him, almost like he was a puzzle she needed to solve. "Close. Grew up in a place where injuries were part of daily life. My mom's an ER doc. She taught me early, and by the time I was a teenager, I'd patched up more cuts than I could count. She used to joke that she’d raiseda field medic. My sister is just as well-versed. She’s currently in medical school, following Mom’s footsteps."
Something softened in Elise's expression, and she set down her wine, unconsciously mirroring his posture as she leaned closer. "You talk about your mom with a lot of respect. Fondness."
"Hard not to. She's … hell, she's my mother and the best damn woman I know. I used to sit at the kitchen table with her while she told me about cases. No details, just the parts about helping people. She always said every patient was someone's family. Treat them that way."
Elise leaned forward, firelight catching in her eyes, close enough now that he could see the wine staining her lips. "Sounds like she shaped a lot of who you are."
Blake nodded slowly, his gaze dropping to her mouth before snapping back up. "She did."
"And your father?" The question was gentle, but he saw the journalist in her, always digging deeper.
