“There’s everything to talk about. You’ve barely said ten words since we left the office.”
Reed finally looked up, and the storm in his blue eyes made her breath catch. “I don’t like it.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Then why are we doing it?” He dropped his fork with a clatter that echoed through the quiet house. “Why are we sitting here pretending everything is fine when tomorrow you might be walking into a trap?”
Elena reached for her iPad, which sat on the table beside her water glass. The screen showed her encrypted email client, the sent folder containing the message she’d carefully crafted that afternoon. “Well, he still hasn’t responded.”
She put the iPad down, meeting Reed’s gaze across the table.
He held her stare, his expression shifting from frustrated to something deeper—something that looked almost like fear. “Are you really willing to possibly lose your life... again... to maybe or maybe not capture him? I can guarantee he will be heavily guarded. He has contacts, and we don’t know who. I’m sure he has money in guarded accounts, and that will mean he has resources. People we can’t predict.”
Elena considered his words. He wasn’t wrong—Webb was dangerous, connected, and desperate. A cornered animal with nothing left to lose. The logical part of her brain understood the risks, had cataloged them the way she’d been trained to do.
“Logic isn’t what’s driving me anymore,” she said quietly. “Faith is. And the quiet certainty that settled in my chest when I prayed about this decision.”
Reed’s expression flickered with surprise, maybe, or recognition. He knew about her faith, had always respected it even when he didn’t fully share it. But hearing her invoke it now, in the context of a mission that could get her killed, seemed to throw him off balance.
“Yes,” she added simply. “I’m willing.”
Reed cursed under his breath, then pushed back from the table and strode toward the balcony doors. Elena watched him go, her heart aching at the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.
She gave him a moment—counted to thirty in her head, the way she used to do during stakeouts when patience was the difference between success and failure—then rose and followed him outside.
The evening air was cool against her skin, carrying the scent of pine and the distant sound of water lapping against the lake shore. Reed stood at the railing, his back to her, staring out at the darkness like it held answers to questions he couldn’t voice.
Elena moved behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the solid warmth of his back. She could feel his heartbeat through his shirt, steady and strong despite the turmoil she knew was churning inside him.
At first, he didn’t respond. His body remained rigid, his hands still gripping the railing like it was the only thing keeping him anchored.
Then something in him seemed to release. His hands came up to cover hers where they rested against his stomach, and he pulled her around to face him, wrapping her in an embrace so fierce it stole her breath.
Reed buried his face in her hair, and Elena felt him inhale deeply.
She laughed softly against his chest. “What are you doing?”
He held her closer, his arms tightening like he was afraid she might disappear. “I’m basking in your presence.”
The words, so unexpectedly tender from this man who spoke more often in tactical assessments and operational parameters, made Elena’s eyes sting with sudden tears.
Reed pressed a light kiss to the top of her forehead. “I just got you back,” he murmured. “I can’t lose you again.”
Elena tilted her head up to look at him, and the raw vulnerability in his expression undid her. This man—this strong, brave, impossibly stubborn man—had mourned her for five years. Had rebuilt his life from the ashes of his grief, only to have her walk back into his office and turn everything upside down again.
And still, he loved her. Still, he was willing to follow her into danger, to risk everything for a chance at a future together.
Thank You, Lord, she thought.Thank You for bringing me back to him.
Reed lowered his head and kissed her, and Elena kissed him back with everything she had. The kiss was different from the others they’d shared—deeper somehow, more urgent, carrying the weight of all the words they couldn’t say and all the fears they couldn’t voice.
She couldn’t believe how much she loved him. The feeling expanded in her chest until it felt like her heart might burst from the pressure of containing it. Five years of separation, of loneliness, of wondering if she’d made the right choice—all of it melted away in the circle of his arms.
Reed pulled back slightly, his forehead resting against hers. “Elena.”
“I love you, Reed.” The words came out before she could stop them, tumbling from her lips with a certainty that surprised even her. “I want to marry you.”
Reed’s eyes went wide, his expression shifting from tender to shocked in the span of a heartbeat. “You can’t be proposing to me.”
