She’d been sure, cocky, and confident in her theory that she wasn’t in danger. She should have stayed at the hotel. Shouldn’t have believed she was beyond the reach of the terror stalking the Secret Service agents.
Now? Two officers would never go home.
End of watch.
Her fault.
“Are we done?” She tried to make the question sound like idle curiosity and not an agonized plea for release.
“I think so.” The paramedic was older than she was, and he regarded her with a mixture of compassion and understanding. “But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d—”
A pounding on the door startled both of them. “Faith? Faith? Are you in there?”
Luke!
“Areyou in here?” the paramedic asked.
She appreciated the gesture. “He’ll rip the door from the hinges to find out.”
“Faith!”
“Partner or boyfriend?” The paramedic reached for the door. As soon as he unlatched it, the door flew open.
“Faith!”
Luke scrambled into the ambulance—eyes wild, frantic. “Are you—” He knelt before her, and his hands trembled as they reached for her face. His fingers were gentle and tentative as he tucked her hair behind her ear.
She should have cracked a joke about holes and how Gil wouldn’t count a scratch as a real injury. But she couldn’t.
His breathing was erratic and gasping as he scanned her face and body, obviously looking for bullet holes or knife wounds. When he spotted the scrape on her temple, his whispered “Oh, Faith” was the tipping point. She could pretend to be fine for everyone else, but it wasn’t going to work with Luke. A few tears found their way between her clenched eyelids, and his thumbs wiped them away.
With a murmured “I’ll give you two a minute,” the paramedic slipped out of the ambulance.
When the door closed behind him, Faith lost her tenuous hold on her emotions. A sob tore from her throat, and she pressed her forehead against Luke’s. “It’s my fault.”
“It isn’t.” His head moved back and forth across hers.
“Two officers died.”
“You didn’t kill them.”
“I might as well have.”
“No.”
They sat there for a few moments, tears dripping from her face.
“Will you tell me what happened?” Luke whispered. It wasn’t a demand. It was a plea for her to trust him with this.
And she did. At some point, her fingers and his got all twisted together, but other than that, he barely moved. It helped, not having to look at him. She stared at the top button of his polo shirt as she told him everything, even the part about how they would have beautiful babies, all the way to the point when her frantic call to 911 was interrupted by the explosion.
“They told me there was an IED in my driveway. The first car to respond—” She couldn’t say it. She didn’t have to. Luke knew what had happened. “I had to stay in the house while they brought the bomb dogs to clear the area. They wouldn’t let me get off the phone. The entire time, all I could think about was who else would be blown up just so I could get out of my house.”
LUKE SAT ON THE BENCHin the ambulance and couldn’t free himself from the helplessness that held his heart and mind in a vise.Lord, how do I helpher?
“I wish I’d been with you,” he said. “I almost asked you if I could come here tonight.”
“You did?”
