The jolt of intimacy made him curl his fingers around my hands so he was holding each in one of his. His fingertips pressed into my palms. A tiny smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Please,” he whispered. “Just try. I’m right here with you.”
My heart had picked up its pace, nearing an uncomfortablerate. But knowing he was close helped soothe my fear. I nodded with a pained wince, afraid of the memory I was about to dive into, and closed my eyes.
I saw my father again. The hotel room. Olena’s furious face. I felt the gun’s cold barrel pressed to my temple like the kiss of death. The ghost’s fingers curled around my throat.
The diamond. Where is the diamond?
It had been in my hand, frozen like a translucent chunk of ice. I’d had it. I’dhadit. I needed it now, and I could see it in my teenaged palm, sitting there like the answer to everything. Where did it go? Had I dropped it? Had Olena snatched it back when the money burned the wrong color? Had my father taken it? I looked as hard as I could, but it was all a blur. The smoke, the gun, my father telling me to run.
I jerked my hands out of Bray’s and stood. “I’m sorry,” I said and threw a palm over my wetting eyes. I turned away from the fire and walked to the railing. The hillside tumbled away from the balcony with nothing but shrubbery and dirt below before the next home clung to the earth a good thirty feet away.
I sensed Bray’s warmth behind me before he placed a hand on my shoulder. It was greedy, and maybe selfish, but in that moment, I wanted a hug—arealhug. I couldn’t even remember the last one I’d had, and I knew he’d give me one.
I turned so his arm wrapped around my shoulders and buried my face in his chest. He threw his other arm around me without hesitation, and I nearly sagged against him. I breathed him in, that minty soap smell like a balm so close, and let him hold me. I could feel his heart under my palm, having sped up like mine but still steady and strong. His breath moved in and out of his lungs and spilled down the gap where his too-large sweater curved against my neck. He felt like a living shield, and despite his mistakes, I knew on a bone-deep level he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly into the evening air. “I’m just trying to help.”
“I know.” I sniffled against his chest, not yet ready to leave his embrace, however inappropriate it might have been. “But I really don’t remember.”
He leaned back to look down at me, his eyes now liquid gray in the fading light and full of understanding. The flames dancing behind him backlit his face into dramatic shadows. The scar on his chin stood out in stark relief.
I moved my hand up to smooth my thumb over the scar. His breath stuttered. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You must have been terrified.”
His arms remained wrapped around my back. He slowly nodded. “I was.”
I tried to make something smooth come out of my mouth. Something one of my alter egos would know to say in this situation, but this was too real, and my body was humming too hard with forbidden possibility to focus. “I’m glad you survived.”
Bray’s mouth twitched at the corner again. “Me too.”
We continued staring at each other, and I saw honesty rise to the surface in his eyes. “What you asked me earlier, about liking my job, the truth is, my heart hasn’t really been in it since I got shot. I’ve just been doing it out of a sense of duty. But with you … Well, let’s just say my heart feels a little different about things now.”
Myheart hit my ribs hard at the same time it swelled bigger than the moon. “What are you saying?”
He softly laughed as color filled his face. “I don’t know. Things I probably shouldn’t be. But I guess the point is, you’ve made me care.”
If not for his arms around me, I might have collapsed.He cared.About me. And his job, but because of me. I let the feeling fill up the empty chambers of my heart, and then sealedthem off to keep it close. I wasn’t sure I was allowed to possess something so special.
“Well, I’m glad to be the one to make your Grinch heart grow, Agent Bray,” I said with a half smile.
Saying his name seemed to snap the spell. He released his grip and took a step back. He combed a nervous hand through his hair. “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have—” He gestured toward me, and I filled in the awkward silence withhugged you.
“It’s okay. I needed a hug.”
“Well, I’ve got more if you ever need another.” He clumsily chuckled and looked away in embarrassment.
“Noted,” I said, thrilled at the prospect he might hold me again.
A sudden wind whipped through, sending the flames dancing, and reminding me we had a problem to solve. I wrapped the sweater tighter and leaned back on the railing. “So, the diamond. I still have no idea where it is.”
“Is there anyone else who might?”
As soon as he asked, an idea knocked against my skull like a hammer.No.I tried to shoo it away because it wasn’t actually viable.I couldn’t.
“I mean, Olena obviously doesn’t know where it is, otherwise she wouldn’t be stalking you,” Bray went on, oblivious to my silent struggle. “If the Feds had grabbed it that night, it would already be locked up in evidence. We can’t ask Agent Wallace, obviously …”
His voice faded to a low buzz while my own thoughts overpowered his list of dead ends. There was someone we could ask. The only other person still alive from that night who didn’t want to kill me. Well, I assumed he didn’t want to kill me.
Bray was pacing the patio now, fingers pinching his lip as he rambled.
