CHAPTER ELEVEN
OH, SPECIAL OPERATOR HAM knew exactly what he was doing when he packed his family into his truck and drove to the end of the earth to a gorgeous two-story home deep in the woods of northern Minnesota.
What he called a cabin she termed a six-bedroom vacation home with a home theater, gourmet kitchen, great room, an expansive deck that overlooked the lake, and the whisper of safety and calm in the thick fir trees that surrounded the property.
When he’d said “off the grid,” she’d expected an outhouse. Gas lighting. A hand pump for water. A rickety futon in the family room.
He gave her the master bedroom, with the Jacuzzi tub and the view overlooking the lake.
She noticed he dumped his things in the bedroom downstairs, next to Aggie’s. Interesting. And, he hadn’t said under his breath or otherwise—not even once—the word husband.
She tried not to let it get under her skin, irk her as he made pizza, then played a game of Sorry! with Aggie, who giggled every time he sent her piece back to home with an exaggerated “Sorry!”
The man was the perfect father. Sweet, engaging, and when he swung Aggie into his arms to whisk her off to her bed, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” Signe physically hurt, her body a knot of confusion.
How could she leave this man?
No, how could she take Aggie from her father? They still weren’t safe, with Martin on the loose, but Aggie was safe with Ham, Signe knew it to her soul.
Signe made hot cocoa and went out to the deck, taking a blanket with her as she sat on the swing, staring at the stars. The wind carried a nip and scurried broken leaves across the deck, but the blanket trapped the heat.
Ham slid the door closed. “Sorry that took so long. Aggie wanted me to read the rest of her book with her.”
“Did Dakin find her prince?”
“Again, yes.” Ham grinned, then knelt and turned on the burner to the fire table. Flames burst to life, flickering up through the clear rocks.
“Wow. You thought of everything.”
“You have room under that blanket for me?”
Oh. Uh.
His smile fell. “Sorry. I just—”
“Yes.” She scooted over on the swing and held up one side of the blanket.
“You sure, Sig? I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
Husband. She nearly said it but bit it back.
Still. “I’m getting chilly. Yes or no?”
“Yes.” He sat down and pulled the blanket over his lap, then stretched his arm out behind her. She didn’t lean into him, but she could if she wanted to.
Maybe she wanted to.
She stared at the flames, her hands around the mug. “Hard to believe that three days ago, we were escaping a volcano.”
“More like four, but yes.” His voice was soft, and he rocked the swing slightly.
“I hope Gio and his mom are okay.”
“I asked Lieutenant Hollybrook to check on them.”
Of course he had.
“Look!” He pointed to the sky. “A shooting star.”
The stars spilled into the wash of the Milky Way, so vivid she could reach out and touch them. “I don’t see it.”
“I guess it’s just my wish, then.”
“What did you wish for?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Remember that night on the rock when—”
“When I said that God names the stars?”
She looked at him.
“I was thinking the same thing, is all. That in my wildest dreams, I never thought . . .” He drew in a breath. “I never thought I’d see you again. But sometimes, before Chechnya, I’d be in country, on watch, or on a night mission and the sky would be particularly clear and I’d think about you.”
He met her eyes.
Yes, she remembered that night, that sky. Because that was the night he’d kissed her for the first time.
He swallowed, looked away.
So maybe he was thinking about that kiss too.
“I didn’t always live in the camp,” Signe said. “Tsarnaev had an estate outside Tbilisi, in the republic of Georgia, and we went there sometimes when he was doing international business.”
He’d tensed next to her, but she kept talking. “My room had a balcony off the second floor, and at night, I’d sit out there and look at the stars and . . .” She set her cocoa on the fire table. “Ham, you were never far from my thoughts.”
He said nothing, his breaths rising and falling.
“Do you think Scarlett will be able to crack the code?”
“I hope so.”
“Do you think we’ll find Martin?”
“Yes,” he said. “We will.” He said it in his former warrior’s voice. The voice that she’d heard in her head every time she thought about contacting him.
The one that said he would do anything for her. Even die.
That, she could not live with.
She gave in to the urge to lean her head against his shoulder. He smelled good—maybe the soap from his morning shower, but also the scent of Ham—strong, sure, right, big, safe. Her eyes were trained on the sky when she spotted a star unlatch, arc, sweep through the night in a blaze of quick light. “There!” She sat up, pointing. “Did you see it?”
He was looking at her, a heat in his eyes. “Nope.”
Oh. His gaze found her core, lit it on fire. No, no . . .
“That’s your wish this time,” he said, his tone burrowing under her skin.
Her wish. Oh, she couldn’t bear to voice it. Her eyes burned.
No!
“Signe?”
“I wish I’d never walked away from you.”
“You’re not supposed to say your wish.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She swallowed. “There it is.”
“I wished the same thing.”
She looked at him. “Perfect. Now neither of us will get our wish.”
“Or maybe we can.” He curled his hand behind her neck. “I love you, Signe. And I know you’ve got scars, but God brought you back to me, and I don’t want to let you go.”
Ham. She pressed her hand to his chest, right over his heart. “I mess everything up. I shouldn’t have married you like I did—”
“But you did. We did—and now we have Aggie, and everything is different.”
She couldn’t look at him. “It’s not. I’m still on the run. I’m still trouble—”
“And I’m still here, running to your rescue.”
“And nearly getting yourself killed. Ham . . . I’m not worth it.”
“What? Yes, you are.” He turned her face to meet his. “You are worth it to me.”
Shoot.
Then he lowered his mouth to hers, and she hadn’t a bone in her body that wanted to resist, so she lifted her chin and met his kiss.
Soft, gentle, the kind of kiss he’d given her so long ago, on the rock overlooking the river. The kind of kiss that hinted at a deep fear that he’d somehow scare her away.
Not tonight.
If she left, it wouldn’t be because she was scared of Ham.
His heart thundered under her hand, and she sank into him, deepening her kiss. It took only a moment, but he responded with enough hooyah that she recognized the younger version of him. His whiskers scraped her face and he tasted of the night, of safety and hope and all the things she’d remembered and wanted.
All the things she’d married and lost.
And now, found. Ham.
He deserved to have his wife back.
She curled her hands into his shirt, about to suggest more when he broke away, his breathing a little hard. “Sig, I’m not sure what’s going on here, but—”
“Husband,” she said quietly.
His mouth opened slightly. “Really? Are you sure? I mean, I want to be all in, but only if you—uh . . .” His gaze held hers. “I love you. But maybe we should wait until we’ve gotten to know each other again.”
“I know you, Ham. And you know me and—”
“You married someone else.”
She stilled. But maybe she deserved that. “The ceremony with Tsarnaev wasn’t official—not really. I’m still . . .”
He raised an eyebrow.
Yours. She couldn’t say the word.
No. She could never belong to a man again. Tsarnaev had made that term ugly and suffocating. “I’m still married, legally, only to you.”
He considered her. “I can’t give myself to you again, can’t hold you in my arms and survive you walking out of my life. Last time . . .” He blew out a breath. “It wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t myself for a long, long time.”
The power of his confession, the deep opening of his heart shook through her. She’d thought he’d forgotten about her. Moved on.
Found someone else to love.
Clearly not. Maybe he loved her too much, and that scared her to her bones. Because he just might pull her into his vortex and then . . .
She wouldn’t survive leaving him, either.
It simply . . . she couldn’t . . . Except, maybe she could. Just like she had with Pavel, she could put on a role. Give Ham what he wanted without sacrificing her heart.
She leaned in and kissed him again, put more ardor into it, ran her hand over his chest.
He caught her wrist, then leaned away from her, frowning. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you. But I’m here, now, and I know you want to be with me, right?”
His expression darkened. “Wait. Signe, do you think . . . are you doing this because you think I expect this?”
“No. Not like this. Not like . . . Signe, there’s so much between us and—”
“Fine. No problem.” She leaned away, smiled. “It’s all good.” Aw, and for a girl who knew how to push her feelings into a corner and ignore them, her chest was hurting, her eyes smarting.
She was a stupid, out-of-the-box mess.
“Signe—let’s talk about this—”
A scream echoed down the hallway, out past the slightly open sliding door.
“Aggie!” Signe found her feet.
He was already at the door, sliding it open.
Signe was the first one through. She ran down the hall. Aggie was thrashing in her bed, screaming, her stuffed animals on the floor. Signe flicked on the light. “Aggie!” She sat down on her bed and grabbed her arms. “Aggie, wake up. Wake. Up.”
Aggie’s eyes opened and she stared first at Signe, then Ham, then back. “Mama!” She broke into tears.
Signe gathered her into her arms, pulling her tight, rocking her. “It was just a dream, honey. Just a bad dream.”
“No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t!” Aggie pushed away from her. “I saw him!”
The sheer terror in her tone raised the hairs on Signe’s neck. “Who?”
“Daa!”
Signe froze. “What? When?”
“Saw who?” Ham said from behind them.
“Oh, honey. No, Daa is not . . . he’s never going to scare you again.”
“Who. Is. Daa?”
Signe held up her hand to Ham and the tremor of fury in his voice.
“I saw him from the Ferris wheel!”
Signe stilled, turned to look at Ham. “What is she talking about?”
Ham wore a stricken expression. “What are you saying, Aggie? Who is Daa?”
“It’s Tsarnaev. He made her call him—”
“Father.” Ham’s mouth made a tight, lethal line.
Signe nodded.
Ham crouched next to the bed. “When you say you saw him at the Ferris wheel—”
“That night. When I went to get cotton candy. There was a man there—he talked to you.”
Ham was frowning.
“What is she talking about?” Signe said.
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“The man, Daddy! The man you were with.”
“I don’t remember—oh.”
Signe raised her eyebrows. “What?”
Ham took Aggie’s hand. “No, honey. That was just a stranger. He had kids riding on the Ferris wheel. He looked Middle Eastern, but we have a lot of immigrants here, sweetheart. They’re not terrorists.”
Her eyes were wide. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Signe said. “Daa is . . . he is gone. And he’s not coming back.”
Aggie reached for her unicorn and Signe handed it to her. “Lie down, sweetie. Mama will be right here.”
She got up. Ham rose too.
“Ham—”
“I get it,” he said quietly, holding up his hand. “I’m going to make a call anyway.”
“I thought we were off the grid.”
He made a wry face. “I have a sat phone in my office.”
Of course he did.
“See you in the morning,” she said, and pressed her hand to his cheek. “I promise.” And for some reason, the words took hold of her bones.
Shoot, because she had a bad feeling that she meant it.
Signe had left him.
No, she’d lied, then left him.
Ham stood barefoot on the front step of his cabin, staring at the empty dirt driveway where his truck sat just last night. What?
“Signe!” His shout, more agony than question, laced the air, the sky overcast and dour. “Signe!”
Wow, he was a fool. Because he’d actually believed her last night.
Believed because of the way she’d kissed him, at least the first time, and by the tenor of her voice, that they had a real chance at happily ever after. “Husband,” she’d said.
Yeah, right.
Ham stepped back inside and shut the door, pressing his hand against it, trying to keep from unraveling.
He’d stayed up late talking to the coroner in Italy he’d met a few months ago, asking him to confirm DNA on the corpse that had been washed ashore. The one identified as Pavel Tsarnaev.
Aggie’s dream had loosed a worry in his bones he couldn’t shake.
Then, the fatigue of the past few days had caught up to him and, after checking on Signe and Aggie tucked together in the queen bed, he’d fallen hard into his own bed.
He woke to the honking of Canadian geese and the patter of rain on the window. And a deafening silence throughout the house.
When he checked Aggie’s room, her stuffed animals were gone. All of them, including the moose, and even her bag was missing.
Signe’s clothing bag was untouched, but then again, he didn’t expect her to take anything with her. Nothing that he could use to identify her, probably.
That’s when he went out to the empty driveway and called himself every kind of fool.
Now, he pulled on a T-shirt, a flannel shirt, and a pair of jeans, shoved his feet into boots, and headed toward the door.
She was probably headed for the Canadian border, less than an hour away.
Hopefully, she didn’t have that large of a lead on him.
He opened the garage door and headed to his dirt bikes, still grimy after last year’s outing with Jake. Pain shot up his wrist as he pulled one of the bikes off its kickstand, but it wasn’t untenable.
Not like the pain in his chest.
He grabbed his helmet, shoved it on. Then wheeled the bike out of the garage, threw his leg over the seat, and kick-started it.
Mud spit up as he spun the bike around and headed to the road.
Please, Lord, let me catch her.
And even with the prayer, a terrible fury burned through him.
How could she?
His wrist burned as he motored to the highway. He turned and rode on the shoulder, north.
The drizzle had died to simply a mist in the crisp air, the lake angry, edged with spittle as it crashed upon the rocky shore. The rain had turned the shoulder spongy, and he wrestled with the bike as he motored over ruts and weeds and mud, the burn in his wrist spiking through him.
A mile up the road, he’d worked himself into a full boil.
Really, Signe? After everything? Last night he’d even reached inside himself, bared his heart to her. “I can’t give myself to you again, can’t hold you in my arms and survive you walking out of my life.”
What a pansy. He’d even alluded to how he’d been taken apart after he thought she’d died.
Not again. He’d survived by wadding those feelings into a hard ball. By not letting them escape into the open and wreak wounds and scars all over his life. He’d survived loss and rejection over and over again. His mother, his malicious stepmother, his family. His team in Afghanistan. His career with the SEALs.
He could survive this.
The bike hit a rut, a culvert running under the road. The wheel jerked, turning toward his weak wrist.
He didn’t have the strength to right it.
The bike turned over and Ham went flying. He had the presence of mind to duck and roll, and he landed, bruised and sore, in a soft puddle of marshland.
As mud seeped into his clothing, Ham stared at the gray sky and just tried to breathe.
And because he was alone, because he was lying in a ditch on the side of the road, because somehow, he hadn’t actually escaped the dark, cold cellar, he let out a shout.
More of a scream, but it rent the sky, fracturing the morning.
A swell of sparrows lifted from nearby, startled.
Yeah, well . . .
Not far away, a car crunched dirt as it pulled to the side.
Perfect. Now he’d have company in his misery.
The door shut and Ham rolled over, groaning, trying to push to his feet.
“How hurt are you?” Pastor Dan Matthews was jogging toward him, wearing a suit, dress shoes, and a jacket. “Ham?”
Ham had made it to his knees and now realized he’d probably banged his shoulder pretty good. “Yeah.” He sat back on his haunches and unsnapped his helmet strap, worked off the helmet, and let it fall into the grass.
“Your front wheel looks bent,” Dan said as he crouched next to Ham.
“I hit the culvert. Couldn’t correct.” He held up his casted wrist.
Dan frowned. “What’s going on?”
Ham closed his eyes. Shook his head.
“I’m on my way to services in Portage, but I have a few minutes to give you a lift home.”
Ham looked at the man. In his midforties, Dan had a quiet, no-nonsense preaching style. Usually got right to the bones of the problem.
So, “My wife left me. Again.”
Dan didn’t even blink. Just a quiet pursing of his lips. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not really a surprise.” Ham grabbed his helmet and forced himself to his feet. “I’m just angry that I didn’t see it coming. Again. That I talked myself into believing that this time would be different.” He walked over to the bike. The front tire was bent, the fender broken.
So much for stopping Signe at the border.
Dan helped him haul up the bike.
“Don’t get your suit dirty,” Ham said.
“The suit isn’t sacred, Ham. But your soul is.” Dan pushed the bike with him from the ditch.
“My soul isn’t in any danger.”
“Isn’t it?” Dan wheeled the bike with him to his F-150. “You might be calm on the outside, but I see a storm raging inside. Let’s talk about again. My wife left me again.”
Ham held the bike while Dan pulled down the gate. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning?”
Ham gave a harrumph. Moved to lift the bike into place.
“I got this, Ham,” Dan said and lifted the front of the bike onto the bed.
Right. Ham stepped back and let Dan lift the back tire onto the bed, although he grabbed the tire with his good hand. Hid a wince as he lifted.
Yeah, maybe he’d done some real damage to his shoulder. Felt okay, though, to hurt on the outside—to match the agony inside.
“We got married on a whim, about fifteen years ago. It was a rash decision, based on impulse.”
“You loved her.” Dan got the bike into the back, then climbed up to the bed.
“We were childhood friends, and it grew from there. I’m not sure when I started loving her.”
“And you never stopped.”
Unfortunately. “Even when she left me to . . . work overseas.”
Dan set the bike on its side.
“I found her years later, and we . . . well, that’s when Aggie was conceived.”
Dan smacked the dirt off his hands. Looked at him, no judgment in his eyes. “And?”
“The short of it was that she left me again. She had her reasons, but I spent the last ten years thinking she was dead. And I didn’t have a clue about Aggie.”
“Wow.”
“I only found out the truth recently and I went to . . . get her. I thought we had a chance. I mean, she’s been through a lot, but we’re still married—although—” He stepped back as Dan jumped off the bed. Ham noticed his dress shoes were caked with mud.
“Although?”
“She married someone else in the meantime. Someone bad.”
Dan raised an eyebrow.
“He’s dead, so . . . but . . . I don’t know. She has scars, that’s for sure, but last night . . .” He looked away.
“Last night?”
“Whatever. She said she would be here this morning, and she’s not and I think she’s headed to the border. With Aggie.”
“Huh.”
“I’m just tired of the lies.”
“And angry.”
“Of course.”
“And hurt, and you have every right to be.” Dan pulled out a handkerchief, handed it to Ham. “You’re bleeding.” He indicated a place on Ham’s chin.
Ham pressed his fingers to the wound and found a nick where his chin strap had been. “It’s nothing.” But he pressed the handkerchief to it.
Dan closed the tailgate. “In Luke 22, Jesus tells Simon Peter that Satan asked to sift him as wheat. And Jesus says that he is praying for him, that he would not fail. It sounds like you’re being sifted, Ham. The enemy wants to win this one. Don’t let him.”
Ham shook his head. “I don’t know how to win this.”
“I know. Right now, the hurt, the offense feels overwhelming.”
Ham’s jaw tightened, but he could hardly breathe.
“Try this. When you look at your wife, I want you to picture Jesus standing over her. He’s saying, Ham, every piece of anger and fury you hurtle at her, you are hitting me. Because I’ve already paid for her sins. And even if she doesn’t accept that forgiveness, you know it’s true.”
“That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true, right?”
“Are you going to give me a ride home?”
“Get in.”
Ham climbed in the passenger side. Dan got in behind the wheel. “You’ll have to point me in the right direction.”
“Up the road a mile or so. First right.”
Dan pulled onto the road. “Ham, nothing is impossible with God.”
“It feels impossible.”
“I hear that. But believe it or not, God has a plan.”
“I wish I knew it.” His shoulder was really starting to ache.
“Do you? Because maybe it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And if we knew the big picture, I’ll bet we’d say, no thanks.”
Maybe.
“The answer isn’t in knowing the plan, but trusting God, daily, to give you direction. To help you sacrifice your own desires, and to love.”
“What if that isn’t enough?”
“It is enough. Because what you’re not seeing is that it’s not just about your marriage or your wife. It’s about you. It’s about getting to the heart of your relationship with Jesus. You’re a good man, Ham. But God doesn’t want just a good man. He wants a man who is his. This is why Jesus allowed Satan to sift Simon Peter. Because when Peter denied Christ, he came to the end of himself and truly became a new man. God’s man. And that’s who you need to be to get through this.” Dan turned on his blinker. “This one?”
Ham nodded.
Dan slowed the truck. “Ham, when you were a SEAL, you walked around with a target on your back. You were always aware that you could be attacked. So, you were on the defensive—sometimes even on the offensive, right?”
“And?”
“You’re still at war, buddy. If you’re a Christian, then you have a big target on your heart. Satan is a very real enemy who wants to take you out. He wants to destroy your testimony and take out the power of God in your life. Undermine your faith. And he does it by making you doubt God’s love. By distracting you from the person God says you are and the future he has for you. The enemy wants you to rush ahead and try to fix your problems on your own, and then say, ‘See, God doesn’t care.’
“But God calls you to be a warrior. To train, to wait for his command. And that’s why you have to lean hard into him. Fill your mind with prayer, with Scripture, with truth. Let God be to you all he says he is—strength, peace, grace, love, . . . joy.”
He turned onto the dirt road to Ham’s place.
“Second left,” Ham said.
“You need to hunker down into what you know, Ham. God is good. God is love. And God’s timing is always perfect.”
He slowed as he pulled into Ham’s driveway.
Ham stilled.
The Silverado sat in the driveway.
Signe was pulling Aggie’s duffel bag from the back end. It was stuffed with her animals. She handed the bag to Aggie, then grabbed a bag of groceries.
Dan stopped the truck. Looked over at Ham.
“Grace and forgiveness don’t belong to you, Ham. They’re the weapons of heaven given to you by your Savior to destroy the darkness in their lives. To give them hope. To glimpse their real Savior, Jesus.”
Signe turned, frowned, then lifted a hand in greeting right before she grabbed another bag from the back.
Ham couldn’t breathe.
“No power of Satan can pluck you from the hand of God. Stand in his power, Ham, and you will have everything you need. The time for mourning is over.” He looked at Signe heading now into the house. “The time for joy is at hand. And get that shoulder looked at, okay?”
“Let’s get your bike unloaded.”
Signe had returned from the house by the time Dan had the bike in the driveway. “What happened?” She looked at Ham. “I thought you were still sleeping. I went to town for groceries. And Aggie had to bring the whole farm with her. No more carnivals, okay?”
He just stood there, unable to move.
She took a step toward him. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”
Ham caught her wrist softly just before she touched him. “I’m fine.”
She frowned. Ham released his hold.
“Warrior,” Dan said quietly.
Right.
“Call me if you need a fishing trip.” Dan pulled out of the driveway.
Signe stared at Ham. She was wearing a flannel shirt and leggings, her boots, her hair held back in two pigtails. Innocent. Pretty.
He left the bike there and headed for the house.
“Ham?” Signe followed him. “What’s going on?”
He ground his jaw. Shook his head.
“Did you take the bike out?”
He rounded on her, his breathing fast, hard. “Yes. Okay? Yes. I went looking for you!”
“Why? I just went to the store—”
“I didn’t know that.” He knew he should be schooling his voice, but it all simply spilled out, uncensored. “I thought you left me. Again.” He held up his hands. “I know you’re standing here right now, but I can’t live like this, Sig. I can’t—” He blew out a breath. Shook his head. “I can’t wonder every time you leave the house if you’re coming back to me. I can’t wonder if someday I’m going to come home and find you gone.” His throat tightened. “I can’t—”
“End up in the cellar again, wondering what you did to be rejected.”
He stared at her. Then, quietly, nodded.
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “And I can’t bear the idea that I’ll do something that will cause your death.”
The wind stirred around them, leaves skittering across the dirt.
“I’m not Caesar.”
“It was my fault. He should have been secured.”
“It was a car accident.”
Her eyes blazed. “I’d been drinking.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You weren’t there! You left and I was alone—”
“Because I was at military school! I didn’t choose that.”
“I know, but . . .” She shook her head. “After you left, I made some bad decisions, Ham. And I was too ashamed to tell you about them.” She looked away. “And then it happened all over again, in Chechnya. Only this time it was you who was going to get killed.”
“What?”
Her eyes were hard. “I saw you in Chechnya that day, when you came after me.”
He just blinked at her.
“Tsarnaev and I were out of the bunker, and you and your men were hunkered down, but Tsarnaev had a sniper on you. And I begged him to let you live.”
“You did what?” He shook his head. “Signe—”
“I told him I’d go with him peacefully if he’d let you live.”
He turned away from her. “No. No, this can’t be my fault—”
“What? No, Ham—it’s my fault for going with him, but . . . don’t you see? I’ve always brought trouble into the lives of people I love, and I can’t—”
“No.” Ham rounded on her, his breaths coming in hard. “You’ve always brought comfort into the lives of people you love. Aggie. And your grandmother, who was grieving the loss of her daughter so hard she couldn’t see the gift she had in you. And me. You were comfort to me, Sig. Just like I was safety to you.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Are you going to leave me?” He said it quietly, met her eyes, tried to keep his voice from shaking.
She took a breath. “I don’t know what this looks like for us. What normal is.”
“We can make our own normal.”
She stepped up to him. “Ham, I do know what I’ve been given. And my daughter deserves a safe life with her father.”
“And you?”
She bit her lip. “Promise you won’t die because of me?”
He frowned, shook his head.
“Because you’re looking a lot banged up here, Batman.” She touched his chin.
“I think I might have broken my shoulder,” he said, his gaze holding hers.
She swallowed, forced a smile. But it went right to his heart, lighting it afire.
“I guess I’d better stick around, then. Someone needs to take you to the hospital and feed you baloney sandwiches.”
He closed his eyes, fighting the burn in them. Lord, I don’t know—
She touched his face, bringing his gaze to hers. “This war isn’t over. But like you said, we’re together now, right?” Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him. Nothing ardent or deeply passionate, but something solid and true and . . .
When he opened his eyes, she was still there, smiling at him.
They were together now. And he intended to keep them that way.
The door opened. Aggie stood holding her dolphin, her hair in long braids. She held a donut in wrapped paper, wore sugar around her mouth. “Want a donut?”
“We stopped at a little shop called World’s Best Donuts. I had to see if they were telling the truth,” Signe said.
“Research,” he said quietly.
“Daddy, where were you?” Aggie said. “I looked for you and you were gone.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, looking at Signe, then his daughter. “But I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”