None of her crazy story should make sense. But deep in his gut, in the core of his chest, Mack—er, York—knew she was telling the truth.
Or most of it. Because there were parts that didn’t quite fit together.
“Stop, wait. Let me understand this.” He turned to her on the bench where they sat, the afternoon sun falling behind them.
They’d started the conversation in her room. With him on the chair, her pacing.
She made him a little seasick, watching her figure out how to tell him that he was an…well, she didn’t say it aloud, but she’d alluded to the fact that he’d killed people. For a living.
Which, in his book, sounded like an assassin.
What the—?
He’d needed some fresh air then and dragged them outside.
“You’re saying that you were framed for the attempted murder of a Russian general by some mafia thug. And I helped you get out of the country?”
“Yes. You are—were—connected to a guy named Roy. That’s how I found you. Or rather, you found me.” She looked up at him, those blue eyes holding so much of his past, and said, “You saved my life, York.”
York. Not Mack. Still, they sounded alike. So maybe that’s why the name Mack slid so easily into his mind and soul.
“And when you say saved—”
“You helped get me out of Russia. And since then you’ve been hunting for the Russian killer, a man named Damien Gustov. He tried to kill my sister, Coco—your friend Coco. And we think he followed you to America.”
He drew in a breath, met those eyes. “And why did I come to America?”
She swallowed, and there it was.
He might still have whatever instincts that he’d cultivated doing whatever dark things he’d been doing because he could spot a dodge when he saw it.
“Sydney—”
“RJ. My name is Ruby Jane. But sometimes you called me Sydney.”
He frowned.
“After Sydney Bristow, a television show—never mind.” She looked away. “You came to America to bring my nephew, who is half Russian, to the hospital. He has leukemia.”
Oh. Huh.
Yeah, no, he still didn’t believe she was telling him the entire truth.
“Ya ne veryo tebe.”
She looked at him, frowning.
“That’s what you said. It came back to me like a slap right about the time I returned to the church. I was standing in the parking lot and just like that, I heard your voice, clear as day, in Russian. And I understood it.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I debated not coming back, but it occurred to me that someone who had taken the time to track me down all the way to Shelly, Washington, might be someone I need to talk to.” He glanced at her. “And yet, you were leaving. Why?”
She sighed. “Because of what happened today, in church.”
Yes. That.
He could still feel the crazy rush of freedom, the fresh breath, the sense of clean that saturated his body.
He felt new. And even her crazy story didn’t seem to diminish it. Probably because he was finding it very hard to see himself as the action hero-slash-007 spy she painted him as.
Or maybe he just wanted to disbelieve it, because there was the tussle with Teddy…
“You said to me more than once that you’d like to start over, begin again, and…well, here you had your chance. And I didn’t want to take it away from you.”
So she was going to leave him to restart his life. Maybe he had been reading too much into their unspoken past. His own strange attraction to her.
“Then why did you find me in the first place?”
She looked over at him. “Because I was worried about you. You vanished, and everyone else thought you were dead. But I…I couldn’t accept that.”
A tentative smile slipped up her face. “I knew you were alive.”
He studied her. She’d been crying, her eyes reddened, but that didn’t diminish the very down-to-earth beauty she possessed. The breeze tossed her hair, and she wore a floral shirt, jeans, and her Converse tennis shoes, and yes, at first glance she might have reminded him of Raven.
But this woman had a determined fix to her countenance that made her appear capable. The kind of partner a guy might trust.
“Are you a spy?”
She laughed. “No. But I do work for the CIA, as an analyst. Even then, I wasn’t able to find you until you made the news after the fire.”
Oh, that.
“You just can’t break free of your own heroism, can you, 007?” Her eyes twinkled, and for a second, he really, really wanted to understand her joke. To land with her in the sweet memory behind that smile.
It fell. “Nothing, huh? What do you remember?”
He stared out at the river. “I woke up on the side of the highway, wounded, my head on fire, completely confused.”
“Wounded?”
He leaned back and pulled up his shirt to reveal his again-healing wound.
“That looks deep.”
“Jethro stitched it up. I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I’m not sure why—instincts, probably—but I thought if I went in, they might report this as a stabbing, which would only bring the police, and I couldn’t shake the idea that I was a criminal.”
“You’re not a criminal, York.”
She said it softly but met his gaze, as if she knew he needed to hear it said with surety. “You’re one of the good guys.”
Shoot, the words nearly took him under and his stupid eyes burned, and he looked away because he couldn’t speak either.
She touched his arm. “You had to do things for the sake of your country. But you’re a man of honor, a man who cares about the people around him.”
He nodded. Blinked.
“You had a wife and a son once.”
He looked at her, the heat from her hand bleeding through his arm, solid, comforting. “What happened?”
She shook her head.
“Divorced.”
“No.”
Oh.
“It was a long time ago. But another reason I didn’t want to drag up the past.”
He rubbed his hands together. Stared out at the water. “You were leaving because you didn’t want me to remember.”
She said nothing.
“But I am remembering, RJ. I started remembering the moment you walked into Jethro’s.” He glanced at her. “You’re in my dreams.”
She stilled, her eyes widening.
“Yes, it’s exactly how it sounds. Because you’re in my dreams, and we’re kissing. And then suddenly—”
“You’re attacked.”
He froze.
“And you have to fight someone.”
“I throw him off the train, and I’m about to fall, too, but you grab me…”
“You didn’t fall off the train.”
Oh. “But I did kill someone.”
“A member of the Bratva.”
His gaze hadn’t moved off her face, and now it traced down to her lips, then back. “And we were kissing.”
She swallowed. Looked away.
“RJ, do I love you?”
Her breath caught. She closed her eyes.
He touched her cheek and gently moved her face back to his. “Do you love me?”
Her eyes glistened. “It doesn’t matter, does it? You’re with someone else now, and you have a new life—”
“It matters very, very much,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not with anyone else, and if someone loved me, then—”
She pushed his hand away. “Then she’d let you have the life you wanted.”
She met his eyes, and a tear spilled out.
He couldn’t move.
Because he saw her—flashes of memory really—but yes, there she was. Kissing him in the darkness of a Russian park, then trembling beside him as he gasped for air next to her, even clinging to him in the darkness of an alleyway as he pressed her against the wall, his hands buried in her hair, as he kissed her. I could find you when this is over.
“You’d better stay alive, Bristow.”
Her eyes widened. “You remember—”
“I just remember this.” Then he cupped his hand on her face, leaned in, and kissed her.
And everything that had lain dormant, all the desires and emotions he’d been trying to light for Raven, simply ignited, flashing over into a rush of longing, almost painful. RJ tasted like…like his. Like he’d come back from a very dark, foreign place to find home. She smelled of comfort and desire, and when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, he very nearly cried.
He didn’t know her, but he knew, yes, oh yes, every hidden part of him knew he loved her.
Pulling her tight against him, he deepened his kiss, nudging her mouth open, drinking in the sense of coming back to himself, to finding the lost pieces. To wholeness.
She made a sound, her body trembling, and he let her go, suddenly— “Why are you crying?”
She caught his face between her hands, looked at him. “Because I missed you so much it hurts. But I…I don’t want you to come back with me, York.”
He frowned. “I don’t—”
“You have a life here. The one you always wanted.”
“Did I? I mean…yes, but…”
“I met with Crowley. You probably don’t remember him, but he was the ambassador to Moscow, and you married his daughter. He works for the CIA now, and you always feared he would retaliate if you ever came stateside, but…you’re wrong. You’re forgiven. He…well, he said he was wrong about you.”
York just frowned at her. “But I thought you said the CIA took me in Seattle.”
“That’s what we thought. But now, we don’t know.” She pushed away from him. “But I’m going to find out. And when I do—”
“I’m going with you, RJ.”
She drew in a breath.
“Just because I don’t remember anything doesn’t mean I can’t help. That I don’t have a responsibility—”
“You have people counting on you here. And…well, it’s safer.”
He made a face.
“You’re not a killer anymore, York. I mean, you never were, but…”
“But that is a part of me that isn’t useful to you anymore.”
“You’re safer here.”
“I think I can fend for myself.”
“Stay here. Be free.” She rose, took a step away. “Be Mack Jones.” But her voice wavered.
“Aw, RJ. No way. I’m going with you—”
“No, you’re not.” The voice came from behind him, and he turned. Jimbo was striding toward him, out of uniform but flanked by two officers.
York stood up. “What’s going on?”
Jimbo came up to him and gave him a grim look. “I’m sorry, Mack—or rather, York Newgate. But you’re wanted for questioning in the kidnapping and murder of Jason Mack.”
“He didn’t murder anyone.” RJ stopped in the lobby of the Shelly police station, tired of sitting on the chairs, and posed her statement to the big man named Jimbo, in his Magnum, P.I.–style Hawaiian shirt, who had arrested—okay, not arrested—but dragged York into the station.
The place had the charm of a used car office—a bare clock, a couple desks, and a wilting plant that sat by the window, plotting its escape.
Jimbo held up his hand. “I didn’t say he did. Calm down—”
“If you add a ‘sweetheart’ after that—”
He held up the other hand. “Never. But you need to keep your voice down. No one is accusing him of murder, but there is a BOLO out for him, and when I ran his prints, it pinged.”
She wanted to like Jimbo, despite the fact that he’d—illegally, she might add—grabbed York’s fingerprints off a soda can and ran them, in hopes of adding background to the stranger in their midst.
Not that she could blame him, a hometown police chief looking after his own. And he wasn’t a jerk about it. He didn’t cuff York or grab him or even march him to the car like a felon. Just asked him to join him at the station.
He did use a this-isn’t-a-request voice.
But he’d offered her coffee as she waited in the lobby and even let York come out and talk to her. It’s going to be okay, RJ.
In what world? Because if the chief had alerted the law enforcement system to York’s whereabouts, wouldn’t someone—anyone—who might be nefarious and watching for his name to ping—let’s say, the rogue CIA group who’d taken him last time—hop in their car and show up to finish him off?
Oh, she’d left calm miles behind in the rearview mirror.
Now RJ followed the chief to his cluttered office. “He doesn’t remember anything. I’m a bigger help to you than he is.”
“I’m aware that he has ‘lost his memory,’” Jimbo said, but he finger quoted it, so how compassionate could he be? “But it’s really out of my hands. People are coming from Seattle tomorrow to question him.”
“People? Which ‘people’?” And she finger quoted that. “Because I’ve met people before, and that’s how he got into this mess.”
“Sydney.”
York’s voice behind her made her turn. He stood in the lobby, wearing a smile, Jethro beside him.
Where had he come from?
“Let’s go,” York said.
Go?
She looked at Jimbo. He gave her a tight smile. “See you tomorrow.”
She still didn’t—
“I’m being released,” York said. “Under Jethro’s custody.”
“Don’t run away,” Jimbo said, and it didn’t sound like he was kidding.
Oh, for cryin’…although with his warning, a plot was forming. What if they did run? They’d done it before, and then York could go into—
“No.” York reached out his hand and caught hers, and her eyes widened. He pulled her out of the building, holding the door open for her.
“No what?—”
“I could see what you were thinking.”
“No, you couldn’t.”
He grinned, something sparking in his eyes. “Listen. I might not know you, but somewhere in here, honey,”—he touched his chest—“I know you.”
“Then, pumpkin, you know that running is our specialty.”
Jethro had walked ahead, so maybe he hadn’t heard them, but York slowed her down anyway.
“What?”
“I’m tired of running. And hiding. And not knowing who I am. I’m going to stick around and talk to whoever is showing up here tomorrow, and then…we’ll see.”
She touched his chest then, felt his heartbeat, steady and warm under her hand, and wanted to weep again, still tasting his lips on hers, the way he’d kissed her, like, indeed, he loved her. I just remember this.
He hadn’t forgotten her. Deep in his heart, he’d kept a place for her.
“I know you, York. I know you wouldn’t murder some passerby. Some kid.”
He put his hand over hers, on his chest. “Thanks. But it freaks me out just a little that the only name I could remember when I found myself bloodied on the side of the road was Mack.”
“That does feel unsettling.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Jethro had rounded back and now came up to them. “Let’s get you home, Mack. Raven has supper on.”
York walked toward Jethro’s truck. Stopped at the door, his fingers still entwined with RJ’s. He took a breath and looked at her, back at Jethro. “So, my real name is York. And this is RJ.”
Jethro looked at them, said nothing. Then gave a short nod.
“I need to ask you a favor. I’d like to ask if RJ can stay with you—”
“York! No, I’m fine.”
His hand tightened on hers and he glanced at her. “No. This whole thing has me…anyway, I don’t know what to think and until I can get my head around—”
“Of course she can,” Jethro said. “Although I liked the name Sydney.” He winked and got in.
They stopped by the B and B and picked up her bag, then RJ got in her car and followed them out of town.
She could imagine that York was filling Jethro in on their conversation.
She was trying to sort out who might have put a BOLO out on York, a dead man.
Maybe she should call Crowley, give him an update, let him do some sleuthing.
She pulled up behind Jethro’s truck into a gravel driveway. Trees bordered the long drive, but as they drew closer to the lake, the road opened up, and she spotted other homes in the dips and valleys along the lakeshore.
Jethro’s home was a single-story cedar-sided cabin with a wraparound porch that overlooked the lake. A little piece of paradise tucked away.
She got out and York was waiting for her. “Listen, so, uh, I probably need to have a conversation with Raven. She has a little crush on me…”
“A little one? Hello, Mr. Oblivious.”
He smiled. “Fine. Gimme a second.”
She nodded and followed him onto the porch but sat in an Adirondack chair as he went inside.
She couldn’t hear the conversation, and Jethro came out and sat beside her.
“That’s not pretty in there,” he said and glanced over at her. “I tried to warn my daughter that Mack had his secrets. But he’s a hard guy for a young girl to ignore.”
She sighed. “For the record, I didn’t come to town looking to break hearts. He’s been missing for over a month, and everybody else thought he was dead.”
“He looked dead when I found him in the park. Beat up, bleeding, his wound was starting to get infected. He looked like an escaped convict, except he was wearing a dark leather jacket, blue jeans, and dress shirt, which made me think he might be a PI running from a client.”
She laughed.
He met her smile. “So…who is he?”
Oh. Uh. “He…he used to work for the CIA.” Sure, that much she could tell without giving him away.
“And what happened?”
“He was arrested…except not really because the people who took him were…well, they weren’t who they said they were, and that’s all we really know. York has the rest.”
“He’s ex-military.”
“Marines.”
Jethro grinned. “Yep. Thought so. Semper fi.”
The door squealed on its hinges and York walked out. Glanced at Jethro. “You sure you don’t mind us staying here? Just for tonight? Because I’ll bet tomorrow I’ll be…well, who knows where I’ll be.”
“Son, you can stay as long as you’d like. And so can your girl.” Jethro patted her shoulder. “I’m going to chop some wood.” He got up and headed off the porch.
The sun had bled red into the lake, a fiery ball of orange hanging just over the horizon. It bathed York’s face in dark shadows.
“I’m going to clean up. Raven said she’d make you a bed in the other downstairs guest room.”
“I’ll get my stuff.” She got up as he went inside, retrieved her bag from the car, and returned to the house.
Raven stood at the counter, chopping onions, sniffling.
“Raven?”
She looked up, her eyes red. “What?”
“Are you—”
“Guest room is downstairs.”
Right. RJ headed for the stairs, ruing the feeble battle she’d waged.
“So you lied to me then.”
She froze, grimaced. Turned.
Raven still held the knife, and RJ raised an eyebrow.
“That day at the pub when I asked you if you knew him. You lied.”
“Actually, when you asked, I wasn’t sure. And then…well, I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know if he wanted to be found. I didn’t know he’d lost his memory until after that.”
“And you still stuck around.” Raven took a breath.
RJ set her bag down, took a step toward her. “I’m so sorry. I know you like him. And why not—he’s a great guy. He doesn’t even know how amazing he is, but you can see it, can’t you?”
Raven nodded.
“Me too. And I told him that he could stay here, be Mack, and he still can, if he wants. But…right now, he’s in trouble and I need to stick around to help him get out of it.”
“What are you, his bodyguard?”
Huh. “Well, York can fend for himself, but right now, yeah, maybe I am.”
Raven put down the knife, her mouth pinched. “He made me feel safe.”
“He does that.”
Raven sighed. “He didn’t want me, did he?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t…”
“It’s okay.” Raven looked up again and reached for a napkin, wiping her tears. “Stupid onions.”
Yeah. “I hate onions.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying, though, right?”
“Never.”
Raven gestured with her chin. “Bed is made, towels are on the bed. York is right next door.” She winked.
Oh, uh… “It’s not like…I mean—”
Jethro came through the door and she scooped up her bag and carried it down the stairs.
The basement was small, carpeted, and looked out to the lake under the massive deck. She put her bag in the tiny, paneled room with the single bed. Through the wall, she heard the shower going and…
Humming? No, singing.
York Newgate was singing. And he had a voice that could tunnel under her skin and turn her body to fire.
Even if he was singing a hymn.
High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Never in a billion years would she have thought that York would know her father’s favorite song.
Yeah, that felt weird.
She changed clothes and by the time she emerged, the shower was off. She headed upstairs, where Jethro had built a fire in the black wood-burning stove. Raven was pulling lasagna out of the oven.
The family room overlooked the lake, now turning dark with the deepening twilight. Two overstuffed leather chairs flanked a leather sofa, a worn coffee table. A round table sat to the side, in the kitchen area, and it was set for four.
Never in her wildest dreams did she see this day ending with her at Jethro’s table.
Or finding herself at the receiving end of a smile from the most attractive man she knew.
And this man, the one in the clean jeans, a blue button-down shirt rolled up past his elbows, and flip-flops, she knew. Gone was the lumberjack, the bearded hipster. York had shaved his glorious beard, revealing his square jawline and the scar that ran from his ear halfway across his neck.
He’d never told her the story behind it, but she’d become so accustomed to seeing it, it had disappeared into the fabric of the man she knew. Strong, brave, a survivor, the kind of man she could count on.
The man who showed up when she needed him—twice.
He grinned at her and slid into a chair beside her. For a guy who didn’t remember her, he was certainly stirring old memories.
“That smells amazing, Raven,” he said as she set the lasagna on the table.
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
Bless her heart, she was trying.
Raven added salad and bread, and York made all the appropriate noises as he savored her dinner. Sweet.
RJ tried not to think about the fact that tomorrow he might lose his freedom. Especially if she couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten wrapped up in the death of an innocent bystander.
So this might, indeed, be his last supper.
And now, she’d lost her appetite.
They finished and she helped Raven clear the table, Jethro washing dishes, and York drying.
It all felt so normal.
The kind of life they might have had if they’d met years ago.
Without the shooting, the running, the threats…
Oh, who was she kidding—she’d never wanted this life.
And maybe York never had either. After all, he joined the military straight out of high school.
But it was a nice moment, the calm, maybe, before the storm.
She stepped outside after dinner, onto the deck, watching the stars wink against the vault of night.
“You okay?” York said as he stepped out behind her.
“I was just thinking…what if we never went back?”
He leaned on the railing, facing her. “I stayed Mack and you stayed Sydney?”
She laughed. “I guess so. Do you think we’d be happy in a small town like this? Making lasagna for dinner?”
He drew her over to him and parked her between his legs. “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really…”
“Know me.”
He nodded. “I mean, I do…I feel like…” He took her hand. “I know you, RJ. My heart knows you. It did the first moment you showed up in the pub. I took one look at you and I couldn’t breathe.”
“It sort of felt that way when we first met too.”
“How did we first meet?”
“You chased me into an alleyway, grabbed my hand, and told me to follow you if I wanted to live.”
“Sounds very Terminator.”
“You were scary.”
He grinned, his eyes shining. “And yet you followed me.”
She sighed, palmed his chest. “I’d still follow you.”
“How did you end up in Russia?”
“I followed a lead—”
“No, I mean, why did you become an analyst? Where are you from?”
Oh. “Montana. I have five brothers—four of whom you know. Knox, Tate, Ford, and Wyatt.”
He shook his head.
“Probably for the best. But I grew up trying to keep up with them. All the Marshall boys are spectacular. My brother Reuben was a smokejumper, Knox was a bull rider, Tate is a bodyguard, Wyatt is an NHL goalie, and Ford is a SEAL.”
“So, underachievers, then.”
She laughed. “And then there’s me.”
His smile fell and he searched her eyes. “You don’t think you’re an underachiever, do you?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I didn’t want to be. But…well, I wasn’t brave growing up.”
He frowned.
“Ford and I got trapped once in a cave, and we nearly died because I was too afraid to be left alone.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
His mouth made a tight line.
“I know, I should have been braver.”
“Are you kidding me? I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
She looked away. “The problem was, my father blamed Ford—or at least I thought he did—for getting us into trouble, and I think he sort of told my brothers to look after me. It always made me feel as if—”
“As if you had to prove yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“Mostly to yourself.”
She met his eyes. “For a guy who doesn’t know much—”
“I know about regret. And wanting to be someone you’re proud of.” He touched her face. “I think you’re plenty brave, Sydney Bristow.”
“You remember.”
“I googled it.”
His hand slid behind her neck, his thumb running along the soft skin at the well of her throat. “Thank you for finding me.”
He leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, softly, testing, as if kissing her in the park had been a fluke.
As if not sure he was welcome.
She slid her arms around his neck, sinking into his embrace.
The door opened, and she pushed away from him as Jethro came out onto the deck.
“Oops. Headed out for more wood.”
“Let me help.”
“No, that’s okay, son. Carry on.” Jethro grinned and headed off the deck, and RJ wanted to melt into the boards.
York laughed and reached for her, pulling her against him. “Everything is going to work out, RJ. You’ll see.”
She didn’t want to tell him that this was the first time ever she’d heard him say this. So maybe he had changed.
She liked the new and improved York. Even if he couldn’t remember her.
A shout from the woodpile broke through the darkness.
“Jethro? You need help?”
Nothing, and RJ pushed away from him as he straightened. “Jethro?”
Silence, and York started for the edge of the deck.
A man appeared out of the darkness, ax in hand, swinging so fast RJ barely registered it.
York spun away. The ax embedded in the wall.
York jerked the back of his elbow onto the guy’s neck.
The man grunted, turned, and slammed his fist into York’s back.
York stumbled, caught himself on the rail, and whirled around just in time to duck the second fist.
He sent his own into the man’s jaw and, in a swift follow-up move, caught the man’s arm, trapped it with his own.
The man punched York in the throat.
York stumbled, fighting to catch his breath.
The assailant smacked York in the chest hard and he went down.
RJ screamed.
The man was big—bigger than York, and balding, square jawed, scar faced, I-hurt-people-for-a-living written in his cold eyes as he headed for her.
She scrambled back.
York tangled his legs into the thug’s and the man went down to his knees.
Emitted a curse word.
In Russian.
York rolled, his legs around the Russian’s beefy body, his arms around his neck, a rear naked choke hold.
The Russian writhed back, slamming York into the railing, dislodging him.
Raven appeared at the door and screamed.
RJ scrambled to her feet.
And when the Russian stepped toward Raven, RJ threw herself in front of her, pushing her back.
Russki grabbed RJ around the neck, lifting her off her feet.
Her world turned splotchy as she scraped at his arm, kicking.
“Get off her!” York shouted.
Her turn. She slammed her fist down, hard, between the Russian’s legs.
He dropped her, snarling.
She fell to her knees.
He whirled and unloaded his fury into York’s face.
York fell against the railing.
Russki reached for the ax.
“Drop it!” a voice said.
The Russian ignored him, turned toward York, the ax raised.
RJ screamed again.
A gunshot cracked the air.
Russki stumbled, and York met the ax handle with his outstretched hand.
“Don’t move!”
York grunted, put another hand on the ax, staring at the Russian.
Then, abruptly, the Russian let go and took off down the deck and away from their shooter.
York whirled to follow, then grabbed the railing, hard, wobbling.
The shooter ran onto the deck, into the light.
Not Jethro.
Jimbo looked at RJ. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, and he turned to Raven. “You?”
Raven stood with her hands cupped to her mouth, eyes wide. She lowered her hands. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He’s over here,” said Jimbo. “And he’s hurt.”
No. But as Raven ran past her, RJ looked at York.
Blood ran down his face, from his nose, his mouth, and he’d collapsed back against the railing, his eyes wide, his chest rising and falling fast as he stared toward the darkness.
Looking very much like he might be having another panic attack.
“York?”
But his eyes were empty, looking past her, all the way to yesterday.