Deck studied her face.
“This thing with Calloway,” he said. “Over?”
She let out a short, humorless laugh.
“Officially,” she said. “Yes.”
“And unofficially?”
Her eyes burned.
“Unofficially,” she said, “I broke my own heart behind the courthouse.”
A single tear escaped then, tracing a hot, jagged path down her cheek. She didn’t brush it away; she didn’t seem to have the strength to move. She sat there, looking smaller than the kitchen stool she was perched on, while the weight of the day—the case, the cameras, the look in Reid’s eyes—finally took its toll.
“Ah, lass,” he murmured.
He didn't offer a platitude or a tissue. He reached out and rested his heavy, calloused hand over hers on the counter, anchoring her to the room. The same way he had when she’d walked out of the Charleston courthouse with her world in pieces.
“Let it out, lass,” he said, his voice thick with a gravelly sort of tenderness. “The law doesn't give a damn about your heart, but I do. You’ve been holdin’ everyone else together so long, you forgot you’re allowed to break a little too.”
He squeezed her hand, a firm, grounding pressure.
“You did what you thought you had to,” he said. “Doesn’t make it hurt less.”
“I won’t let them do it to him,” she said, voice low. “Not what they did to me. Not what they said.”
He nodded.
“I know,” he said. “You’re tryin’ to take the bullets for both of you. But remember?—”
He tipped her chin up gently until she met his eyes.
“—you’re not standin’ in front of the line alone this time.”
Her throat tightened.
“Don’t forget that.”
She blinked hard.
“What if the jury believes him?” she whispered. “What if they send David away and I helped do it by walkin’ away from Reid when he needed me?”
Deck shook his head.
“The jury’s job is the truth,” he said. “Your job is the fight. His is the other side of the same. What you two had—or still have—that’s separate. It has to be.”
She gave a small, broken smile.
“That’s what I told him,” she said. “I didn’t expect it to feel like this.”
“Love’s messy,” Deck said. “Justice is messier. You picked two hard trades, Ellie-girl.”
She huffed out something that was almost a laugh.
He tapped the bowl.
“Eat,” he said. “Then sleep. Tomorrow you go back in there, and you’re Eleanor Harper—the one who scares prosecutors and makes judges check their rule books.”
