She held him hard, stroking his hair, and he gritted his teeth until he got himself under control. “You’re all right?” he rasped. “Penney’s shot went wide?”
“Yes—yes. I’m fine.” Her voice, muffled against his chest, shook. “He missed us both. And then his wretched batman came, and he—”
“Did he touch you?” he demanded. He couldn’t bring himself to pull away to check, so he ran his hand up her back, finding the bare skin of her neck.
“You absolute madman—youare the one the batman beat senseless, not me!”
Archer supposed that explained the agony in every muscle of his body. “But you’re all right?” he said. He was still swinging dizzily from rage to relief and back again. “If he hurt you, Ruby, I swear to God, he’s not going to survive the day. I’ll tear his heart out of his chest. I’ll—”
“I’m fine,” she said. She reached up and caught his throbbing face in her hands. “Malcolm. Listen to me. I’m perfectly well. No one hurt me.”
“Oh God,” he said. His vision dimmed once more. The room whirled.
It seemed prudent to sit down very hard on the stone floor and pull Ruby into his lap.
He held her for a long moment in the dark, breathing in her warm scent. Her cheek was wet where it pressed into his neck, and her fingers shook where she clutched at his shirt.She’s all right, he told himself.She’s all right. Calm down.
But he—
God. He couldn’t. His heart was still pounding with terror and fury, and he loosened his hold on her because he feared, suddenly, that he would hurt her.
But even as he relaxed his grip, she fisted her hand in his shirt and dragged him closer. “Malcolm,” she said. “You idiot. You—you—what were you thinking, to throw yourself at him so?”
His battered shoulders protested the ferocity of her grip, but he didn’t care. He relished it. “He had a pistol, Ruby. He could have—”
“I know what he could have done, Malcolm! I watched it happen. I think some—some chunk of plaster must have struck your face—your cheek wasbleeding, all down your neck and your shirt, and I did not even know if you—if he—”
He pushed back her hair and made small soothing sounds against the tangled curls. “I’m fine. Everything’s all right.”
“Don’t lie.” Her voice broke. “Don’t lie to me, Malcolm. There’s still dried blood on your neck. I couldn’t get it all off.”
“Darling. Ruby-love. I’m not lying.” He tipped her face up and let himself indulge in the creaturely miracle of kissing her mouth. “I’ve the devil of a headache, but I’m fine. I’m right here. And... you’re all right. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters.”
“If you throw yourself in front of a firearm like that again,” she whispered, “I will kill you myself.”
“Pet.” He kissed her again, helplessly. “I can’t make any promises. I would throw myself in front of a bullet a thousand times to keep you safe.”
“That’s not—”
“I told you.” He caught her palm, pressed it against his chest. Felt the tiny indentation of her ring through his shirt. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Malcolm,” she whispered.
He held her hand against his heart. He wanted some gilded declaration, wanted words like a liturgy. Wanted to spool out promises like golden thread. But instead, when he opened his mouth, his voice came out hoarse. Abrupt. Unsteady.
“I love you,” he said.
In the shadowed dark, he watched her lips part.
“I love you,” he said again. “I can’t—God, Ruby. I keep thinking I’ll get it right. I’ll do everything perfectly andproveto you that I can be more than what I’ve always been. But I—” He broke off. He wrapped his fingers around her hand and kept it pressed against his chest. Holding on. Powerless to let her go. “But the truth is, Ruby-love, thisiswho I am.”
“I like who you are,” she said softly.
“Sweetheart.” He gripped her fingers and fought the hot burn at the backs of his eyes. “I kept telling myself that I wouldn’t importune you until I’d proven myself. That I wouldn’t ask you to be with me, to take my name, until my name meant something. And then—oh hell. Ruby. And then somehow I was leaping across a goddamned desk at Penney, and all I could think was,I’d die for her, and I still haven’t told her that I love her.”
She was closer now—so close he almost spoke the words against her mouth.
“I love you, Ruby Ballimore,” he said. “Of course I’d take a bullet for you. I’d take it and be goddamned grateful for the chance. There is no world for me if you’re not in it. No sunrise—nosun—without you.”
