Page 109 of His Wall

Her hands were at her sides. I could see the small fine tremor in them now — not in the hands themselves, in the place underneath them, in the whole length of her body where the steel of the last forty minutes was leaving her in the small ragged way adrenaline left a person who had been running on it.

I crossed the carpet to her. Slowly.

I stopped in front of her.

I lifted my hand. I took the badge out of hers. The leather of the case was still warm from her grip on it. I crossed to the kitchen counter. I set the badge on the marble.

I came back to her.

I lifted both my hands and I cupped her face.

Her gray eyes came up to mine.

They were wet.

She was not hiding it.

"You came back."

"Of course I came back."

"He could have killed you, Leah. That bullet — that bullet was aimed at the side of your head. He missed by an inch."

"I know."

"Why."

She swallowed.

"Because the last time I followed the rules, you almost died. And I decided that if something happened to you because I was too afraid to trust myself, I would not survive it."

I kissed her.

Not hard. Not desperate. Slow. My hands at her face, my thumbs on her cheekbones, her tears wet against my fingers. Her hand grabbed the front of my shirt and held on. She kissed me back. The kiss tasted like salt and like the dust from the wall and like the long shape of relief.

I pulled back.

My forehead came to rest against hers.

I held there for a second.

I had not said this in my life. I had not said this to a woman in three years. I had been getting ready to say it on Declan's kitchen floor at three in the morning.

"I love you, Leah."

It came out thin. My voice cracked on the second syllable of her name.

"Not Claire. You. The real one."

I stopped.

I started again.

"I love you."

She closed her eyes. Her hand on the front of my shirt tightened. Her shoulders went down a quarter-inch into my hands.

"I love you too," she said it quietly.