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He chuckled. “Of course he did—everyone else did too.”
She curled around him again, her lips moving lightly over his temple. When he reached out an arm to wrap around her, he felt the stitches pull in the long gash that spanned both shoulders, but that wasn’t going to stop him from offering his woman comfort.
“Baby…you’re shaking.”
“You scared the hell out of me when they dragged you out of that building,” she rasped with a note of hot pain.
“I walked out under my own steam. They were just guiding me a little.”
“What even happened in there?”
He went still. Was it even prudent to tell her such things? When they worked together before, she wasn’t in a position for him to disclose information on the cases he worked on. When he left on an op, he returned to their hotel bed and her arms, but they didn’t discuss a thing.
Now since nothing hindered them, it made sense to share…yet her sister was involved. Dove had been through too much trauma in her life already—the last thing he’d do would be to add to it.
He pressed the tips of his fingers into her lower spine where he held her. “We’ll need to debrief as soon as I’m back at Sentry—” He stopped dead and shook himself mentally. “There is no headquarters left.”
“Oh, Quaide, I’m so sorry. Your house…”
“It’s a blow, but it’s just a house. We’ll get a new place. New equipment. And I’ll rebuild bigger and better—for us, Dove.”
She drew back to search his eyes, her own warm and soft with emotion. His heart throbbed only for this woman.
“Thank god, baby. Thank god I got you back, and now that you’re safe and sound in my arms, I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
“I love you, Quaide. So, so much. I’m going to find that person to bandage your wound so we can get out of here and I can start taking care of you.”
“We’re going to take care of each other, baby. For the rest of our days.”
* * * * *
Quaide sat at the folding table that served as a conference table in the former Sentry office. He never thought he’d be sitting in this space again, let alone wanting to laugh.
Or cry the way that Dove, Rain and Lark were.
There was also the option of getting up and running out of the room, which the rest of the team wanted to do, if he had to guess. Julius, Jennings and Clay all looked as if they wanted to bolt for the nearest exit and find themselves a beer.
They kept eyeing the women as if their tears were a plague hanging in the air, and a few days ago, Quaide would be doing the same. After all that they’d been through together, he was a changed man.
A new perspective on life had him leaning back in his seat, as relaxed as he could be when his lover was so upset.
Lark stopped typing notes into the computer in order to pluck another tissue from the box set in the middle of the table. She swiped at her eyes and dabbed her nose.
“Go on,” Quaide said with as much gentleness in his tone as he could. If he could retell the story of events that Dove and Rain had suffered through in the rehab center, he would do so and gladly. He’d take away her pain and bear it for eternity if that helped her walk through the fires unscathed.
Her watery blue-gray eyes met his, and he gave her a small nod of encouragement.
Drawing a shaky breath, she continued with her tale. “After they took Rain away, I was freaking out.” Her voice trembled, and she reached for the mug of coffee Quaide had made her, wrapping her fingers around it.
Rain touched Dove’s arm, as if the small brush of her hand over her sister’s elbow would grant her the strength she needed to go on.
Thrusting back her shoulders, Dove continued, “I could hear Rain crying out.” Her voice broke. “Not cooperating.”
The wobble in her voice had them all bowing their heads. He and Clay had seen similar when they served overseas. They’d heard similar screams. He could still hear them at night when he closed his eyes.
Sleeping with Dove in his arms had silenced those voices and blurred the faces until he was able to move on with his life.
“Dove,” he said gently, “you don’t have to go on. We’ve got enough information on—”
