Risa shook her head. “There was no connection. Adam had never arrested Jennings. He’d never been involved in one of Adam’s cases.”
“But Jennings once had a girlfriend whose father was put away for life by your boss.” Nate brought the cup to his lips. Drank. “That’s all the details Shepherd shared, but it’s looking more and more like that personal connection will have to be explored further.”
She considered the possibility. “Personal connections can get sticky.” Her voice was sounding more hoarse from the effort of talking. But there was still something she hadn’t told Nate. “Baltes is the one who gave your sister the idea to take off. I don’t know how or why they met up. A distraction, he called it.”
He looked shocked. And more than a little anxious. “Last week she didn’t come home one night. I assumed she’d gone clubbing with friends. Maybe he arranged to run into her there.” He shook his head, as if bemused.
But when he looked at her again, his eyes were intent. “I do know how complicated personal connections can be. When I was running across that clearing and saw you trapped in that ring of fire . . .” His voice cracked, just a little on the last word. “I don’t pretend to understand it, whatever it is you dream. What causes it. But that will be the last damn time I ever discount it.”
It was, she thought sappily, more touching than the most fervent declaration of love. And something that had never been offered to her before, by anyone other than her boss. “I can’t tell you what that means to me.”
The muscle in his jaw clenched. “I promised myself after our last phone conversation that I’d still have the chance to tell you exactly what you mean to me. I’m in love with you, Risa.” As if to stem any protest she would make, had she been able to summon the power of speech to do so, he went on. “Yeah, I can guess what you’re going to say. I know exactly how many days we’ve known each other. It’s too soon. But it’s still there. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few hours, it’s that time doesn’t mean a thing. It’s the now that matters. And you’re my now. My future.”
One hand came up to cup her jaw. Her senses swam. Shakily she managed, “Psychological studies indicate that situations of high stress cause heightened emotion in the involved parties.”
His faced lowered to hers. “Exactly why I’m going to make sure we have plenty of boring years together to prove the psychologists are full of shit.”
She shook her head. Paused to savor the kiss he pressed against her lips. A moment later she murmured, “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I don’t need psychologists to tell me what I feel. I love you, Nate. But I wouldn’t say no to some uneventful times, regardless.” A thought struck, and for the first time worry pierced the fog of happiness. “Adam proclaimed me ready to return to work.”
He caught her bottom lip in his teeth. Tested it lightly. “Two and half hours by car in good traffic. Less by train. C’mon, after the last few days, we’ve overcome far more important things than distance.”
She tilted her head back to regard him soberly. He was more right than he could know. She’d confronted her fears. All of them. And although she knew she had further to go in that regard, she was overcoming the self-doubt that had crippled her for the last several months.
“We have,” she agreed. “I’d say we make a damn good team.” His arm went around her waist to pull her closer. She slipped her hand around his neck and sank into his kiss.
Long moments went by before she opened her eyes again. Another two or three before the fog in her brain lifted enough to realize they had an audience.
“Risa.” Ryne Robel, another of Adam’s investigators raised his coffee in salute. “Good to see you again. You’re looking . . . well.” He managed, barely, to dodge the punch his diminutive wife, Abbie, aimed at his arm.
Embarrassment filtered in. But not enough to have her stepping out of Nate’s arms. “Privacy?”
“If you want privacy, you shouldn’t be making out in a hospital corridor,” Kellan Burke observed laconically. “They’ve got rooms here, you know.”
“Everyone out.” Ramsey and Macy Reid, Kellan’s fiancée, shooed the group back to the waiting room.