Riding The Edge - Elise Faber Page 0,62

the fruity smell, so fucking glad she was okay, that I was alive and able to just be with this woman.

“Six weeks is a really long time.”

“An eternity.”

Her eyes met mine, a little shy and a lot hopeful. “The start of a future.”

“No,” I murmured. “The continuation of a future. Because,” I said when her brows drew down, confusion filling her expression, “start implies an end, and I don’t ever want there to be an end with you, Ava. I love you so fiercely, it’s engraved on my soul.”

Lips parting, breath catching, she shook her head. “Had to get me with the pretty words, didn’t you?”

“Every once in a while,” I said lightly.

She wiped her eye and laughed, held up her finger, glittering with the moisture of her tears. “This is your fault,” she said. “You know that, right? Reducing a respectable agent to a blubbering mess.”

“Come here,” I said, extending a hand and helping her crawl up next to me.

And then because we were both hurting, I kissed her gently.

And then because Ava was my undoing in nearly every way, I kissed her as fiercely as that love in my heart, my soul.

Eventually, she pulled back, touched my cheek, and said, “I love you. I never thought it was possible and never hoped to have someone as wonderful as you.” A brush of her fingers. “Thank you for tearing down my walls and helping me see that happiness can come, even if I didn’t think I was deserving.”

I kissed her forehead, tugged her close. “And you say I have the pretty words.”

A light laugh, arms wrapping around me.

I held the woman I loved as our pulses slowed, as our breathing steadied, as sleep crept forward.

“We didn’t decide where to go on our six weeks,” she murmured just as I was about to succumb to oblivion.

“Mmm,” I said, pulling her closer. “You choose this time.”

A pause and I swear I felt her smile where her head was pressed to my chest. Or maybe it was just some sixth sense telling me mischief was in the air.

“I’m thinking about that old quote,” she said. “You know, the coldest winter I’ve ever had is a summer in—”

“Ava.”

“—In San Francisco, one.”

“Ava.”

“Because I think it’s time your sister sees those three new holes you’re sporting, don’t you?”

I leaned back, bopped her on the nose. “You’re evil.”

Her face sobered, and I started to apologize, thinking she’d taken that as a comment on her family, but then she spoke, and her words touched me more than anything else could have.

“Your sister is important to you,” she said. “I’d like to meet her as . . . me.” Teeth nibbling on her lip, but her chin lifting. “Like the woman who loves you.”

See?

All the pretty words.

I kissed her, long and with every big feeling this woman invoked in me.

I kissed her, like the continuation of that future we’d talked about.

Then I held her close, ordered her to sleep, and said,

“I guess we’re going to San Francisco.”

Epilogue

Part Two

KTS Satellite Base

Western Georgia

16:22hrs

Olive

I strode down the hall.

Okay, maybe I stomped down the hall.

Mostly because of the man at my back.

He was absolutely infuriating.

Case in point, him coming up behind me, grabbing my arm, and turning me to face him. I could have jerked away, could have knocked him on his ass, but my biggest weakness as an agent was one that was my best as a doctor.

I didn’t like hurting people.

Even when they wanted to hurt me. I would do it if necessary. I could do it if the circumstances required—if my life or the life of my fellow agents or the life of an innocent were threatened.

But I really hated it.

Which is why I simply glared up at Linc as he growled, “Those stitches were perfect, and you know it.”

They were perfect.

Which was even more infuriating.

But I was used to being infuriated by Linc. Since the moment I’d been recruited to KTS—going from M.D. to field medic to secret agent—he’d made it a point to piss me off.

First, as the man who I’d shadowed to learn the ropes at KTS.

Then as a fellow doctor on the committee I worked on in my non-mission time to write policies and procedures, to authorize and vet new treatments and . . . who questioned my every decision. Who pushed and prodded and was generally frustrating, even as I respected his attention to details.

And now, as the annoyance of all annoyances, treating my teammates.

“They were perfectly adequate,” I said, shaking him off and