Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(95)

“I don’t know you anymore, man.” Matt shook his head.

Those words drew blood, as they should. Matt was right. Rand was a stranger. He’d exited their lives and only rarely looked back.

“But…I’ll always trust you to have our back. Look after Sarah, okay? She’s not as tough as she thinks she is.”

Rand stared at Matt’s retreating back. He jumped off the porch and retrieved a couple logs, probably for the fireplace. The old house always had been a bit drafty at night, no matter the season.

What the hell just happened?

Matt and Rand were strangers, there was no denying they’d changed, and yet Matt still trusted him? Without a backward glance or voicing his doubts?

Rand held the door for Matt, but stayed on the porch, staring out at the water.

His priorities had changed. The job didn’t come first anymore, Sarah did.

He braced his hands on the porch rail and watched the sun dip below the horizon. There was no doubt for him that tomorrow, he wanted to be with Sarah. The youthful crush had blossomed and aged with maturity into something integral to who he was, and it was time to stop denying that.

It was time to have that talk they kept putting off, the one about them. What they were, where this was headed. There was an us; they just kept ignoring it.

Rand stepped through the door and almost got his knees whacked by an exuberant little girl with Matt’s eyes and Emily’s hair. She grinned and scampered off, brandishing a wooden sword with all the vigor of the young.

He glanced around, but only Matt and Emily were around. Emily caught Rand’s eye and pointed upstairs.

Which made sense. Sarah had a lot to sort through, but this next part they had to do together.

Rand circled to the front stairs. He knew this house as well as he did his own. The Collinses had brought him out here often enough. He climbed the stairs to the quieter second level.

Sarah’s room was tucked away in the corner at the front of the house. It was a small room compared to the others, but her grandparents had let her paint it with purple and turquoise stripes. Even now, after all these years, it was a bit of a jolt to the senses seeing it.

“Hey.” Sarah sat on the floor, her back braced against the bed. “It’s quieter up here.”

“I’ll say.” He sank down next to her and took her smaller hand in his. “How you doing?”

“Confused.”

Rand stroked the back of her hand. She had to have so many questions.

“Seeing Charlie…it all makes sense, you know? That it was him all along.” She turned her head and stared out of the window. “We had this talk once, about doing the right thing. He laughed at me and said there was no right thing, because there were no good or bad sides, just what you chose to do.”

They sat there for several moments, the stillness of her room comforting after days of being on the move, watching their back.

“Is it safe to be here?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“Thanks for coming back for the briefcase and me.”

“Sarah, I came back for you. You could have let that stupid case sink for all I care.” In fact, maybe she should have let it go.

“What comes next?”

“We recuperate, then play it by ear.”

“I’m so getting fired.”

“You never know.”

“Is it really over?”

“For us? Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re just pawns in this. Whoever was behind Charlie’s death gains nothing by coming after us.”

“I’m still kind of scared. Is that normal?” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. She came easily, curling around him and burying her face against his chest.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.” He kissed the top of her head. “It was never about the briefcase. It was always about you.”

She snorted.

“That’s not what you said—”

“Yeah, well, I was wrong.” He hugged her to him. The truth had been there all along, he’d simply chosen to be blind, deaf, and dumb.

“I can’t—I can’t, Rand.” Sarah sat up and turned toward the window, her shoulders hunched.

“I get that you might not feel the same way about me, or maybe you don’t want to, but…I have always—and will always—care about you, Sarah. Part of me will… I’m always going to love you.”

“Don’t say that.” She glanced at him, her face creased as though she were in pain.

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” He reached out and tugged her hair, just like he had so many times before. She swatted his hand away, but he was ready for that and captured her fingers in his. “Come here, please?” He tugged on her hand.

She twisted around, crossing her legs, and faced him. So serious, his Sarah.

“Things aren’t going to be easy. Neither of us can go back. We can’t do what we were doing before, but…it doesn’t mean things are just over. We’re stuck with each other for a bit, and maybe…maybe you aren’t okay with that, but I am. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to tell myself to feel some other way about you, and I can’t. There is no way you would ever come in anywhere else other than first for me. You’re the top of my list.”