The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(57)

When they both stilled, she was careful to settle herself off to the side, so she wasn’t directly on his body—and she was going to remember the happiness on his face for the rest of her life. He was resplendent, transformed, younger and more vital than ever.

It was hard to say who wrapped whose arms around the other first, but what did it matter. Next thing she knew, they were lying heart-to-heart, her head tucked into the crook of his arm, the heat drifting down from the ceiling keeping her warm even as her naked body cooled on top of the duvet.

“Assail?”

“Yes,” he murmured.

“You don’t have to convert.”

“What?”

She inched back. “If my vovó goes on the hard sell tonight, I just want you to know that I accept you exactly the way you are. We don’t have to be the same to be together.”

“That is good to know.” He brushed her mouth with his fingertip. “But I am not worried.”

“My vovó can be persuasive.”

“She approves of me, already.” His smile was as she remembered, sexy, a little dark, very appealing. “After all, she and I are alike. We both appreciate the way things should be done.”

“This is true.”

“Shall we shower the now?” he said. “I can help you with the soap.”

“You can?” Actually, that sounded like a great idea. And not only because she liked being clean. “You would help me? Well, what a kind gentleman you are…”

Leaning in, she kissed him. And kissed him some more.

Eventually, they made it to the hot water. But it was a while.





TWENTY-FIVE


As Jane stepped through the supply closet and into the training center’s office, she checked her watch. Eight p.m. It had been twenty-four hours since Manny had kicked her out. Well, twenty-four, more or less.

Just exactly how precise was he going to be?

In the corridor, she found herself fiddling with her scrubs as she went down to the clinic rooms. She always kept clean sets of the tops and bottoms in her room at the Pit, and as soon as she and V landed back on earth, she’d excused herself, had a shower, and changed into her second skin of loose-and-cotton-and-blue.

When she’d reemerged, V had been strapping his weapons on, getting ready to head out into the field with Butch again. As she’d left, he’d stared at her as if there were things he wanted to say or do, but wasn’t sure where the new boundaries were. She felt the same way.

About him…and her job.

She’d ended up giving V an awkward goodbye wave—and had no idea what was next for them. Did they meet up at Last Meal? Or…text? Or…

God, she felt as though she were dating her husband.

And while she was covering unknowns, she wondered whether Manny was going to kick her out again or force her to— “Hey.”

Jane stopped short and looked up. Speak of the devil: Manny was in front of the main examination room, the door slowly shutting behind him as if he had just walked out.

“Hey, yourself.” She cleared her throat. “How we doing?”

When in doubt, she figured, go with the open-ended: that could cover her situation, the patients on deck, the weather…anything.

“We’re good.” He shifted a legal-sized pad of paper from his right to his left hand. “More importantly, how are you?”

“Good. Yup. Just fine.”

Cue the weird pause. And then she abruptly decided she was too tired to worry about pride.

“I’m really sorry I got into it with you,” she blurted. “And you’re right. I do need to take a breather and get on a better schedule. I have lost all sense of perspective, and even though I had, and always will have, the best interests of my patients at heart, I’ve potentially compromised care by being over-involved and exhausted.”

Manny exhaled with relief. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. And listen, I didn’t mean to come across like it was an intervention. I just didn’t know how else to handle it.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Well, along those lines.” He put up the pad. “Tada! Our new schedule.”

She leaned in and then smiled at the scribbles. “Okay, you have a doctor’s handwriting. Has anyone mentioned that before?”

He frowned and turned the paper back around. “I felt like I did better keeping it all caps and printing?”

“I think I got the month right. January?”

“Um…actually I started it in February.”

She laughed and came around to stand beside him. “So tell me what we’ve got.”

He pointed out things in the little boxes he’d made. “Both of us work nights. Then we alternate days sleeping here. So we’ll have plenty of coverage when the Brothers are out in the field, but when the sun is up, only one of us is on. And if there are no acute cases here, then we both go back home. Every seven days, though, each of us gets a whole twenty-four hours off—and it syncs with the day rotation. See?”

She nodded, her stomach unclenching. “You know, this is going to work.”

“There’s one other piece, though.” As she looked up, he seemed braced. “We’re going to have to hire another nurse—and another surgeon.”