Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(64)

“Yes, we’ve clashed and walked away from each other. I refuse to do that this time.”

Her expression eased. She nodded. “I don’t want to either. This life is too precious to waste. So I want you to know that what I say next is about me, not you.”

He stroked her cheek. “I’m listening.”

Her bright, blue gaze shadowed. “I am making a choice not to pick up a gun again. If I take that path, I feel like I would become someone else, someone that’s not me. I would have to grow callused in ways that I’m not right now. I think some parts of me would have to die and I wouldn’t be the healer I need to be, because I don’t have your spirit, Michael. I’m not a fighter. Maybe I’m making a selfish decision. I know it means I take certain risks in our fight, but if that’s the case, so be it—”

He shook his head and put his arms around her. “Hush. You’ll take no more risks than I do.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true.” Her voice was dry. She slipped her arms around his waist. “You’re freakishly fast.”

He started to laugh, and it felt good and healing. “I guess I am.”

He sank to his knees and rested his face against her flat abdomen, basking in her warm, vital energy. She bent over him and ran her hands down his wide shoulders and strong back, and stroked his short, dark hair. For a while they rested against each other in silence.

Then he stirred and lifted his head. “If fighting—my type of fighting, anyway—is a kind of healing,” he said, “then would you say that healing is a kind of fight?”

“Makes sense,” she said. “Yin and yang. Two sides of a coin.” She touched the tip of his nose with her finger.

He captured her hand and kissed her finger, then stood. “I’ve calmed down and I’m listening to what you said, but this isn’t a simple either/or kind of topic.”

She bit her lip. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not comfortable with guns, and I can respect that. But just as being afraid to do something doesn’t make you a coward, you can’t look at what I do and then say that you’re not a fighter. I don’t think that’s the right way to think of this issue. You may not be a fighter like I am, but you still have a lot of fight in you. Look at how hard you’ve fought over the last couple of days. Jerry should have died twice over, and he didn’t because of you, and of course there’s Nicholas.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “I get what you’re saying.”

“I think you might enjoy some of the martial arts I know, especially the disciplines that are defensive in nature.”

She ducked her head and scowled. He cupped her face with both hands and tilted it back up. “Keep an open mind. You promised.”

Grimacing, she said again, “Okay.”

“You’re so sexy when you’re sullen,” he told her.

He bent his head, and his mouth covered hers. She closed her eyes, draped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and he lost himself in the raw, animal physicality of the moment.

He pushed her back and lifted her so that she settled into a sitting position on the table. Then he nudged between her legs and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly.

She linked her legs around his hips, hugging him with her whole body.

When he pulled away, Mary rested her head on his shoulder. She fingered her swollen lips and said in a drugged voice, “Wait. That was all just inside our heads, right?”

He nuzzled her ear with a husky chuckle. “Yeah. Think of how good it will be again in the flesh.”

She stroked his hair, and it felt better than before. It felt better than ever, passion and completeness, yin and yang.

“I haven’t had a chance to say thank you,” she said. “Jerry and Nicholas are alive because of you too.”

“They are alive because of what we both did.” He took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. “About your image of the chapel that you showed me earlier. I have an image I want to show you too.”

She smiled up at him. Everything about her had lightened until she glowed, her spirit burnished bright. “Do you?”

“Yes.” He looked around at the great hall. “It’s here, deep inside the fortress.”

Chapter Twenty-two

SO THIS WAS supposed to be a new day.

He had read all of the most successful self-help books. He had been determined to turn his frown upside down and keep a positive attitude. Cultivating a positive attitude was supposed to create a positive outcome, wasn’t it?

What had that glass half full of bullshit got him?

Nothing. Nada.

He had scrambled so hard to get his traps in place along the coastline. For a brief time, at Jerry Crow’s pathetic little hovel, he had felt on top of the world, ahead of the curve and in control of the game. He just knew he was onto something good.

Until Michael and Mary intervened, he had been onto something good. Jerry Crow had almost come home . . . from somewhere. Then Michael and Mary swooped in . . . from somewhere . . . and his monkey suit still ached from when Michael shot out the front tire of his and Martin’s SUV and sent them crashing into a tree. Only his seat belt had saved him from hitting the windshield.

By the time he had been able to get people searching that specific area of the Lake, everybody had vanished again. The only thing his people had located was a drifting, rusty motorboat, full of blood and bullet holes.