Page 10 of So Smitten

“Well, the one-day part is the part that’s frustrating, Faith. I can’t just leave indefinitely and wait for you to tell me that everything’s safe again. I almost lost my practice the last time.”

“You’ll definitely lose your practice if you’re dead,” she pointed out.

“Faith, the answer’s no,” he said in exasperation.

“So you’re just going to stick around and wait for him to find you?”

“I’m going to live my life without fear,” he replied. “Plenty of people die every day. Some of them are even murdered. Most of them aren’t targets of anything. They’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Exactly,” Faith said, “the wrong place.”

“That’s not my point.”

“No,” Faith said, fear turning to anger and adding belligerence to her voice. “Your point is that you should just wait around for a man who has explicitly threatened to murder you to do exactly as he promised he would, and I should just, what… wait for it to happen?”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this,” he said, grabbing his clothes and starting to dress. “Faith, I accepted when I started dating you—both times—that being in love with an FBI agent meant there was a possibility I would lose you to violence. You don’t think I worry every time you go out there in the field? You don’t think it keeps me up at night knowing you do things like split up from your partner to chase a serial killer in an underground mine that’s unmapped and unstable? You don’t think that scares me? You don’t think it pisses me off to know how little you value your own life at times?”

Faith lowered her eyes. She didn’t have an answer for him.

“I’m not going to tell you to quit your job, Faith,” David continued. “I want to.” She lifted her eyes to him in surprise. “Yeah,” he affirmed. “I want you to quit sometimes. I hate that I’ll always be second place to your job—” she began to protest, and he held up his hand “—I accept that your job has to come first, and I’m not asking you to change. I’m only saying that I wish sometimes that you weren’t in the FBI out risking your life regularly hunting psychotic and dangerous men.

“But you are, and you’ll keep doing it. If I asked you to stop now, if I told you to quit your job or I would break up with you, would you?”

She lowered her eyes again and softly said, “No.”

“No,” he repeated, “and I wouldn’t ask you to because I know how important your work is to you. Well, my work is important to me, Faith. Just because I’m not out rescuing people and hunting bad guys doesn’t mean that I don’t value what I do. Every job carries risk. Every life carries risk. But I think even you would agree that your job—your life—carries more risk than mine.”

Faith hated that argument. She hated that it was true. At any given moment, Faith was in more danger than David was.

And while David might never have asked her to change, several others had. Michael, in particular, had been very vocal about his disapproval of her tendency to ignore or dismiss risk in her pursuit of killers. She wouldn’t change, even knowing that he was right.

But she wished like hell that David would just do as she asked. Didn’t he know how much more important his life was to Faith than her own life?

Well, she couldn’t exactly tell him that, could she?

Her phone rang. Michael. She looked up at David, and he nodded. "It's okay," he said softly. "Take it." He smiled sadly. “Knowing that you can get called away at any moment is another thing I have to accept.”

She offered the ghost of a smile in return and answered. “Hello?”

“Well, you sound just overjoyed to hear my voice,” Michael said drily.

“You seem equally excited to call,” she replied just as drily.

“Story of my life,” he said. “We have another case. Boss wants us in the office within the hour. I plan to be there in exactly fifty-nine minutes, which leaves me enough time to stop for coffee at the Morning Glory. If you want, you can meet me there. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the office.”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said. “I could use some coffee.”

“Works for me. See you soon.”

She hung up and said, “Before I leave, David, I want you to know that I understand what you’re saying—”

“Let’s leave it at that,” he interrupted, not unkindly.

She lowered her gaze and nodded.

CHAPTER FOUR

“You look even more excited to see me than to talk to me,” Michael said when Faith arrived at the coffee shop.

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