Page 136 of Bonded in Death

“We knew he’d be armed. We knew it would be old-school. He’s freaking old-school. And it’s not the first time I’ve done some bleeding on a corner.”

“And unlikely the last,” he added as they got off the glides, pushed through the door to the garage.

The clang of her boots on the stairs matched the return clang of the headache at the base of her skull.

“Let’s clear this up. I get you were upset that he opened up on me.”

“Do you now?”

“Yeah, now, then, later. I get it. But you can’t step on my authority on an op, especially in front of my team.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for demanding medical attention when my wife’s been shot.”

“At, at, at! Shot at!”

“I believe, technically, when a bullet makes contact with flesh, it’s shot. ‘At’ is a miss.”

“It barely did, and that’s not the point.”

“It’s a very sharp point for me.”

She knew that tone, the icy cool one, that meant there was a burning temper under it. And as her own rose to match it, she stopped at the car.

“I said I get it, and I do, but an op isn’t one of your meetings where you’re in charge. I’d lost the bastard, and I had to redeploy the team to search mode, and not stop to worry about a scratch.”

“A gash,” he corrected in that same frosty tone. “Be accurate. And one you got by jumping in front of civilians.”

“Damn right. That’s the job! What would you have done?”

“I hope I would’ve done the same.”

“Hope, my ass. You’d have done exactly the same because that’s who you are. I know you, goddamn it. I know I don’t have a couple holes in me because you came up with this.”

She opened her jacket to the Thin Shield.

“And you came up with this because somebody put a hole in me a few years back. And I have this.” She slapped her hand on the car. “This vehicle that looks like nothing much but can withstand most anything short of a nuclear blast. And, hell, maybe that. I have this ride because some asshole blew my previous ride up. Those are big fucking deals, but you can’t protect me twenty-four/seven. And you can’t order me around on an op I’m leading!”

He waited a beat. “I have to disagree with that last bit. When my wifeis bleeding from a bullet wound—a wound caused by a bullet is a bullet wound,” he said before she could snarl at him, “under those circumstances, I am duly authorized to call for medical attention.”

He waited another beat.

“It’s in the Marriage Rules.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. Turned a circle, pulled on her hair. Hoisted by her own petard, she thought. Whatever the fucking fuck a petard was.

“You yanked up my shirt in front of Santiago.”

And that statement, her ridiculous and somehow endearing embarrassment, simply evaporated his anger.

“And if I’d been standing at First and Third, bleeding, what might you have done?”

She hissed out a breath. “Shit. Shit. Shit. I’d have done the same damn thing. Okay, okay, but… No, fuck it. Look, I’m—”

He stepped to her, touched a finger to her lips. “You feel obliged to apologize now. Don’t. I don’t want an apology, and none is warranted in any case. Lieutenant Dallas, my darling Eve, I don’t want to change you. I’m madly, wildly, completely in love with the woman who’d use her own body to shield others. With the woman who, even while wounded, is embarrassed Santiago saw a part of her midriff.

“I love who and what you are, every glorious and frustrating bit of it. And I was terrified. Now I want credit for not doing this when I very much needed to, on that corner, in front of Santiago.”

He gathered her in, held on. “There you are,” he murmured.

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