Page 94 of Nemesis

His smile fades. “Unless something is done about it, yeah. That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re here because you want to stop them,” I repeat.

Reese sighs. “Something like that. Sometimes it feels like they’re the oncoming tide. They’ve got the numbers, and their momentum is impossible to stop.”

I don’t love the sound of that.

“But then I found you. And what you’ve done…” He meets my gaze. “Bow & Arrow is beautiful, Artemis. Sincerely.”

My face heats. “Thank you.”

“I went down to confront my own demons, and then I found the bomb.”

Right. That.

“And you disabled it?”

“I’m a former Marine.” He sighs. “I worked with bombs overseas. It wasn’t… it was in my wheelhouse, I guess you can say, to examine it and stop it.”

“You were deployed? And you just so happened to find a bomb that you could disarm.”

I lean back against my headboard, considering his words. That it was just a coincidence he was down there? That he has demons of his own—as I started to suspect. It doesn’t mean it’s easy information to swallow.

“The bomb had dust on it,” he says in a low voice. “Someone set it up and then left it. They had to get back down there to trigger the timer… or not. It could’ve had an hour, a day, two weeks set on the timer. There’s no telling what it started at. ButI’mtelling you, in my opinion, this wasn’t just some spur-of-the-moment thing to incite fear.”

“Why call the sheriff?” I reach for him.

He takes my hand automatically, without even thinking about it. Likemytouch doesn’t freak him out. Not like how I thought I’d react to his touch.

But his calloused fingers are warm and dry, and it grounds me.

—hand reaching out for mine?—

I jerk back.

He just looks at me.

I suddenly feel the need to apologize, but he cuts off my attempt.

“I wanted someone to know about it, so I reported the bomb,” he says. “It wasn’t my intention to make you go down there again, but I waited to see if you would. And you did.”

That headache I thought was going away? It’s back. I thought, out of everything,Reesewould be the thorn in my side. From the moment he arrived, from the panic attacks, everything screamed that he would be my enemy.

But he’s not. It’s Kade.

“If you’re lying to me, I will find out,” I warn.

He softens. “I know what it’s like to be lied to. I won’t do that to you.” He rises. But instead of leaving, he steps closer. Leans over me.

His lips touch the top of my head, and my traitorous heart fucking skips.

And then he’s gone.

“Areyou sure you’re up for this?”

I glare at Saint. His bruises have all healed from his fight with Kade, and with it he has apparently suffered a memory lapse. Unlike me, because I still look like I got in a fight with an ogre.

“Of course I’m up for this.” I scoff. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

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