Page 70 of I Dream of Danger
Her eyes searched his. “I thought you’d left me. Again.”
Nick closed his eyes in pain. “I know, honey. I realize that. There was nothing I could do. I made it down to Lawrence the instant I got back but—you’d left.”
“That night,” she whispered. “I left that night. I felt like I’d die if I stayed one more minute.”
His heart clenched as he thought of her—poor and abandoned, striking out on her own.
“Because it was the second time you’d left me.” There they were. The words he’d been dreading.
Because there was no way he could tell her the truth—that the Judge had sent him away. Nick knew the Judge had been absolutely right to do what he did. But Elle wouldn’t see it that way. She’d watched her father decline badly, and he didn’t want to add anger to her memories of her father. The Judge had been a good and noble man who’d had to bear a lot at the end of his life.
Wherever the Judge was, his daughter wasn’t going to resent him because he’d sent Nick away.
Nick lifted himself up on his forearms and looked down at her. At this woman he loved with all his heart. He’d loved her these past ten years and he’d love her until the day he died.
Which might be tomorrow.
He cupped her head in his hands and opened himself.
He was good at lying. Good undercover agent. He never saw a need to tell anyone what was going on inside himself. That stopped right now, because Elle had a right to see inside him because she was inside him.
With one exception.
He looked her in the eyes and opened his soul.
“I can’t tell you why I went away that first time. I could lie to you and you’d believe me. I’m really good at lying. An ace at it, in fact. But I won’t lie to you. I will never lie to you for the rest of our lives. But this one thing—I can’t tell you and you will have to accept that.”
She thought about it long and hard. She didn’t even pretend that she wasn’t. He watched her work her way through it, knowing what he was asking her.
“You won’t lie to me?”
Nick dipped his head, kissed her shoulder, lifted his head again. “No, not ever.”
“You’ll tell me what’s going on here? In this place?”
For the first time since he’d found her, he felt like smiling. “Oh yeah. Because this is your new home. You’re going to live here with me and the others for the rest of your life.”
She sighed and he could feel her acceptance in her voice, in her skin, in her heart. “Tell me,” she said.
Nick rolled them to their sides because it was going to be a long story and he didn’t want to separate his body from hers. He wanted to stay with her, in her, as long as he could.
And he told her. Everything.
Chapter
Eleven
At noon, Nick left her at the door with a kiss and an enigmatic smile. “Go do your thing, honey,” he said.
The door slid open, he gave a little push at the small of her back and she moved reluctantly forward.
And found herself in an utterly familiar environment.
Mini electron microscopes, ELISA arrays, titrators, chromatographs, handheld MRIs…the works.
A lab. And a well-equipped one at that. It was chilled and smelled like every lab Elle had ever worked in—of disinfectant and ozone. And like every lab she’d ever been in, it spelled order and reason in a disorderly and unreasonable world.
She felt herself relaxing even before Catherine came to her with a smile and a white lab coat held over her arm. “Hi, I hope you rested well. That was some trauma you went through.” She leaned forward and gave Elle a quick kiss on the cheek. As before, a rush of warmth went through her at Catherine’s touch.
