Don’t die on me, honey.Don’t die.Don’t die.Please God, don’t let her die.

He wrapped the rope three times around his forearm, his other arm around Isabel. She needed to get the water out of her lungs but he couldn’t do it here. He had to get her onto that bridge where Metal could work his magic. Metal had saved men’s lives countless times. He’d saved lives other medics couldn’t save. He knew what Isabel meant to him, he’d save Isabel.

He had to.

The four men pulled them out of the water, Joe hanging from the rope, holding Isabel tightly to him.

Her eyes were closed. She looked like she was sleeping. He couldn’t do anything—one hand was holding on to the rope pulling them out of the water and the other was grasping her. All he could do was stare at her face, willing her eyes to open.

His gasps were clouding the frigid air with steam but there was no steam coming out of Isabel’s mouth.

Oh God.

And then they were pulled over the bridge onto concrete and Metal was bending over Isabel and Joe was on his knees, gasping, coughing out water. Blood pooled around his leg. Metal looked over at him, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest, but Joe waved him away.

“Take...care...of...Isabel.”

Metal was counting under his breath, big hands compressing Isabel’s chest hard. Isabel was so cold and still, beautiful face deathly white.

And then—the most glorious sound he ever heard. Isabel, coughing. Metal put her on her side as she weakly coughed out the water she’d swallowed. She looked ice white and battered. The most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

Joe’s leg wouldn’t bear him so he crawled over to Isabel, putting his arms around her, holding her tightly, patting her back as she coughed. He pulled back and looked down at her face, wanting his face to be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes.

Her eyelids fluttered, she coughed again, then opened her eyes.

“Is he dead?” was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

Joe laughed weakly, and it turned into a cough. “Yeah.” His voice was gravelly. “He’s dead.”

“Good.” Her eyes closed again.

Joe tapped her cheek. “Honey. Honey, don’t go off just yet. There’s someone you have to see.”

“Don’t want to see anyone,” she said, her voice drowsy. She was falling into hypothermia. They’d wrap her up in their jackets and get her to a hospital fast but first—first she had to know something. Joe lifted his hand and beckoned to Jack. Jack hunkered down on his haunches next to Isabel.

Joe turned her face toward Jack. She blinked. Blinked again.

“Jack?” she whispered, holding out a hand.

Jack grabbed it, put it against his filthy, stubbled jaw. “Sis.”

Tears welled, fell down her face. “You’re alive!” Her mouth formed the words, though there was no sound.

She gave a sob, then another, then lifted from Joe’s arms to throw herself into her brother’s arms, crying and laughing at the same time.

Metal stood. “Gotta get her warm and to a hospital,” he said, but he didn’t stir. It was an incredibly moving moment. Jack’s head was bent over Isabel’s and though he wasn’t sobbing, tears were falling down his cheeks into his beard.

Jacko and Nick held out their hands and lifted Joe. He couldn’t put weight on his right leg, but they were strong men and they were there for him. Everything in Joe’s world felt heavy with the sense of rightness.

His woman, in her brother’s arms, crying out her happiness. His buds, holding him up.

It was going to be all right.

Isabel turned her face, held out a hand. Jacko and Nick shuffled forward with Joe between then until he could reach her, take her hand.

“You—alive. My brother—alive. Blake—dead,” she whispered. “Happiest day of my life.”

Epilogue

The Grange, Mount Hood

Two weeks later

It was a great party. The place was fantastic. It was a sunny day and the place was filled with light. Built of wood and glass the reception hall was huge, airy, magnificent. A cathedral to the art of living well.

And eating well.

There were whole stretches of time when the entire ASI crew—a rowdy bunch normally—fell completely silent as a new dish appeared on the fifty-foot-long table. Isabel had designed the menu and had done some of the cooking and it was spectacular. She’d absolutely refused to rest after near drowning and had been working round the clock on the menu.

Joe glanced over at her for the billionth time. So far there’d been ten toasts to her and she was rosy and smiling and so goddamned beautiful it nearly blinded him. She’d begun her blog again—just a few posts so far but the reaction was overwhelming. Each post now clocked up a hundred thousand hits and the numbers were climbing fast. She’d dusted off the file of the book on food she’d been writing. Joe let her be, didn’t push her in one direction or another, because she was finding her own way back just fine. But he was incredibly proud of her.

Her brother Jack was sitting on her other side. He’d cleaned up for the occasion after his months of staying under the radar, pretending to be a mentally disturbed homeless person. He and Nick had been huddled together for the past two days, planning the next steps.

The FBI had handled the removal of Hector Blake’s body back to Washington, DC, where soon the former senator would drown for the second time in a tragic accident in the Potomac. The Portland driver had been ID’d as a former member of the Clandestine Service who had quit after a fuckup in Pakistan.

Nick and Jack were patiently combing the records of former Clandestine Service members and they were being investigated for possible involvement in the Washington Massacre. They were both going back to DC tomorrow to ramp up the investigation, but they had given themselves today off. Amidst all the death, it was time to celebrate life.

There was a kids’ table and Isabel had prepared a perfect kid menu and they were gobbling food down like the apocalypse had come. Lily, Suzanne and Midnight’s amazingly gorgeous little girl, sat at the head of the kids’ table, completely in charge. At four, she was a little princess.

The servers wheeled out a huge cake that was an exact replica of the ASI compound, down to the chocolate trees with mint leaves, the walls made of something Isabel called ganache. It looked amazing and doubtless tasted amazing, too. The servers were pouring champagne.

Pretty soon Midnight would stand up and make a speech and then the Senior would, too. His bosses. For real, this time. Though Joe’s leg was going to take another month to heal, he had absolutely insisted on coming in to work and he was starting to get a handle on their workload, on their clientele and had made a couple of suggestions that had been gratefully received. And as soon as he got the doctor’s okay, he was going operational.

So everything was going just dandy, except for one thing.

He and Isabel were together. She made that clear. But she never, ever spoke about a future together, which was what Joe wanted more than his next breath.

So he was approaching it as an op. Carefully calibrated, step-by-step. He had his strategy all planned out.

First step—unite the houses. Then their lives.

Joe leaned into Isabel and refrained from taking a big sniff, like a dog. God, she always smelled so damned good.

Be calm, he told himself. Relax.

This was worse than going on a mission downrange, because then it had been only his life in the balance. Here it was his heart.

“Hey, honey,” he said casually. “Look what Suzanne designed.” For us. He swallowed the words because, well, for Suzanne to design something for them, there first had to be a them.