“IdidntwanttoleaveBitty.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say? I didn’t catch it.”

Mary sat up, tucking the sheet around her naked breasts. “I could have just met you on the other side . . . but when it came down to it, yes, I freaked out, because you couldn’t breathe and you were . . . the dying thing was happening . . . but I also didn’t want to leave Bitty. I wanted you to stay so that I could keep helping her. And I’m so sorry, oh, God, Rhage, I’m so sorry.”

Rhage blinked a couple of times. “Let me get this straight. You’re apologizing to me because you didn’t want to leave an orphaned girl who had just watched her mother die to deal with all that alone? Really?”

“I feel like I . . . betrayed you in some way. I mean, the pact about me meeting you on the other side is about your destiny and mine. Together. Just the two of us. But when push came to shove, I fought, but not for us. Not really. Because I knew I could see you again. I fought . . . for someone else. And that just feels really wrong.”

Rhage sat up, too, stuffing the comforter around his lap. Put like that, he could kind of see her point.

And yet . . . “Mary, if it helps you in any way, I didn’t want to leave my brothers behind. I was mostly concerned about you and me, and what was going to happen to us, but that wasn’t the only thing on my mind. There were other people in on it for me, too.” He smiled and rubbed his jaw. “Even if one of them happened to coldcock me—twice—right after I got out of bed. Anywho, I can understand what you’re getting at, but the way I see it? I don’t expect your whole life to revolve around me. I respect your profession, and I love you for everything you do at Safe Place. You felt, in that moment, that you had unfinished business you needed to handle. That is something I can totally respect.” He frowned. “Well, as long as you intended to actually meet me over there if I didn’t come back—”

“Oh, God, yes!” She reached out and pulled him to her mouth. “I swear on my soul. Even if it had meant leaving Bitty alone . . . I would have come to find you. I have no doubt about that.”

Rhage smiled and cradled her face in his palms again. “Then we’re all good. You gotta know, my Mary, your commitment to your job is as much a part of what I love about you as the rest of . . . you know, everything. Don’t waste another thought on the whys of what you did. Focus on how incredibly amazing it is that we’re right here, together, and it all worked out exactly as it should have.”

She teared up a little. “Really?”

“Yup.”

They kissed, slow and sweet this time. And then he eased back and took a long moment just to enjoy her tousled hair, and her sleepy eyes, and her ruby-red lips that were like that because he had been making out with her for hours.

“You feel better?” he said.

She nodded. “Oh, yes. Totally.”

“You wanna finish the movie?”

“Yes, I really do.”

Rhage smiled once again. “I love it when you lie to me like that.”

“It’s true!”

As he resettled her in his arms, he shook his head and patted around to find the remote. “Good thing we talked that over. I mean, look at Kevin. He’s freaked out that we’ve been ignoring him. Kid’s gonna need some serious therapy if we keep freezing him up like this.”

Mary’s laughter transmitted from her torso into his own, and God, he loved the feel of it. Then she sighed and got even more comfortable . . . and a few moments later, she was fast asleep, breathing in the deep, even rhythm of someone who had a clean conscience and was at peace with the one they loved.

By the time the burglars were getting tarred and feathered, Rhage was feeling drowsy himself, but he stayed up for the rest of the day. Not because of the movies, though.

Sometimes all the rest you needed came in the form of holding the right person against your body, and feeling her warmth, and knowing that she was not going away.

Not without you, at any rate.

True love, he decided, was all the recharge he required, thank you very much.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Ultimately, Mary chose to go with jeans.

Normally, she was not a 7 for All Mankind girl, but for Bitty’s ice-cream trip, she didn’t want to wear her blouse-and-slacks professional uniform. The goal was for this to be a relaxed, fun outing, and somehow showing up in a bunch of stuff that needed dry cleaning didn’t exactly say Baskin-Robbins, thirty-one flavors with sprinkles on top.

“How do I look?” Rhage said from behind her.

Turning away from their bureau, she did a double take.

“Well?” he said, pivoting in a circle. “Is this okay?”

“That Hawaiian shirt”—she laughed—“was supposed to be a joke.”

He pulled out the hem of the tarp-sized eyesore. “It’s the only thing I’ve got that isn’t black.”

Well, that was true—and talk about mission accomplished. The shirt was about as far away from dour as you could get: which was why she’d bought it. The thing had a hundred variations on teal, green, and sunset peach in an absolutely retina-shattering palm tree–frond pattern.

“I just don’t want to be all soldier, you know?”

“That’s why I’m doing jeans.” She grimaced as she looked down at herself. “Even though I’m not really a fan of them anymore.”

“But they love you,” he murmured, coming over and wrapping his arms around her. As he slid his hands down to her butt and squeezed, he murmured, “This past day was amazing, by the way.”

She put her hands to his chest and played with one of the shirt’s pink buttons. “Even though I fell asleep on you?”

“Especially because of that.”

They kissed for a while, and then Mary stepped back and gave him the once-over. “Honestly, I think you have to go with what you feel comfortable in.”

“This is not it. Someone my size in this much color? I’m like a living, breathing migraine aura.”

As he headed back to the closet, she stared down at the jeans—and decided to take her own advice.

Ten minutes later, they left the mansion in all black for him and yoga pants and a red fleece for her.

Stepping out of the vestibule, Rhage put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “We’re going to have a great time.”

“Thanks for doing this. I know you had to switch your shift around.”

“Tohr was happy to take over for me. He’s really interested in killing things right now.”

“Why?”

“Oh, God, too many reasons to count.” Leading her down to the cobblestones and by the winterized fountain, he stopped at the passenger side of the GTO and opened her door. “Madam? Your conveyance.”

After he got her settled, he got in himself and off they went, barreling down the mhis-covered mountainside and shooting off over the winding road that took them to the highway. Safe Place was a good twenty minutes away, but the time passed fast.

Next thing she knew, she was getting out and telling her male she’d be right back.

Mary jogged up the walkway to the front door, put in the code, and then she was in the toasty interior. Heading for the stairs, she—

“I’m here.”

At the sound of Bitty’s voice, she stopped. “Hey. How are you?”

The little girl was dressed in one of her other shifts, that black parka folded on her lap as she sat with a straight back on the living room sofa.

“Did he really come?” Bitty asked as she got to her feet. “Are we really going?”

“We are.”

Bitty went to the closed drapes and pulled them apart. “Oh, he brought his car.”

“Yup, just as he said he would. I think you’ll find that my hellren pretty much always does what he says he’s going to.”

Mary had already told Marissa about the plan, and gotten a resounding approval from the boss, but she wanted to check out properly.

“Can you give me two seconds in my office?”

When the girl nodded, Mary rushed upstairs. Marissa wasn’t at her desk, so Mary headed across the hall to send a quick e-mail to all the staff.