by Cathy Pegau
I’d been so scared for her, so angry with myself. With her. It all came rushing back with a painful jolt that made me cringe and leak tears on her shirt and skin.
“I can’t condemn you for what you did, what you were, when I was worse,” Zia whispered. She loosened her hold and cupped my face between her palms. “Sterling explained about the Greys and your mother, why you had to leave, even before you sent your messages.” She brushed away the dampness on my cheeks, my own sadness reflected in her eyes. “He also told me about Tonio. I’m so sorry.”
Tonio’s death wasn’t her fault. Every job required a price to be paid, a risk to be taken. Between his loss and the near loss of Zia, I couldn’t afford it any longer.
She drew me into another hug, consoling our losses, celebrating our survival. After a minute, the inevitable happened. The kiss was tentative at first, gentle, forgiving. Then the teasing, not-quite bite of teeth. Lips parted, and our tongues sought each other. She was everything I remembered. The sweet heat of her mouth. Her underlying scent beneath the jasmine perfume.
Slowly I ran my hands up and down her back under her jacket then under the hem of her shirt to trace circles on the soft skin at the base of her spine. She threaded her fingers through my hair while we tasted and touched, learning each other all over again.
Zia broke the kiss and rested her forehead on mine. “I love you, Liv,” she said breathlessly.
Arms still around her, I leaned back to search her face. Did she mean it?
She smiled. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“When I told you I loved you, I never thought I’d hear you say it back.”
“You certainly surprised me when you said it at the Station.” Growing sober, she said, “I had a lot to consider the past few weeks. Mostly, I spent time thinking about you.”
A pleasant shock ran through me. “You did?”
She nodded. “Even though I was confused and upset, and not sure how I truly felt about you, you told to me to remember that you loved me. I did.” She smiled again; my heart fluttered. “Then I used this methodical, instinct-guided brain of mine that you admire so much to figure it out. The answer was easy.”
I grinned, and we kissed some more.
“Now what?” I asked when we came up for air. I held her hand and guided her to the couch to sit.
“Well,” she said, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear, “at the Station you said we’d go off together.”
Cheeks burning at that little bit of melodrama, I said, “I sounded like a bad vid.”
“No, you sounded sweet and sincere.” She sighed. “And it’s part of my deal with the CMA.”
My jaw dropped. “They’re throwing you off Nevarro?”
“It’s not as bad as you think. I gave the CMA everything I had on the K-73s, including some files I’d made regarding the Brighton facility.” Her mouth curved into a wry grin. “Loyalty is one thing, but I’m not stupid.”
I laughed and kissed her cheek. I knew she’d had her own insurance somewhere.
“Between that and the comm file you gave them,” she continued, “Pritchard and Clemens have been taken into custody, and Exeter is being thoroughly investigated. The CMA will likely get a conviction, and the company will be liquidated or handed over to the government. In exchange, I don’t spend the rest of my life in a correctional mine. But I’m banned from working in the industry, and I’m being deported.”
“What are you going to do?”
She had no career, no home, nothing left to hold up and say, “This is me, these are my accomplishments.” A few weeks ago, R. J. Talbot had done all she could to save her job, her lifestyle. But Zia had changed. We both had.
“I don’t know yet.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter that her life was now in complete disarray. Releasing my hand, she reached behind her neck, under her hair. The gold chain dangled between us, the ring glinting in the artificial light of the programmed sunset. The ring that matched the one still concealed under her clothing. “But I want to do it with you by my side.”
Her fingers brushed the small hairs at the nape of my neck as she fastened the chain there. The gold ring, warmed from her body, settled between my breasts. I stared down at it, wondering what it meant.
Zia ran her hand under the links, the backs of her fingers leaving a tingling, heated trail across my skin. “I’ve worn these rings,” she said, touching the spot on her abdomen near her navel with her other hand, “since I was a girl, waiting for the right person to share all I have and all I can be. I’ve found that person.”
My head jerked up and our eyes met.
Her grin held both pleasure and the satisfaction of having surprised me. “We’ve been through as bad a situation as any couple could and still found we loved each other. I trust you with my heart, and you can trust me with yours. Do you agree?”
Zia rarely asked questions she didn’t already know the answer to, and this was no exception. After all the lies and betrayals, after all the pain we’d put others and ourselves through, we could start over on a solid foundation of trust. There was nowhere to go but up.
I closed my hand around the ring and chain, feeling her warmth. “I do.”
She covered my hand with hers and squeezed gently. “Whatever form it takes, I want there to be an ‘us.’”
I couldn’t argue with that. My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest as I kissed her. We’d run away together, just like in those sappy vids. It was trite, and I was thrilled.
“I have a little cash tucked away,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”
“I’d planned on retiring with my cut of the blackmail money.” I gestured toward my fake window. “To someplace warm. With a beach.”
On the HD image, waves lapped at lavender sand, and a burnt-orange sun sank in a peach-and-violet sky. She nodded, and her arms went around me as we shared another kiss. Who knew what the future would bring, other than the contentment of being together? And the adherence to New Rule Number One: Find someone you love who loves you back, the job be damned.
About the Author
Cathy Pegau’s muse always finds some sort of science-fiction, fantasy or paranormal bend to the stories it offers. A self-proclaimed science geek, she studied wildlife biology at universities in North Dakota and Alaska. As an enthusiastic student, she spent summers aboard a research vessel scooping muck from the ocean floor and winters cataloguing the critters there to see what gray whales were eating. One of her first biology jobs found her trundling across the Wyoming prairie—and avoiding rattlesnakes—for a black-footed ferret reintroduction program. She hooted for spotted owls in Southern Oregon and got lost overnight the first week. But that’s another story.
Now, she lives in Alaska with her husband and kids, several pets and the occasional black bear that roams through the yard.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9199-1
Copyright © 2011 by Catherine Pegau
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