“I seem to remember telling you—several hundred times— that I was trained to do those things.”
“You were different. Cold—I mean really cold.”
He had to smile. “Rather than just my usual cold?”
She turned her head and propped a cheek so she could look at him. “You aren’t cold. Not really. But you’re always going to think about the Navy as the best days of your life, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to think about it as some of the most challenging days of my life. And some of the days when I did what I was supposed to do and did it well. Any human being feels good about something like that.”
“There are going to be a lot more questions.”
“Questions we can handle. I’d never have thought of Jennifer Loder. Not in that context. Every time I heard her voice I felt weird, but I didn’t make the connection.”
“What’ll they do to Jack?”
Nasty drew up his shoulders. “Hard to say. He could probably buy himself a lighter sentence if he sang about the things he knows. He’s going to do time. Possibly a lot of time.” Polly pushed her hands into her hair, sucked in a breath, and removed them again, much more carefully.
“Go lie down,” he urged her. “Sleep for a few hours. The police will want us again later. And your family will be clamoring to talk to you. Then there’ll be Bobby needing you.”
She straightened and backed up to sit, with a plop, on a hatch. “Festus dead. Belinda in jail. Jennifer and Art dead. Jack in jail. He only put the show on here to create a way to cover getting at you.”
Nasty stared at her thoughtfully. “And if you weren’t so irresistible, we might not be standing here today.”
Polly raised her head. “Jennifer Loder said that. In a way. How could they have imagined something like you and me?”
He smiled. “Ironic. Wonderfully ironic.” Irony that all but blew him away. “You saved me, sweetheart.”
“You saved us both,” she said.
They were silent for a long time before Nasty remembered to tell her, “Belinda bought that wet suit. The cops told me. She bought it from a shop in Bellevue—probably when Festus was already dead. Just to try to back up her story. She’s so nutty, she must have kept convincing herself there wasn’t anything going on other than the mischief she was causing.”
A dressing covered much of Polly’s left eyebrow. Another rested on her cheek. Sutures in a wound beneath her jaw showed dark against her unnaturally pallid skin.
“Please go to sleep,” Nasty said.
“I’m scared!”
The passion in her voice shook him.
“I’m afraid, Xavier. It’s over. All the stress, the fighting, the looking over our shoulders. Like someone burst a balloon we blew up too tight. Was our loving part of that stress? For you? You want me to go below and sleep. It’s because you want to be alone, isn’t it? Alone to think about what it all means now?”
“Polly—”
“Don’t stop me. If I don’t say it, I’ll never have the nerve again. You aren’t happy being a partner in a dive shop. You need something else, and you’ll find it. Watching you last night, I knew you were never cut out to be a passive man.”
“I’m not passive.”
“I can sense how flat you feel. Everything’s changed, and you aren’t the same.” She pushed back her hair. In the clouded light her eyes were the palest of blues. “I won’t beg. I can’t let myself. But I am going to tell you what’s inside of me.” Her fist went to her breast.
He raised his hands and let them fall. “You’re afraid?”
“Yes. Afraid, and shaky, and kind of hollow. Empty. But I’m full, too. That’s absolutely a mad thing to say, but it’s true. I look at you and I can’t find a way to tell you everything I think.”
She was doing better than he was. “Try.”
Her hands came together in fists. “You wouldn’t think of trying to help me, would you?” The expansion of her lungs showed how shaky she was. “I’m in your way. You didn’t realize it before because you hadn’t come face-to-face with what you have to have in your life. Not really. You need excitement and…” Her voice drifted away.
Nasty swallowed. “And?”
“And I understand,” she told him, tipping up her chin and closing her eyes. “I wish you the best, my love. I wish you luck and happiness. But I’ll always love you.”
The hesitation, whatever had held him back, snapped. If he touched her, he might break her. The power of what he felt for her was stronger than any emotion he’d ever felt before. He took several steps toward her and turned his back.
“Oh, Xavier, you are so special.” She had never meant any thing as much as she meant those words. “I hurt inside. Oh, I hurt. I have to tell you that because you’ve given me so much. I used to think I’d never love anyone—that I never could.”
“I’m afraid, too.”
She hugged herself. “You’ll know what you’re supposed to do soon. I just know you will. There are so few men like you—you’re very valuable, my friend.”
“I’m afraid of losing you, Polly.”
Words failed her. He’d said what she needed to hear, and sweet emotion stole her breath.
His spine was long and straight, his shoulders so broad. Standing in front of her with his powerful legs braced apart he seemed a rock, immovable, beyond damage.
“We’re afraid to believe our own luck, love,” he told her. “That’s it, isn’t it? We’ve had more than our share of the other and managed to make lives for ourselves. Lives that didn’t risk what matters most—the heart. Geez, I even know what that means now. But we found each other. And we loved each other—love each other. And we’re so damned afraid to believe it won’t get snatched away—like everything else we ever wanted this badly.”
Polly stood up and went to stand behind him. Very lightly, she leaned on him, rested a bruised cheek on his shoulder. “That’s it,” she murmured. “That’s what I feel.”
He put out a hand, palm up. “Me too, partner. If you decide you can live without me, I’ll jump in the lake.”
Polly brought her palm down on top of his. She smiled into his shirt. “Jump in the lake? So what? You can swim.”
“Wearing concrete boots.”
“If I know you, you could swim in those, too.”
“You have too much faith in me.”
“I could never do that.”
He pulled her around him until they were toe-to-toe. “Polly Crow, you’re my hero. I need you. I’m always going to need you.”
“Me, too. You’re my hero. And all the rest. You’re the quiet one, but you do words better than me.”
“Nah. I chew gum better than you, though.”
“I don’t chew gum.”
“See what I mean?”
She looked up into his face. “I wish you’d hold me.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
“No, I mean what bits of you do I dare touch?”
Polly laughed. “Just be gentle with all my bits, please.”
“You hussy.” Bowing over her, holding both of her hands, he kissed her lips softly, for a long, long time.
She saw his eyes drift shut and closed her own. When he raised his head and sighed, she looked at him again, and said, “I’d like to be with you forever.”
“You will be. You don’t get any choice.”
“Will we be good at it? At being”—she wasn’t sure what she should say—“at being there for each other?”
“At marriage, you mean? We’re going to be great at it. Kiss me.”
Easy request. He held her, and her skin stung everywhere he touched. A great sting she’d put up with for approximately a lifetime—if she could guarantee a long life. “Are you sure you won’t suddenly come to and decide this is a bunch of sloppy nonsense?”
“Uh-uh.” Crossed around her waist, his hands tightened a fraction, drew her a fraction closer. “You’ve got to work at relationships. But if you
want it badly enough, you do what it takes.”
“And you don’t go to sleep mad?” Polly said into his mouth. “Or walk away from an argument.”
“Or bear grudges.”
“We’re going to be so good at this.”
She framed his face. “You are so gorgeous, Xavier Ferrito. Inside and out. I want my son to have you to guide him.”
“Hey!” A deep frown drew his finely shaped brows together. “That’s right. We’re parents.”
“Yup. Take me, take my son.”
“Okay. Take me, take my cat.”
Tears threatened. “I’ve always been afraid to be too happy. I’m going to work at getting over that. Sometimes this marriage thing won’t be easy, but we’ll make it through.”
“Boy, you don’t know how to let go and let it happen, do you? But I think you did just agree to wash my dishes.”
“What!” Pushing on his chest, she leaned away from him. “Just a minute, here, buddy.”
His angelic smile was almost believable. “You’re going to like everything I do to you so much you’ll beg to wash my dishes.”
“We’ll love what we do to each other.” The humor went out of her eyes, replaced by a pledge.
Nasty understood that pledge. “I’m going to hold you to that, love.”
“I’ll hold you to it, too.”
“Promise you’ll trust me?”
“Always.”
“This is what the guy sings about.” He could only remember one line of the song, and it might not even fit so well. “The way you make me feel. Ten feet tall, or something. Bulletproof.”
“Don’t say that!” She swung him around and beat his chest with her fists. “Don’t you ever mention your name and bullets in the same breath again.”
“Okay. When?”
“Never.”
“No. When do we do it? The ‘M’ word? We ought to be able to tell Bobby when we see him.” He wasn’t above blackmail to get what he wanted. “That’ll be very soon, by the way.”
“Soon as you like, I guess.”
Exactly what he’d wanted to hear. “How about this afternoon?”
“How about as soon as we can do whatever we have to do first?”
“Put it there.” When she shook his hand he said, “We’ve got a bargain.”
Applause broke out behind him. He looked over his shoulder at three pairs of eyes peering from behind the open doors to the saloon.
Polly covered her face and leaned on Nasty. “They were spying on us,” she said, laughing self-consciously.
“No way,” Dusty announced. “Just me because I’m the oldest. Roman and Bobby didn’t get to look till I could tell them it was a done deal.”
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