Ham grinned. “Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”
Juliet winked at him. “You hang in there for the thirteen hours, Ham. After that, you’ll have proved yourself to Brooker, and the Marines’ll make you a general.”
When she left, she had him laughing. But she didn’t see Faye or Johnson Carhill on her way out, although the maid gave her warm almond coffee cake wrapped in aluminum foil. “For Ethan,” she said.
“He’s not here—”
“Oh, yes.” And she nodded, smiling, toward the driveway. “He’s here.”
And he was, sitting behind the wheel of her rented car. She pulled open the passenger door. “What did you do, parachute in?”
“Luke.”
“Ah. The co-conspirator.”
But it’d been three weeks since their night on the lake, and Juliet couldn’t hold back her pleasure at seeing him. “Ethan. Damn.” She climbed into the passenger seat and kissed him. “I’m not sleeping in a tent here. Not only do you have poisonous snakes, you’ve got wild hogs. I hate snakes—poisonous or not—and I don’t plan on running into any wild hogs. I want a bed.”
He smiled at her. “A bed.”
“Your parents—I met them. Very nice people. They want you to be happy again. However, if getting a bed requires—”
“They’ve gone to San Antonio for the weekend. Spur-of-the-moment trip.”
“San Antonio?”
“It’s another city in Texas.”
“I know—” She sat back in her seat, noticing he had the air-conditioning turned on—a good thing, because she was hot. “That means we get the house to ourselves.”
After they made love in the guest room and took a long, soapy shower together, they poured wine and went out into the backyard and watched the west Texas sunset. Juliet had never seen such a glorious sunset, deep, rich, fire colors with sparks of lavender and a soft glow, here and there, of pale pink. “I’ve taken a job in Washington,” she said. “Nate Winter offered it to me. I’m joining a special joint task force to find Kelleher’s vigilante cohorts.”
“D.C., huh?”
She nodded. “I start next week.”
“Where are you going to live?”
“Mia O’Farrell has offered to sublet her apartment in Georgetown to me. She’s on a leave of absence, or that’s what she’s calling it. She and Joshua—” Juliet, who’d gone home to Vermont last weekend, pictured her brother walking up to the apple orchard, Mia on one arm, his daughter on the other arm. He’d never seemed happier. “They’ve hit it off. She’s spending the next few months in Vermont.”
“You’ll like her apartment.”
“You’ve been there?”
“I’m living there. I moved in last week.” He glanced sideways at her, his expression impossible to read. “She’s subletting to me, too. These devious Beltway types…”
Juliet gave him an amused, suspicious look. “I smell a conspiracy.”
“The thing about stopping to see Nate and Sarah, you never know who’s going to be eating fried pies on the back porch. I ran into President Poe two weeks ago. He asked me to come work for him.” Ethan shrugged. “I’m not used to telling the commander in chief ‘no.’”
“Well, I should warn you. I bought a fish.”
“Juliet—”
“I love you, Ethan, but I know you’ve had a difficult year. We can take this a step at a time. There’s no rush. I’m not going anywhere.” She looked at him. “But that’s not a promise you can make.”
“I can love you forever.”
“That’s a promise you can make.”
“Juliet…” He tucked his hand into hers. “You didn’t buy just one fish, did you?”
She smiled.