Chase looked smug, licked his finger, and drew a point in his favor in the air.
She laughed. It was a happy thought, all that life and interest and challenge and a willingness always to answer her own challenges, always to pick up her gauntlets.
“Speaking of keeping life interesting, you know what’s terrible about hospitals?”
“Oh, I could make a really long list at this point,” Vi said, a little grimly. Pretty much the only good thing she had found about hospitals so far was that hospitals were the reason they were both alive. It turned out survival could be quite a painful, tedious process full of doctors and nurses with no respect for a woman’s privacy, absolutely terrible food when Lina and Célie couldn’t sneak them some, and a relentless smell of antiseptic.
“The lack of sex.” Chase shook his head. “It’s insane what they expect a man to live without. Also, French daytime television is terrible, can I just say? There was some exercise show with the woman trying to convince other women to do step exercises in high heels. You people are nuts. Fortunately, it did give me some ideas about you and steps and high heels, but I’m saving those for a more-healed rainy day. Now for barely out of the hospital, thank God you’re alive, take it very easy sex, I was thinking…”
“That sometimes you talk too much.” Vi put her fingers over his lips. “I was thinking…” She turned off the light, gave them just that gentle twilight of the July summer evening. “…something like this.” She drew her fingertips very, very lightly, as if he was fragile, all the way down his arm to the back of his knuckles, then took his hand and covered her breast.
“Vi.” His voice had gone low and rough. “I’m so glad you’re alive that I wake up in nightmares about it, over and over.”
“I know.” And nightmares about everyone in her kitchens being killed, and about terrible, jagged things she couldn’t even identify before they woke her in sharp terror. She shifted his hand over her breast, stroking herself with him. The hunger that woke in her was sharp and ferocious, a tantalizing counterpoint to the gentleness with which they touched. “Tonight, let’s see if we find a way to get some sleep.”
Chapter 19
Healing
“What are you doing?”
“Planning a restaurant. I’ve got to do something while I’m convalescing. Besides, since I’m forced to learn delegation skills and how to run a restaurant while not being actually in it, I might as well put it to good use to expand to new horizons. And I’m internationally famous now. I’ve got backers. I’ve got ideas down for four more restaurants, but I’m thinking it’s probably better to open one at a time.”
“Have I mentioned how crazy I am about you?”
“What did I do this time?”
“You literally take a bullet, turn it into a convenient rung on your ladder, and keep on climbing. Nothing keeps you down.”
“Down’s not a fun place to be, to be honest. It’s pretty boring.”
“Let me see if I can keep you entertained.”
***
“Hard time sleeping?” Soft voice, in the dark.
“Oh, yeah.” Resigned. “I just see it, you know? All the time. See the muzzle start to point toward you, see that blood all over your chef’s jacket.”
“Yeah.” Very soft. “I know. I see things, too.”
No other words. Just the shifts of the sheets, the touch of skin, the sounds of holding on.
***
“What are you doing?”
“Oh, I…nothing.”
“What does that mean? Why do you look so guilty? Let me see that notebook. Chase, if you’re planning another secret mission to destroy my restaurant without telling me…”
“No! Damn it, you have a suspicious mind. I’m thinking about what I would like to do when—if—I get out. I keep having this vision of an adventure sports organization that gets disenfranchised kids out on the slopes or up in the air, gives them a source of physical accomplishment and power and adventure that doesn’t come from violence.”
A little breath of a pause. A voice gone carefully neutral. “You’re thinking about getting out?”
“Well, I…it wears out your body, you know. Bullet wounds and constant joint impacts and all the other stuff. I’ll start feeling it in a few years. And I…I mean…if a man had kids, you know, he might want to…be there, and not…”
“Are you blushing?” A gentle hand in his hair. No splint on it now. The bone had healed faster than the recovery from the bullet.
“I’m a hardened warrior. I eat nails for breakfast. Of course I am not blushing. It’s possible I’m feeling overheated from thinking about pink peekaboo panties.”
“You certainly didn’t blush the first time you mentioned kids. About two minutes after you met me.”
“Yeah, but…Vi…it’s starting to become real.”
***
“Why do you get all the stuffed animals anyway? That’s just sexist.”
“Chase, they kept your identity secret. How would anyone know to send you stuffed animals? You’ll have to be happy with your medal.”
“Well, yeah, but…you got a medal, too, and growly bears from all the kids. It’s just not fair.”