It was a cool night for summer in Arizona. The wind was blowing across the open desert, kicking up the dust that made up the majority of Alli’s parking lot. My arm itched under the cast, making me fantasize about ripping the damn thing off and taking my chances without it.

The parking lot was silent, as it usually was this late at night. I’d somehow been roped into closing up so that Alli and Crispin could have a date night. They were in their damn forties, so what the hell did they need a date for? But, apparently, they did.

I was behind the building, doing my final check, when I heard the gravel kicking up in the parking lot at the front. I cursed under my breath, hoping the stupid kids pulling their figure eights didn’t get too close to my car. The last kids who’d decided to do that had kicked up rocks that left teeny dings on the passenger side door.

If I caught them this time, I was going to make them pay for a new paint job!

But when I came around the side of the building, the lot was empty except for my car. It wasn’t until I walked to the far side that I saw a Prius parked close to the building.

“Excuse me,” I called. “You can’t be here.”

No one answered me. I walked around the car, looking for the driver, hoping whoever it was didn’t think tonight would be a good night to break into the store. I was tired. I was ready to go back to my room and get some rest.

“Come on!” I called as I crossed around, the thought of a gun hitting my frontal cortex just as I saw movement behind the wheel. “Come out of there!”

She did, her legs slipping out from under the steering wheel, bare save for the skirt that barely reached her knees. The skirt was blue with teeny white flowers, flowing like petals around her hips. Her blouse was green, a strange combination that somehow worked. Her hair fell freely around her shoulders, a beautiful, healthy brown that brought out the tans of her skin. And those eyes, a beautiful gray that I could never stop admiring.

“Rachel?”

She leaned against the side of the car. “I had to call Stone Security three times to find out if you were working tonight. This wouldn’t have been as dramatic if someone else had been working security on this night of all nights.”

“Dramatic?”

“I thought we could start over. And since this is where we first met, it felt right.”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted to make a better impression than the last time. I wanted you to see the real me, not the me I pretended to be that night.”

“I see you.”

“I wanted you to know that I know who I am now, and I know what I want.”

“It’s only been a month.”

“I work fast.”

I lowered my head, a smile I couldn’t hide burning across my face.

“Your arm is still in a cast.”

“It takes more than a month to heal that kind of break, or so they tell me.”

“But it’ll heal?”

“It should.”

“That’s good.”

“You took off before we could talk, before we could figure things out.”

“I thought we did.”

“A conversation with you disappearing afterward is never the way to figure something out.”

She bit her bottom lip. “No?”

“Not for me.”

She took a deep breath, her expression flitting between hope and utter despair. “Then what do we need to talk about?”

“We’ll figure that out in the morning.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her into me, kissing her with all the ache that she’d left behind, all the relief that seeing her again had opened inside of me. I pulled her close and kissed her with all the gentleness I should have offered her before, all the affection that I hadn’t been capable of then, but hoped I was now. I kissed her with all the unspoken words that were stuck inside of me and could only come out in these ways, in these little touches.

“I need to tell you something before we go any further,” I said, pulling back slightly.

“I have things to tell you, too.”

“You first.”

“I went to see my father.” Her eyes darkened with the thought. “It was…complicated. But I think we might work things out.”

“That’s good.”

“He’s family. The only family I have.”

“I hope you can work things out.”

She smiled softly. “And you? What do you have to tell me?”

“I’m flying to Israel next week.”

She stepped back slightly. “For good?”

That was a question I’d been struggling with. But as my eyes moved slowly over her face, I knew that I had the answer, that I’d always known it.

“No. Just for a visit.”

“But I thought you would be arrested if you went back there.”

“Not anymore. I received a pardon.”

She nodded slowly, hesitation still in her eyes. “How long will you be gone?”

“A few weeks.”

“Well…I just put down a deposit on a house downtown. I thought…I guess I was being presumptuous, but I thought—”

“My sister will love you. The two of you are so much alike that it almost worries me.”

“Your sister?”

“And her husband…she says he and I will hit it off, but I’m not sure. It might make things easier to have you there for support.”

“There? Me?”

“You’ll come, won’t you? I’ll have to make a few changes to my plans, but I think I can probably get us both on a flight without too much work.”

She laughed and threw herself into my arms. I pulled her close, laughing too, as she kissed me all over my face, her breath sweet, her body perfect in my arms.

I hadn’t realized just how much I wanted this until I set eyes on her again.

“I’ll never hurt you again,” I whispered to her in the dark, late that night. And I meant every word of it.

 

 

We walked through security with Jack and Ruth and Quentin and Crispin and Alli all waving and screaming loudly enough to catch the attention of the TSA agents. I turned and waved, a dark thought sliding through my mind as I did:

We had never figured out whom Briggs called ‘the boss.’

Was that going to be something that would come back to haunt us?

But then Rachel slipped her hand into mine, and we were headed back to Israel, to the land of my birth. I was going to see my sister again after more than a decade.

What else mattered?