Chapter Twenty-One

Prue woke in her own bed.

She listened for sounds of Leo moving through the house, but all was quiet. Her stomach wrenched at the thought of seeing him. What would she say? What would he say?

Loath to argue with him again, and unable to bear the massacre of yellow stickies littering the living room floor, she retreated to the patio. He seemed as reluctant to face her, and all morning left her alone to swing in the hammock.

Despite the bright sunlight, the dark haunts from her past taunted. Hopelessness whispered doubts in her ear. Insecurity reminded her that the very fact of who she was made her too difficult to love.

Her chest spasmed with a short, painful hiccup. Afraid she would start crying again, she bit down hard on her lip and tried to come up with a rational explanation to explain the misery she felt.

She was a scientist. Or she used to be. She followed the facts wherever they might lead. But the particular set of facts laid out before her kept adding up to one simple, devastating conclusion.

She was in love with Leo Nolan.

She was in love with him, and it was hopeless. Prue would never have his heart, because she still had it. She’d never be a part of his life, because he refused to share it with anyone who wasn’t her.

Her stomach tangled in knots, she had no appetite and skipped breakfast and lunch. She preferred to stay outdoors, letting the lake and the breeze cleanse the ache from her soul. Sometime in the early afternoon, while she tended to the heartening rose bush, she heard voices inside the house.

Climbing to her feet, she moved to the patio door. In the living room, Leo and Shea stood talking amidst the carnage of Post-it Notes.

“Luke talked to his old boss,” Shea was saying. “And they’re going to send a patrol out a few times a day when they can, to help keep an eye on things.”

When she slid open the screen door and stepped indoors, Shea made a half turn and greeted her with a warm smile.

“Why didn’t Luke tell me himself?” Leo asked with a frown.

“He’s at the hospital with Emily,” Shea said, turning back. “She had the baby yesterday.”

Prue’s delighted smile faded when she saw the expression that darkened Leo’s face. His tawny skin drained of color, and for a moment, she feared he might be ill.

Without giving a thought to their earlier disagreement, she went to him.

He didn’t seem to notice her until she touched his arm, and then he flinched. His gaze swung to her face, and when she pushed back a strand of her hair, his eyes clamped onto her hand.

Pulling it away from her face, she looked down at the rose clippings clutched in her palm.

Confused, she whispered his name.

He blinked several times and the frantic anguish cleared from his eyes, but the blank emptiness that replaced it caused her heart to seize.

She knew what would come next, and even knowing it, it tore at her insides to watch him retreat into his bedroom, shutting her out behind a closed door.

“What’s wrong with him?” Shea wanted to know.

“I wish I knew,” she murmured.

Four years earlier

When they arrived in Damascus, airport security met them on the runway. A “tip” from an unnamed source had convinced local authorities that the TV crew were in fact a gang of drug smugglers. They were held for questioning for eighteen hours before being released with no charges, or apologies.

While they were detained, the warring factions negotiated an end to hostilities.

As their convoy of vehicles traveled through the city to their hotel, their progress was slowed by revelers crowding the streets to celebrate the ceasefire.

Through her exhaustion, her smile appeared as a band of cheering men passed by the car windows.

The next day, she wanted to film live from the city center, but he convinced her she needed another day to rest, and so she filed her report from the hotel grounds.

On the third day, he couldn’t keep her from the city.

“We won’t stay long,” she promised him. “I just want to talk to a couple of locals, and then we’ll come right back here.”

But the moment they arrived downtown, Leo regretted not putting up a bigger fight. Bodies packed the city, and the revelry of the two preceding days now carried a much darker vibe. He couldn’t point to any one thing to prove the change, but it was there in the thick, cloying tension that seemed to build as they walked toward the crowded city center.

His skin crawled. Whether from intuition or years of experience in combat zones, everything in him screamed to get them the fuck out of there.

He signaled to Owen, who nodded and turned to deliver the instruction to the others.

With the crack of gunfire, chaos erupted around them.

The crowd surged, bodies pushing and shoving and trampling in their desperate struggle to escape the barrage of bullets.

In the madness, she was torn from him.

He dove for her, but he was knocked off his course by another wave of crushing bodies. Clawing and scrabbling, he fought to reach her. Her name tearing from him abraded his vocal cords. If he could get ahold of some part of her, any part, he’d never let go. If he could just get a little closer.

His fingers brushed hers—then a slash of pain ripped through his hip.

He cried out with the searing agony and stumbled. His hip on fire, he lunged, and his excruciating screams had nothing to do with the stabbing pain in his hip. With one last, desperate plunge, he hurled himself at her.

And caught only air.

Gasping for breath, he jolted awake.

Sweat coated his skin and drenched the hair at his temples. Around him, the black hole of his grief sucked in everything. There was no light. No hope. Only darkness and the crushing weight of the universe pressing in on him.

He wasn’t alone in the bed. Arlo, curled into a tight ball and wedged against his hip, slept on. Leo’s arm stretched out, searching for her. Seeking her sweet comfort.

But she wasn’t there.