She frowned at him, though her feet slowed. “Don’t need…a keeper,” she got out. “Used to be…fit. Very fit.”
“You’ll be fit again.” He punched the pad a second time, reducing the speed even more. “Unless you give yourself a heart attack first. And I charge extra for CPR.”
She made a face at him, even as she sucked in a couple of long breaths. “You don’t believe me… Used to be one tough woman.”
Her pace had slowed to a walk, and he let his gaze linger on her slim legs and their long stride. Toughness wasn’t an antidote to evil and tragedy, he thought to himself, frowning. Ryan had been tough. Lily Fortune was tough. But they hadn’t escaped the darkness the world could deal out. Jessica Chandler had been tough, too—the sweetest, toughest victim he’d ever tried to help—but in the end she’d been just that—a victim.
“Secret agent accountant.”
That brought his attention back to the present. “What did you say?”
Walking with her hands on her hips, she took another deep breath. “That’s how I saw myself. Sure, I had degrees in the dry fields of finance and business, but when I was recruited as an agent for the Treasury Department, I saw myself as Linda Faraday, secret agent accountant.”
It made his lips quirk. “You were young, weren’t you?” he murmured.
“Our new agent course included firearms as well as physical training. Not as intense as what you G-men go through, but I thought I could handle myself.”
Her fingers touched the keypad, and the treadmill’s hum stopped. Linda stepped off the machine and grabbed the small towel hanging on its handrails. She blotted her face with it, her words coming out muffled. “Apparently it wasn’t physical training that I needed, but emotional.”
She was talking about her affair, her affair with the subject of an investigation—Cameron Fortune. Sudden anger snapped inside Emmett, surprising him with its stinging lash. Ryan’s brother had been twice her age and canny, no doubt. The son of a bitch, Emmett thought. The son of a bitch took advantage of Linda and then irrevocably changed her life.
But Emmett kept his emotions off of his face and out of his voice. “He was a handsome and charming man, by all reports.”
She looked at him over the towel, strangling it between her hands. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” she asked, her voice bitter. “The person I thought I was wouldn’t be swayed by good looks and charm.”
Though he was lousy at light banter, he tried to ease the tension of the moment. “Oh, good. Then maybe I have a chance with you.”
She didn’t crack a smile. “As if I would know what to do if I had you. I was no good as Linda Faraday, secret agent accountant. Ricky doesn’t think anything of me as a mother. I doubt I’m much of a woman, either.”
Despite those words, her flowery, female scent was in the air, tickling his nose, shaking awake the lust that he’d felt when he’d held her in his arms that morning. He couldn’t stop himself from pushing back a damp tendril of her bright hair. “Give yourself time.”
“I can’t, don’t you see? I’ve lost so much time already. In another ten years, Ricky won’t need a mother.”
What could he say to that? What could he do to help? Unfortunately for Linda, he wasn’t the pep-talk type. His true expertise lay in looking at the dark side of life. “What’s the alternative?” he asked.
She spun away. “Giving up.”
The two words froze him. Not because he didn’t understand the impulse, but because he’d done it himself. After the Jessica Chandler case, so closely following his brother Chris’s murder, he’d given up and run away to the cabin in the Sandias. If he had his way, he’d probably still be there. Still be half-drunk. Still be full of pain.
Now he was sober. And still full of pain.
Linda spun back. “But I can’t. I won’t. I have a responsibility to Ricky, an obligation to Nancy and Dean who never gave up on me. Do you see?”
“I do.” It was the truth. “Sometimes what keeps us going is not what we want, but what we owe to other people.”
She studied his face. “The promise you made to Ryan.”
“And to myself. To my parents. To the memory of my brother Christopher.”
Linda winced. “I’m sorry.” She touched a hand to her forehead, then laid her fingers on his arm. “The injury…I’m still working on not thinking everything revolves around me, me, me. I’m complaining, but you’re in a bad place, too, and yet you’re here, playing Mary Poppins to me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “As long as you don’t ask me to fly you around with my umbrella.”
Her fingers tightened on him and her touch was once again warming his blood, that lust distracting him. “Seriously, Emmett. I know I’m not quite a whole person, let alone a sounding board, but I’m here if you want to talk.”
“I’m not much of a talker. I was always the lone wolf in the family.”
“You’re in luck,” she said with a half smile. “I practiced my silence for many years.”
Then she showed him how good she was at it. She sat down on the edge of the treadmill’s ramp, then patted the spot beside her. He surprised himself by obeying, seating himself next to her while the quiet grew around them.
She crossed her arms on top of her bent knees and rested her cheek there. He gazed at the back of her head while listening to the sounds of spring outside. Birds were trilling, peeping, cheeping. A branch, jostled by the warm wind, scratched against the glass of the window. Dogs barked in the distance.
A sense of the season settled over him. Springtime. Renewal. Hope.
Linda’s eyes were closed and he wondered if she was asleep. Her lashes were dark brown and curled against the soft pink of her cheeks.
“You’re still a woman, you know,” he murmured.
She wasn’t asleep, at least not all the way. Her lashes rose and she sat up, slanting him a half-drowsy glance. “You think?”
“I know.” Their gazes held. Darker pink color tinged her fair skin. His hand reached out and he palmed her warm cheek. “Shall I prove it to you?”
She swallowed. “Not because you’re obligated.”
He shook his head. “Not because I’m obligated.” But because he didn’t like to see her sad. Because he thought he could take one worry off her mind. Oh, yeah, and then there was that lust. He’d known it would complicate things, but right now he didn’t care.
Leaning close, he touched his lips to hers.
She jerked against his hand, as if he’d stung her, but he’d been gentle. He was gentle. So, so gentle.
For a moment, she kissed like a child might, her mouth pursed and stiff, but then she softened. Her lips parted, but he didn’t pretend it was an intimate invitation. Instead, he let her warm up to the kiss, let her warm up to him, without doing any more than keeping his mouth pressed close to hers.
“You should breathe,” he whispered against her mouth. “You still need air.”
“Is that why I see stars?”
It made him smile, and he drew back to look at her.
She traced his lips with two fingers. “You don’t do that often enough. Smile, I mean.”
“Keep kissing me and maybe I will.”
But she was