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“How’s the leg?”

“Shitty,” she replied at once. “You look like hell. How do you feel?”

“Not significantly better,” he admitted.

His eyes swiveled back to Kit. “You said there might be a backdoor into Archangel’s security system at the facility where they’ve got Jordan?” he prompted. “Where did you hear that? Have you been able to confirm where the information originated?”

“No,” she said, matter of fact. “To be honest, big guy, I’ve been too busy trying tofindthe damned thing, so I can see if it’s real on my own.”

“You’re not worried it’s a trap?”

“Well… Iwasn’tworried about that,” she said, snorting.

Despite her words, Kit looked strangely relieved to have Nick joining the discussion.

Nick wondered why.

Usually he wasn’t the one everyone pointed to when it came to wanting a measured, logical approach to something like breaking into an Archangel medical facility. Not that he was reckless… exactly. He was just less insistent on having a plan with every single contingency worked out and triplicated in advance.

Remembering who it was in his life who’d been so adamant about having multiple contingencies, Nick glanced at Wynter.

Would she be like Jem in that way?

Jem had been military, through and through.

It had taken being with Jem for years and years before Nick realized that he, himself, meaning Nick, was much more of a cop than he was a military strategist. Jem had been the one who thought in terms of troop movements and supplies and back doors and contingencies. Nick was the one to plunge in and wing it on pure instinct, the one who assumed all situations could quickly spiral out of control, and they’d never have all the information.

They’d been strangely compatible in that way.

Or really, they’d been eerily complementary in their skill sets.

Nick would run into the burning building.

Jem, meanwhile, would be the one standing outside the burning building with the escape vehicle, multiple escape routes mapped out, and a pre-programmed line of explosive charges set up for when someone chased Nickoutof that building.

He studied Wynter’s face.

He realized some part of him was evaluating her anew.

Just how much did she remember now?

Did she remember any of it? Some of it? Most of it?

None of it?

Some part of him craved that partnership, that ability to lean on one another’s strengths and abilities and know-how. He knew he couldn’t count on that yet, that it would be foolhardy to even push for it right now, with both of them only remembering bits and pieces of who’d they’d once been. But goddamn it, he wanted it back.

Brick’s words from the other night echoed strangely in Nick’s head.

“We did not all arrive at the same time.”

For some reason, that felt important, too.

Nick shook it off for the time being, and focused on his wife’s face.

Fuck, she was gorgeous.

Something must have reflected in his eyes, because the hardness of her jaw softened somewhat, and she combed her fingers through her hair with a sigh. He heard more than a small amount of defeat in that sigh.