Page 177 of Blood Game

Running on empty, things he would tell her about later, and other things that he wouldn't, couldn't share. Not yet, maybe not ever.

“I know someone who might be able to help with that communication problem,” she said. Keep it light, she told herself. Don't ask any questions. He was there. It was enough.

“Innis?” he replied, almost a smile.

The crowd moved around and past them, a curious look from an older gentleman, then a different look from a young woman—definite invitation, the sort of look that usually ended in bed. He didn't seem to notice.

“It might have to wait,” she told him. “He's on vacation. He thought it was probably a good idea to keep some distance between them and Paris, something about having broken a few laws with his hacking skills.”

“The need to be invisible for a while.”

There was something in the way he said it. He knew about that sort of thing. Being invisible. That silence again as more customers made their way toward the author table.

“I heard the new book made the bestseller list.”

The media, even in those dark places, she thought.

Kris nodded. “The press has been all over it, one of their own and all that. And with the added publicity about the accident and finding the tapestry. I wish she could have been here for that.”

She knew exactly what Cate would have thought about all of it, something about the tabloid press not knowing their ass froma real story, and then something else about finding a good bar nearby when the crowd cleared.

She wanted to ask him about all of it, and at the same time she was afraid to ask. She had asked her brother once. Just once.

He watched the emotions that played across her face, the way she kept everything under control, like the first time at the airport, and a dozen times afterward in France, then when they returned to London. Strength.

Strength to survive the loss of someone she had loved deeply, strength to track down a friend's killer.

His fingers closed gently around her wrist. He traced the scar where surgeons had put in the pin, and then removed it. Strength enough.

“It's almost healed,” he said, his fingers lightly stroking over the scar. He would have taken her pain if he could have that day in the quarry. He would take all of it.

“The doctor at hospital said I won't even notice it in a few months.”

Scars, wounds that had healed. And other wounds that would take more time.

“You did it,” he said, looking around the bookstore, then at the desk where Trevor signed copies of the book.

“A lot of hard work. Cate would be proud.”

She breathed past the sudden emotion that came.

“There will be more work. I'll be spending a lot of time in London.”

“The tapestry?”

“Diana and her team are continuing their work on it. They hope to have it ready to go on display by June.”

Casual conversation.

How did they do this? she thought. Who were they, after almost a year with those brief Skype and text messages half a world away? After everything that had happened?

Could she do this? Could she take whatever time he had and not lose herself when he left again? Waiting for that call from Anne, or a text message from Danny?

She took a deep breath, holding on.

“How much time do you have?”

That look, an expression that she knew so well, the weariness, the lines at the corners of his eyes as he stared down at her wrist, that dark gaze as he looked up.