Nora Roberts: High Noon

Duncan led her back to the boutique, nudged her into a chair.

She breathed out. "Can you give me five here?" she asked the rest of the team still inside. "Five to clear my head, then we'll finish this up."

"No problem, LT." Sykes jerked a thumb toward the door, paused on his way out. "Hell of a job."

"Yeah." And in the relative quiet, she breathed in again as Duncan crouched in front of her.

"Honey, you look like you could use a drink."

"I could use several."

"I happen to know an excellent pub." He lifted her hands, kissed them, then just buried his face in them. "Phoebe."

"I was never in any real danger. Not me."

"Tell that to my guts."

It was so cold in here, she thought. How had it gotten so cold? Only her hands were warm, where he'd kissed them. "Duncan, I've never discharged my weapon. I told you that. But I killed a man today."

"That's bullshit."

"I did. I gave the go on the kill shot. Not officially. But everyone involved knows I maneuvered him into position and gave the go. No choice. He was going to-"

"I know." He kept her hands gripped in his. "I know."

"I couldn't find another way, so I'll live with it. I used the love he had for Angela to manipulate him. And I'll live with that."

He picked her up out of the chair, then sat with her cradled in his lap. "It wasn't love. It was too selfish, too self-serving for that. And you know it. You were smarter than he was, that's what it comes down to. And you were braver at the heart of it. You stood out there, and he hid inside, behind innocent people."

He turned his face into her hair, pressed his lips to her temple.

"Don't you sit here and feel sorry for him, or sorry for your damn self either."

"That's telling me."

"I got a hell of a woman here." He sat, wrapped around her, stroking the cold from her arms. "When Mark D's back in business, we're going in there and picking out a ring."

"I can't afford Mark D." But she managed a smile. "I never thought about why they were in there, Ma Bee and Loo. I never thought about the why-I couldn't let it in. Oh Duncan, you were meeting them so they'd help you pick out a ring for me. If you'd gotten there before-"

"Not thinking about that. I didn't, and everyone's out. Safe. That's the priority, isn't it, in your line of work?"

"It is. And I have to do the rest of my job now."

"I'll wait. After you do that job, make sure you tell whoever you need to tell that you're taking the next three or four days off."

"Why?"

"My woman just saved the lives of seventeen people, so what are we going to do next? We're going to Disney World."

She didn't smile. She let out a quick, shocked sound that became a rolling laugh. "Oh God, thank God I found you."

"I found you," he corrected. "I'm a lucky guy."

She put her arms around him, put her head on his shoulder. He gave her peace, and solid ground, and that shoulder to lean on.

She was damn lucky herself.