Skykeepers

fire.

“Thank you, gods,” she whispered.

She opened the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper, then blinked back tears at the sight of the familiar stationary, which was watermarked at the top with Ada’s name intertwined with that of her husband, Charlie, who’d been gone nearly a decade but lived in her heart. Or so she’d always claimed. Dear Sasha, the letter read in Ada’s nearly illegible writing.

I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to know that you’re okay. I’d be terribly mad at you, but your Michael explained about the robbery and witness protection, so I know you couldn’t have clued me in before the trial, and you can’t contact me yourself now.

Sasha’s mind stuttered a little, not just on the fabricated WitSec protection, which she supposed was as good a story as any to cover her disappearance, but on the words “your Michael.” She reread them a few times, then made herself move on.

The letter continued: When I told him that I’d moved out after you disappeared, but before the fire, your friend—and dare I hope he’s more to you?—asked me if I’d brought anything of yours with me, and of course I had. You asked me to look after things, and I did, even when they said you weren’t coming back.

So here are the survivors, dearest heart, packaged with my fondest wish that your new life is a wonderful one, and you find someone special to share it with—someone who’ll challenge you, make you crazy, make you bigger than you’d be on your own. Someone like my Charlie was to me.

That is what I wish for you, dear friend. But having seen your Michael, I wonder if you haven’t already found him?

It was signed, All my love, Ada, though Sasha almost couldn’t read the signature through the blur of tears.

In a flash, she was back in Ada’s pretty kitchen, fussing with a batch of spicy shrimp while her friend “fiddled around,” as she called it, padded violin tucked beneath her chin, rosined bow sliding smoothly as she segued from Beethoven to Bach, from Mozart to others Sasha couldn’t name, some that she suspected were Ada’s own creations. “Find yourself a good man,” the widow had often said, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Someone who’ll love you like my Charlie loved me.” After Saul, when Sasha had suffered through a series of bad first dates, and a few worse second ones, she’d decided Ada had gotten one of the good ones, that there might not be a Charlie for her.

Now, her eyes locked on the name in the last paragraph. Michael. He’d found Ada for her. He’d asked her to send . . . what?

She didn’t even care that her hands shook as she broke the seal on the top box, hardly daring to hope that Ada had—Yes, she had! The clay pots were packed one against the next, the greens protected with inverted Tupperware containers duct-taped into place, with airholes perforated into the top. “Hello,” she breathed, knowing she should probably feel like an idiot for talking to her plants, and not giving a crap. “Do you remember me?”

Laughing a little, crying a little, she unpacked all three boxes, which yielded eighteen pots, all but two of which were her personal cooking herbs. Those last two were the fat, furry African violets that always made her smile. And smile she did, as she watered her green friends and arranged the pots in her kitchen window, setting the few shade lovers off to the side. She stood back and felt a tear fall as she saw that she’d arranged them almost the same as they had been back in Boston. Then she swiped at her face, and told herself to pull it together as determination firmed within her.

She was going to track down Michael and thank him, whether he liked it or not.

Michael’s blood was running hot and hard as he blasted away with both autopistols, one in each hand, running through his clips without pause, then slapping a fresh pair home and getting back into it before the targets could even reset. He was jonesing to run and roll and kick some major ass, but Skywatch’s firing range was static. No Hogan’s Alley here—it was all paper targets and a half dozen pop-ups he’d already Swiss-cheesed into submission. He could’ve gone hunting for a partner for the techware laser tag he’d instituted a few months earlier; the high-grade military equipment was pretty close to the real thing—good enough for training runs, anyway. But he wasn’t in the mood for company; he was in the mood to blow some shit away.

The dam was intact, the sluiceways shut, but that didn’t seem to matter these days. His inner caveman was alive and well, and loose within his skull. He wanted to throw his head back, beat on his chest, and howl into the strange orange sun with frustration, anger, and the shitty unfairness of Sasha’s being there, yet beyond his reach. He couldn’t touch her, didn’t dare. Not when she was the one who’d stirred up the darkness within him, calling it so close to the surface. Too close.

He was holding the Other at bay, but just barely. And he was spending a hell of a lot of time and energy burning off the edges.

“Whatever it takes,” he grated, slapping home another pair of clips and hitting the reset button at his right elbow. “Whatever it fucking takes.”

“Words to live by,” a voice said from behind him, filtering through his ear protectors. Her voice.

His whole body went tight in an instant. He would’ve given anything to scoop her up, carry her into the gun shed, lock the door, and lose himself with her, inside her. Because that wasn’t an option, he slammed down every inner shield he possessed, set the autopistols aside, stripped off his protective glasses and earplugs, and turned toward her, moving slowly, trying not to let her see how the sight of her got his body jamming.

She stood a few feet away, at the edge of the rubber-padded cement that formed the main firing platform, with its waist-high reload counter and protective baffles. She was wearing crisp new jeans that hugged her long legs and a clingy green shirt that cinched beneath her breasts. Her hair was a mass of dark curls surrounding her face, and she was wearing a touch of mascara to accent her vivid brown eyes, a slick of lip gloss that caught his eye and made him think of her long, slow kisses and the murmur of pleasure she’d made at the back of her throat when he’d touched her, when they’d touched each other.

He’d crossed half the distance between them before he was aware of moving, was reaching for her before he could make himself stop. The spark of silver that flashed through him, though, stopped him dead in his tracks, and had his voice going low and harsh. “You shouldn’t be here.”

But she shook her head, holding up her hands as though to ward him off. “I came to thank you.”

It took him a moment; he was too caught up in the edges of battle rage at first to remember. Then he did, and he fell back a step. “Oh. That.” He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I had Jox get her a fake ID, and we moved her to another apartment within the retirement complex, just in case Iago goes looking deeper in an effort to find you.” They couldn’t forget that the Xibalban wanted Sasha. And once Michael had met Ada Moscowitz and seen the older woman’s relief when she learned Sasha was okay, he’d known he wouldn’t be able to walk away without making things as right as he could. He’d wanted the widow to have some closure, wanted Sasha to have a piece of her old life within Skywatch.

And he should’ve had Strike give her the boxes and pretend it’d been his idea, damn it. But he’d wanted . . . hell, he didn’t know what he wanted. Or rather, he knew exactly what he wanted, and didn’t dare take it.

Her lips parted on a soft sigh. “Then I owe you even more than I thought.”

“You don’t owe me a godsdamned thing,” he said flatly. When that didn’t seem to be enough for the edgy heat that was kicking through his system, he added, “Don’t make me into some sort of hero, sweetheart. That was payback.”

He wanted her to be pissed at him. Instead, she rolled her eyes. “Try again, cowboy. One good deed I might’ve bought as guilt. Four or five good deeds—and those are the ones I know about—make me wonder what the hell game you’re playing.”

“Shit. I should’ve known they’d blab. Frigging Yen tas.” Trying really hard to be an asshole, he shrugged. “Fine. You’re welcome. Go away.” He lifted his protective glasses. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

Her eyes went past him to the pop-up targets—this week it was a group of tough-looking men in urban gang gear, packing Uzis. Most of them were headless. “Looks like you’re doing just fine.”

“What part of ‘go away, I don’t want your gratitude’ are you not getting?”

If he’d figured that was rude enough to make her leave, he’d been way off. She looked back at him, the glitter in her gorgeous brown eyes going from irritation to speculation as she moved to the apron of the firing platform, closing the distance between them until he could’ve reached out and touched her, tracing the curve of