In Death 09 - Loyalty in Death

she kept the flower behind her back. "Did you sleep?"
    "A bit." He didn't go to her. She looked stretched thin, he decided, as if she might snap at the slightest touch. Her eyes were bruised and fragile. "You need to rest."
    "Can't." She managed a half smile. "Wired up. I'm going to go back soon."
    "Eve." He stepped toward her, but still didn't touch. "You'll make yourself ill."
    "I'm okay. Really. I was punchy for a while, but it passed. When it's over, I'll crash, but I'm okay now. I need to talk to you."
    "All right."
    She moved around him, shifting the flower out of sight, going to the window, staring at the dark. "I'm trying to figure out where to start. It's been a rotten couple of days."
    "It was difficult, telling the Malloys."
    "Jesus." She let her brow rest against the glass. "They know. Families of cops know as soon as they see us at the door. That's what they live with, day in and out. They know when they see you, but they block it. You can see it in their faces -- the knowledge and the denial. Some of them just stand there, others stop you -- start talking, making conversation, picking up around the house. It's like if you don't say it, if you just don't say it, it isn't real.
    "Then you say it, and it is."
    She turned back to him. "You live with that."
    "Yes." He kept his eyes on hers. "I suppose I do."
    "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about this morning. I -- "
    "So you've said already." This time when he crossed to her, he touched, just a hand to her cheek. "It doesn't matter."
    "It does. It does matter. I've got to get through this, okay?"
    "All right. Sit down."
    "I can't, I just can't." She lifted her hands in frustration. "I've got all this stuff churning inside me."
    "Then get rid of it." He stopped her by putting a hand to hers, lifting the flower. "What's this?"
    "I think it's a very sick, mutant rose. I bought it for you."
    It was so rare to see Roarke taken by surprise, she nearly laughed. His gaze met hers and she thought -- hoped -- it might have been baffled pleasure she saw there before he looked down at the rose again. "You brought me a flower."
    "I think it's sort of traditional. Fight, flowers, make up."
    "Darling Eve." He took the stem. The edges of the bud were blackened and curled from the cold. The color was somewhere between the yellow of a healing bruise and urine. "You fascinate me."
    "Pretty pitiful, huh?"
    "No." This time his hand cupped her cheek, skimmed into her hair. "It's delightful."
    "If it smells anything like the guy who sold it to me, you might want to have it fumigated."
    "Don't spoil it," he said mildly, and touched his lips to hers.
    "I do that -- spoil things." She backed away again before she gave in and grabbed on. "I don't do it on purpose. And I meant what I said this morning, even if it pisses you off. Mostly, I think cops are better off going solo. I don't know, like priests or something, so they don't keep dragging the sin and sorrow home with them."
    "I have sin and sorrow of my own," he said evenly. "It's washed over you a time or two."
    "I knew it would piss you off."
    "It does. And by God, Eve, it hurts me."
    Her mouth dropped open, trembled closed again. "I don't mean to do that." Hadn't known she could do that. Part of the problem, she realized. Her problem. "I don't have the words like you do. I don't have them, Roarke, the kind you say to me -- or even think, and I see you thinking them and it -- my heart just stops."
    "Do you think loving you to excess is easy for me?"
    "No. I don't. I think it should be impossible. Don't get mad." She hurried on when she saw that dangerous flash in his eyes. "Don't get mad yet. Let me finish."
    "Then make it good." He set the flower aside. "Because I'm damn sick and I'm tired of having to justify my feelings to the woman who owns them."
    "I can't keep my balance." Oh, she hated to admit it, to say it out loud to the man who wobbled it so often and so easily. "I get it, and I cruise along for a while, realizing this is who I am now, who we are now. And then, sometimes, I just look at you and stumble. And I can't get my breath because all these feelings just rear up and grab me by the throat. I don't know what to do about it, how to handle it. I think, I'm married to him. I've been married to him for almost six months, and there are times he walks into the room and stops my heart."'
    She let out a shuddering breath. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me. In my life, you're what matters most. I love you so much