Page 67 of Crowe
“You did. Now, like I said, let’s dance.”
He stood up and took my hand.
We walked out onto the dance floor, and I put my hand at his back, and he put his on my shoulder, and we moved together in the particular way of two people who’d found their way to each other through a significant amount of difficulty and had decided to stay.
“For the record,” I said, quietly, near his ear. “I saw the same thing you saw. I know why you did it.”
He was quiet for a moment. “And?”
“And you scared the hell out of me.” I pulled him slightly closer. “And I’m proud of you.”
He let out a breath. “Thank you.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re not in trouble.”
“I know.”
“Significant trouble.”
“Jackson.”
“Noah.”
He tilted his head back just enough to look at me. The chandelier light caught the angles of his face. “Can I be in trouble tomorrow, Daddy?”
I looked at him. At the remarkable man who’d stood at a podium an hour ago and told his story to a room full of strangers. Who’d followed a frightened woman into a corridor and pressed a card into her hand.
“Yeah,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
He smiled and moved with me to the music.
In my ear, very quietly, Gator said, “If y’all are done being adorable, we have a debrief.”
Noah heard it and buried his face briefly against my shoulder.
“In a minute,” I replied. Then I placed a kiss on his head and kept dancing.
Chapter twenty-two
Noah
In the end, we’d decided to drive back to Vesper after the Gala. The plan had been to stay at The Hargrove. The rooms were already booked, and the debrief was scheduled for the morning. But after seeing how comfortable Corvane felt to approach me in public like that, I casually said that I wished we were home.
Jackson had looked at me for a moment and then called Wolfe, and that had been that. Nobody made a thing of it. Wolfe rescheduled the debrief, Hawk drove the second vehicle back, and Jackson drove me to Vesper in the dark without asking me to explain why I needed it. He just drove.
I’d expected nightmares or, at the very least, not to be able to sleep, but instead, I’d curled up next to him and was out like a light.
I woke up to an empty bed, but my lamp was on. I was pretty sure it was off when we went to sleep, but Jackson knew I didn’t like to wake up to a dark room. I did my inventory.
Where am I?
Vesper. Apartment 917. Jackson had brought me home.
Am I safe?
The building had more security than most government facilities. So for the moment, yes. I was safe.
What’s true right now?
