The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents 6)

Her brows lifted. “We do?”

“Um, I was thinking about something more...permanent.” A whole lot more permanent.

She shifted against him, pushing herself up so that she could gaze down at him. “That had better not be the drugs talking.”

A rough laugh escaped from him. That was his Gabrielle. Only she could get to him—could make him laugh, make him dream of a future. “It’s not. It’s me.” But then his gaze fell on the white box that was perched on the table near his bed. A small, square box.

The kind that usually stored jewelry.

Gabrielle followed his gaze. “Mercer brought that by for you. He said that he thought you’d be needing it.” Her fingers stroked his arm, an almost absent gesture. He loved her touches. Her caresses.

Loved her.

“His wounds weren’t nearly as bad as yours—no internal organs hit for him. He was cleared the next day, but you...” Her hand stilled on him. “You scared me.”

He caught her fingers, brought them to his lips and pressed a hard kiss to her knuckles. “I’ll do my...damnedest to never scare you again.” He only wanted to make her happy.

Some of the sadness eased from her eyes. “Rachel’s okay. She’s still here, and Dylan’s making sure that she gets plenty of rest.”

Cooper suspected that Dylan was too worried about Rachel to let her out of his sight.

The little matter of a life-or-death situation could sure change a man’s perspective.

It had certainly changed his.

Gabrielle climbed from the bed. She picked up the white box and handed it back to him.

Frowning, Cooper studied the box. He had no idea what Mercer could be giving to him. “About...our partnership,” Cooper began as he opened the box.

But then he fell silent.

A ring was inside the box.

Not just any ring. A ring with two diamonds, and a twisted band of gold.

“Cooper?”

“This...this was my grandmother’s ring.” The memory was there, in the back of his mind. His grandmother had visited him when he’d been a kid, maybe four or five, and he’d seen that ring. He’d played with it, tracing the diamonds and that braided twist while he’d sat in his grandmother’s lap. He’d never forgotten that ring.

Then his grandparents had died. His mother had died.

He’d never seen the ring again.

So what in the hell was Mercer doing with it?

“It wasn’t an enemy who took her.” Mercer’s words seemed to whisper through his mind. “Cancer did that. It came in an instant. It took her from me too soon. I blinked, and she was just—gone.”

His fingers closed around the ring. He saw the small note that had been folded and tucked in the bottom of the box.

Gabrielle was at his bedside, watching him silently.

I always want her at my side. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I want Gabrielle there.

He opened up that folded piece of paper. A brief note had been written there. Annalise would want you to give this to the woman you love.

That was all it said.

But then, those few words said everything.