“I’m not. Are you?”
She shook her head. “Will it last, Dutch?”
“Once this is over?”
Malin nodded.
“It will.”
“How can you be certain?”
“I can’t accept anything else, Malin.” He stood and held his hand out to her. “Come here,” he said, pulling her back to his chair with him.
Once she was on his lap, Dutch nuzzled her neck. “I know you feel like we’re in limbo, and as far as the rest of the world goes, we are. But between you and me, we aren’t waiting for anything to happen or anything to change, except maybe where we’re living. Otherwise, this is us, baby.”
As if on cue to spoil the moment between them, Dutch’s phone buzzed at the same time Malin’s did.
She didn’t move, so he pulled his out, punched in his access code, and let her see the screen.
“He’s on the move,” she told him, and he nodded. When it pinged again, she looked at the screen a second time. “McTiernan has his flight plan, although it’s filed under an assumed name, of course.”
“Is he flying alone?”
Malin typed the question on the screen and hit send.
“Affirmative,” she answered a few moments later.
“He believes he can handle this.”
After taking a deep breath, Malin nodded and stood, setting his phone on the table in front of him.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he said.
“I expect fixers will come from every direction.”
Dutch nodded. “Although Montgomery has too much of an ego to believe any of them can handle you as well as he can.”
“He comes from an era where there weren’t fixers, at least not officially known as such.”
“We’ll be ready, no matter how many they send.”
“Doc wants us to meet him in the winery,” she said, holding up her phone.
“After we eat.”
For a moment, Dutch thought Malin might protest, but she picked up her fork instead.
“You know what amazes me?”
Malin raised her head.
“It doesn’t matter what ingredients you have to work with, the sauce and meatballs always taste the same.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, they don’t.”
He scrunched his eyes. “They do to me.”
“You’re silly.”