Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

I thought that once we were together in the same place each and every day, that would be it. We’d be perfect. But the fact of the matter was, if you didn’t want what you had once you got it, then that didn’t work either. It wasn’t enough of a solution.

What if Ian decided he’d made an impossible choice to be with me, and he couldn’t live with it and wanted to go? Or, again, if he made the wrong choice and wanted to go? Then either way, he’d leave, and I’d be alone. Worse than alone: without him.

A wave of dizziness nearly put me on my knees, but Ian was there, right there, grabbing hold of my arm, keeping me steady and on my feet.

“Okay,” he soothed, his voice like honey as I held on, probably too tight, clinging as the surge of emotions rolled through me, ridiculously scared he was going to walk out on me.

I was not some kind of ingenue alone in the world. I was strong. I’d been alone before, I could remake my life from scratch if needed. I could. No doubt. But the issue was not if I could; the issue was I didn’t want to. Ian was it. Ian was the one, and losing him would make me different. I didn’t want to know what I would look like without him.

The epiphany was a whopper, and I’d been blindsided to boot.

“Jones?” Kage said my name irritably, but it was like he was far away at the other end of a long tunnel, and I could barely hear him.

There were no words. I had none for him.

“He’s just overwhelmed, sir. It’s a big deal,” Ian said quickly, and I heard it clearly because my hearing came back in stereo, even though my vison stayed blurred.

“He’ll do fine,” Kage declared like he was giving me his blessing, and suddenly Prescott was there at my shoulder, passing me a thick black organizer with the marshals’ star on the cover, and the lanyard I’d be wearing into people’s homes that had my employment photo on it, which was even more horrible than the picture on my driver’s license.

Still holding on to Ian, I realized Kage’s attention was elsewhere, and I felt the relief Frodo and Sam must have experienced when the Eye moved off them, because I could breathe a bit more, even though I was still right there on the edge of hyperventilating.

“Hey.”

Turning to Ian, I saw a trace of a smile before he took a deep breath in and then blew it out, softly, slowly.

I watched him intently as he did it again.

“What is this, Lamaze?” I teased, my voice cracking, going out on me.

He repeated the process, and the second time, I mimicked him, which was clearly what he was after, and finally pushed some air into my lungs.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, his eyes locked on mine.

“I’m a piece of shit,” I husked, “and I don’t deserve you.”

“Oh?”

I growled softly, wincing, feeling worse by the second. “You left the Army for me.”

His smile was wicked as he shook his head. “No, you were right. I left the Army for me, because I wanted to be with you.”

“But you stopped doing something you loved for me, and I was just about to not stop doing something for you, and what about commitment? What about our wedding vows?” I choked out, reeling with everything running through my head.

Oh, I was seriously going to stop breathing and have a full-blown panic attack after having a goddamn revelation in the middle of the bullpen about how I had been just as selfish and singularly focused as Ian.

Everyone was clapping again as I bent over and braced my hands above my knees.

Ian put a hand on my back, began rubbing comforting circles there before leaning down so he could speak into my ear. “It’s not the same thing.”

“How?” I gasped, taking shallow breaths. “I needed you home; you changed your whole life. You need me with you; I’m saying no. It’s the same.”

“I was on the other side of the world. You just might miss dinner sometimes,” he clarified, chuckling softly, speaking into my hair.

“Why’re you being nice to me now?”

“Because you just saw things from my perspective, and that’s pretty great.”

“But nothing’s fixed,” I claimed miserably.

“Yeah, but nothing’s completely busted either.”

“You’re being very glass-half-full right now instead of empty.”

“I know, right? Lookit me with the growth and shit.”

God. “We won’t work together anymore,” I reminded him, trying to breathe around my fear.

“No.”

“And that was half the point of you staying home, wasn’t it? I mean, Kage was going to give me a new partner because you were gone so much, and neither of us wanted that, and you made a point of—”

“Maybe you should sit down, huh?”

“When this meeting is over, I’ll go tell Kage that—”