Enigma (31 page)

Another not-so-small thing, and maybe they’d add up to something solid. Lasting. “Thanks, Kat. For everything.”

Kat caught her up in a brief, hard hug. “Don’t make me do that again. I hate being bad cop. I’m a terrible bad cop. I want to cry ugly blotchy tears all over you and then buy you fudge and booze.”

“If you have to do it again, you have permission to kick my ass.” But she wouldn’t have to do it again. Anna wasn’t perfect, but she’d never been one to embrace suffering when there were other options. She’d been so sure that Patrick would be better off without her fucking up his life. But if that was a done deal, if being without her meant he was just as miserable as she was, then it made sense to try and fix it.

They’d saved the world. Maybe now it was time to save themselves.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Facing down a pack of angry werewolves wasn’t as terrifying as walking into the council’s warehouse training room in search of Patrick.

He was there. Shirtless. The scars cutting a path through his tattoos had new company in the freshly healed wound on his shoulder and back. Magic had accelerated the healing, but the skin still looked tender, the scars fresh and raw.

He was clearly still in pain. Wincing, Patrick paused in the middle of his form to adjust his grip, then swung his sword in a slow arc as if testing his range of movement.

Looking at him elicited a familiar clench in her gut, but now the pain was tempered with a curious sort of anticipation. Even hope. “You’re dropping your shoulder.”

Patrick finished his stroke and pivoted to face her, his expression neutral. Impossible to read. “I’m trying to get used to how things feel now. That healing priestess the Ochoas keep on retainer didn’t stop with my shoulder. She did something to my scars too. Feels better, but everything’s off balance.”

“Practice, that’s all.” He was babbling, nervous, and that gave Anna the optimism to shove her hands in her jacket pockets and step closer. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Yeah?” He half-smiled. “I’ve been right here.”

The hope and yearning collided, spinning into a crazy sort of confidence that would fade if she let it languish, so she forged ahead. “I said some stupid things, Patrick. Not stupid because I didn’t mean them, but because I was hurting.”

The gentle curve of his lips melted away. “I know you were.”

“I still am,” she whispered. “But so is everyone, right?”

“Probably. I am.”

Of course he was—but if she started blaming herself now, she’d turn around and walk. So she took a deep, bracing breath. “I’m sorry that I played up my shit like it was the worst thing in the world. So much worse than yours.”

His brow furrowed. “It
was
bad,” he said gently. “That was never the problem. It kills me, knowing what you went through. But…”

“But I don’t spend my days curled in a ball in the corner because I was dealt a rough hand.” Looking at him hurt, because his expression was hope tempered by hesitation, as if he knew one wrong move would send her flying again. “Why is this part so hard?”

“Because we’re tough guys,” he whispered. “Tough guys never want to be vulnerable.”

He’d opened himself up to her, though, right from the start. It didn’t make sense that he could do that unless it really was true.

He trusted her, not only with his physical safety, but with his heart.

Metal bit into her palm. Anna clenched her hand and pulled it out of her pocket. “I came here to apologize, and to talk to you. About these.” Two rings, a few hundred bucks worth of hammered silver, but she shook as she held them out.

Patrick stared at her outstretched palm for long enough to make her queasy before lifting his gaze to her face. “Don’t be someone you’re not for me. That was never what I wanted.”

“I wouldn’t.” She swallowed hard, anything to squeeze the words past the lump in her throat. “Do you remember when we were talking about finding Oscar’s killer, and I said it didn’t matter, because his kid would still grow up without a dad?” It came in a rush now, part confession and part plea, and she couldn’t stop any of it. “We changed that, Patrick. We brought a man back from the
dead
, and if that’s not some cosmic clue that any-fucking-thing is possible, I don’t know what is. So what if we’re both broken? We can do anything.” The rings rattled in her hand. “Even this.”

He looked at the rings again, and now his careful mask was gone. The need in his eyes matched her own—eclipsed it, maybe—but he didn’t move. “I didn’t know how broken I was, and I’m still not sure. I know I said I’d teach you how to be loved, but there’s got to be someone out there who’d fuck it up a lot less. You sure you want me?”

Her laugh caught in her chest and expanded, morphed into something close to elation. “I thought I told you already. There isn’t anybody but you.”

Patrick’s sword clattered to the wooden floor, and then he was on her. Touching her, kissing her, clutching her so close her hand was trapped between their bodies, the rings digging into her palm again.

But she didn’t give a damn, because this was what she’d missed—kissing him, feeling his hands on her face, rough and gentle all at once, and
knowing
it wouldn’t be the last time. One more embrace on the way to forever.

He dug his teeth into her lower lip with a groan before easing back. Not far, just enough to whisper, “We don’t need some dumb legal thing, do we? Put that ring on my finger, Lenoir, and I’m yours for good.”

No paper trail, no ceremonies, only a commitment they had to decide every day to keep. But the rings were marks, symbols not only to them but to the rest of the world, and Anna wanted them. She tugged his left hand down from her face and slid the larger ring in place at the base of his finger.

“I don’t just love you,” she said, her heart pounding, as close as she would ever get to a vow. “I’m with you, right here. No matter what.”

“No more giving up.” He eased the other ring from her grip and held it poised over her finger. “Can you handle it? I break a lot easier than I used to. I’m getting the better end of this—”

“Shh.” She laid her free hand over his mouth to stop the words. His lips under her fingers felt
right
, and she smiled. “Even if you are, do you really want to argue? Or do you want to love me?”

He smiled against her fingertips and slid the ring into place. “I love you, Lenoir.” His teeth grazed her skin, and he laughed suddenly, pushing her wrist aside so he could kiss her again. “I love you,
Anna
.”

She’d been wrong. She’d been an asshole. She’d broken his heart, but the world hadn’t ended, because she had the power to change it all.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, winding her arms around his neck.

“Me too.” He slid his hands down her back and under her ass, hoisting her up his body. “Your friends meddle, you know.”

“Christ, I know, right? Bastards.”

“Did Nick tell you what she did?”

Anna pulled back and met his eyes. “Do I want to know?”

“Maybe.” He grinned. “She sent Jackson after me. I’m not sure if it was an excuse so he could give me advice about my love life, or if she meant for him to do it, but he kind of offered me a job.”

“Fancy. You going legit on me, baby?”

“Never.” He laughed and nuzzled her jaw. “I don’t think Holt wants me to go legit. I think he wants someone a little rough around the edges. Sometimes that’s the only way shit gets done.”

“Preaching to the choir here.” She sobered. “Are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t seem like it’s only my decision anymore. What do you want?”

You.
Too simple, even if it was true. “Nick offered to sell me the apartment over the bar. Or we could look around. Or we could stay here.”

“Not here,” Patrick said without hesitation. “Don’t get me wrong, I like that they’ve let me stay, but it’s the Southeast council’s place. Alec Jacobson’s place. I don’t mind helping them out when they need it, because they’re doing good things—but I don’t know if I want to be his personal intelligence network. I want us to have our own life, one that’s not defined by shapeshifter politics.”

“Then we’ll figure it out.” Nothing seemed particularly daunting now, not after walking into this room and asking Patrick to take her back. “Though there is something—I don’t know if you want to hear about it, or if you’d rather not. But I need to tell you.”

Patrick’s smile faded. “What is it?”

“It’s not bad. I mean, I hope it’s not.” She bit her lip. “Ben found him.”

He stared blankly at her for so long she thought he might not have understood, but then he slowly lowered her to the floor. “Arthur? Ben found Arthur?”

Patrick’s joy had dissipated, replaced by shock, and it felt like she’d done the wrong thing, even though she
knew
she hadn’t. “If we’re facing the past so we can move forward, maybe this is part of it.”

He paced away, stopping to pick up his sword. He scooped the sheath off the table and slid the blade home before turning. “You’re right. You’re running headlong into the shit that scares you, and what am I supposed to do? Run away from mine?”

Her chest ached. “It’s not an exchange, Patrick—my pain for yours. You don’t have to do anything. But I thought you should know you have that option, if you want it.”

“It’s not about pain. It’s courage.” He returned to her side, touched her cheek and brushed his thumb over her lips. “Something inside you healed wrong, and you had to break it again to come here. You had to be scared and hurt and vulnerable and not know if it would get better this time, or if you’d end up so shattered you’d never heal. If I want to be whole, that’s what I’ve got to do too.”

No wonder she’d wanted him from the very beginning, from that first night out in the bayou. He had a core of inner strength you couldn’t destroy, no matter how much you shook it. A survivor’s strength. “When you’re ready.”

“Soon.” He stroked her lip again. “I’m still recovering. You might be the key to getting me to like bed rest.”

Her eyes drifted shut at the caress, and she snapped them open again with a grin. “We should test that theory as soon as possible.”

“You promise to be gentle with me?”

“Hell, no.”

Laughing, Patrick swept her up into his arms and started for the door. “Thank God. For a second there, I thought you were going soft on me.”

“Me? Uh-uh.” The whole world knew Anna Lenoir wasn’t soft. She was crass and difficult, hard and brash—and she loved Patrick McNamara with all her wounded heart.

She told him so in whispers as he headed up the stairs, and he laughed again as he set her down next to his bed. “Bring it, Lenoir.”

So she did.

Epilogue

Arthur Ryan lived on a farm, in a two-story house with green shutters and an even greener lawn. Patrick had joked about white picket fences before, but this was a place so idyllic no fences were necessary.

No wonder Ben hadn’t contacted him.

The dog sleeping on the porch cracked one eye as Patrick and Anna climbed the steps, but went back to dozing when they didn’t do anything more interesting than ring the bell.

Patrick’s stomach flipped over, and he tightened his grip on Anna’s hand, half-wishing they hadn’t called ahead, even if dropping in out of the blue would be a bad way to start the visit.

His brother had married a witch, one with ties to the supernatural community in the Southeast. Two weeks was enough time to dig up plenty of dirt on Patrick McNamara. Enough to convince a man with pumpkins on his porch and a swing-set in the side yard that his kids didn’t need an unrepentant bounty hunter for an uncle.

Anna squeezed his hand. “Relax and be yourself.”

“I thought we wanted them to
like
me.”

“To love you,” she corrected, her gaze soft. “How could they not?”

He could think of about a hundred reasons, so it was probably for the best that the door opened before he began to list them all.

Liz Ryan was thirty-five and looked about twenty-two. She had dark brown eyes, light brown skin and long black hair pulled up in a sloppy ponytail, all details Patrick’s brain cataloged on autopilot before his gaze returned to her mouth.

She was smiling. Thank
God
she was smiling.

“You must be Patrick and Anna,” she said, opening her door wide. “Come on in, and forgive the chaos. The twins wanted to pick out their own outfits to meet Uncle Conan, and Arthur said they could, because he doesn’t understand yet that letting two seven-year-old witches make fashion choices never ends well.”

Patrick had been so carefully focused on not running background checks on his brother that the word slammed into his chest. “Twins?”

“Yes, indeed,” Liz agreed, grinning at Anna. “And they’ve got a ten-year-old brother and a two-year-old sister. You’re probably going to think we forgot you were coming, but this is about as calm as the house gets.”

A man hovered in the open archway off to the right of the foyer, his hands braced on the wall. He stared at Patrick, his face ashen. “You look like her.”

His first crazy thought was that the man looked like Ben. But that was impossible—Patrick was the one who looked like their mother. Ben and Arthur had different fathers, and Arthur didn’t share Ben’s red hair or short stature. He was tall, rangy, with dirty blond hair and chiseled, Hollywood-handsome features.