Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Even with the extra bodies in the house, it was quiet when they returned. The quiet of defeat. Hallie saw it in the slumped shoulders and drawn faces as the tactical team removed their headgear.
Frollo and Griff moved the still-unconscious Girard and then Tortain into the living room, laying them out on cushions, despite protests from Tortain that he could manage.
By the time they’d done that, Caerleon was showing signs of waking up and Griff took him to the kitchen for coffee.
If anything could wake him up, it would be the local coffee, Hallie thought.
Modron asked for Dechtire’s help in setting Tortain’s leg, and Hallie decided that none of them needed her as an audience for that.
She briefly touched Girard’s hand, as much to reassure herself as for anything he might or might not be aware of in his unconscious state, then left.
Not sure what else she could do, she headed to the office where she and Girard had spent a lot of time in the past five days, and started writing out some notes.
The sort of long-term investigations that Girard and his fellow investigators were used to doing were still strange to her.
Gin had never required Hallie to keep notes or records of the conversations she’d had or the people she’d spoken to, and Hallie’s work had generally been in short bursts.
She’d normally been able to find her fugitive within the space of a day, so had never felt the need to keep records.
Now, though, Hallie was finding that making and reviewing her notes was a useful discipline to collect the information they’d gathered and focus her thoughts.
She was making a list of the documents that she and Girard had found, frowning as she tried to pull the information from her memory, when soft footsteps drew her attention to the door.
She looked up, shocked and pleased to see Girard coming into the room.
He was still wearing the same clothes, covered in dust and ash.
He was pale, a large swelling and bruising marring one side of his face and, from the way he was moving and from the sling holding one arm close to his side, she guessed that the bullet wound from the day before was hurting.
“I’m surprised to see you up,” Hallie said, getting up and pulling a chair out for him. “Although, should you be on your feet?”
“Can’t keep lying down forever,” Girard said, with a rueful smile, but he took the chair she held for him without complaint. “Wanted to make sure you were alright.”
“Me?” Hallie gave a half-laugh and took her seat again. “I am not the one who had a market stall dropped on him, then got shot, and then blown up all within the space of twenty-four hours.”
“I don’t recommend it,” Girard said, grimacing as he changed position to face her across the table.
“You’ve been busy.” His eyes travelled over the paper notebooks that Hallie had been writing in.
She’d ignored the electronic tablet in favour of the old-fashioned writing methods.
She had one notebook full of long-hand notes, a kind of report to herself, and the other full of lists of questions and unknowns.
“Just trying to write some things down while they are still fresh in my mind.” She frowned down at the page she’d been working on.
Another list. But with Girard sitting in front of her, more or less in one piece after everything he’d been through in the past day, she had other things on her mind.
The echoes of the worry and fear she’d felt when he’d been unconscious and unresponsive were still inside her.
This was the first time they had been alone with both of them awake since Manju had been shot and she realised she couldn’t wait any longer to ask Girard about the strange distance she’d felt between them over the past couple of weeks.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I need to ask you something. I’m not sure it’s the best time.
In fact, I’m sure it’s not the best time, but I want to ask you anyway. ”
“You can ask me anything, any time. Even if you don’t think it’s the right time or whatever.
Besides, it seems I have a pretty hard head,” Girard said, with another rueful smile, “so my brain is still intact, even if the rest of me doesn’t feel like it.
And a distraction from the bruises and the bullet hole would be welcome. What is it?”
“Alright,” Hallie said, but still hesitated.
“It’s not work.” When he didn’t say anything, just kept watching her with calm blue eyes shadowed with pain, she drew a sharp breath in and plunged ahead.
“You said you liked me. And I said I liked you. And I do. I meant it, and I know you did, too, at the time. But, well, sometimes it hasn’t felt quite like that over the past couple of weeks.
And I don’t know what I’ve missed or what I should be doing.
” Her face was burning with embarrassment.
She wasn’t sure that the words pouring out of her made any sense at all, or even conveyed all the mixed-up feelings and thoughts she’d been carrying around.
“I really am no good at this, either,” she said, echoing a comment he’d made to her a while ago.
“Hallie,” he said, the warmth in his voice cutting through some of her awkwardness.
She looked up to find that his eyes were full of warmth, a hint of colour on his own face.
“I am sorry that I ever made you question me.” He shook his head slightly and stretched his free hand out to her.
She put hers into it and felt the welcome and familiar warmth of his fingers wrap around hers.
“I do like you. I more than like you. I’m fairly sure I’m in love with you. ”
Hallie’s mouth dropped open but no sound came out.
She’d felt like a giddy teenager at the idea that Girard liked her.
Love was something she didn’t feel at all prepared for, even as a thrill ran through her.
Love wasn’t for silly teenagers. Not when it involved Girard, who she suspected had never been giddy, even when he had been a teenager.
Even as her mind scrambled and spun to try to understand what he was telling her, his thumb ran over the back of her hand, calling her attention back to him.
“Can I try to explain?” he asked.
Finding she didn’t have a voice, she just nodded.
“We’ve been away from everything that was familiar to you.
And we’re out here for work. Everything around us is different from Daydawn.
I wanted to give you time to find your feet a bit.
The last thing I wanted was for you to feel pressure from me to do something or say something that you weren’t ready for. ”
The words rang through Hallie’s senses with absolute sincerity and the integrity that was one of Girard’s finest qualities, as far as she was concerned.
“So, if I’ve seemed a little distant, that’s why,” he finished. “I hope that made sense.” A small frown pulled his brows together.
“Yes. It did. You are one of the kindest people I know,” Hallie said in a low voice, the words tumbling out and a different kind of warmth flooding her.
This was the Girard she was drawn to. The quiet intensity and honesty.
The person who believed in her. “And I’m really not used to that.
It never occurred to me you were trying to be nice.
” She wanted to throw herself across the table and wrap him up in a hug.
But he was still hurting and she didn’t want to cause him more pain.
Instead, she stood up, still holding onto his hand, and moved to stand beside him.
He tilted his head back to meet her eyes.
She couldn’t put words to the expression on his face, only knew that it drew her forward.
She put her free hand on the side of his face feeling his skin warm and real and vital under hers, felt his mouth curve in a smile, then bent and kissed him with as much gentleness and warmth and feeling as she could manage, mindful of his injuries.
She straightened and held his eyes for a long moment more.
“Do you think if we keep practising being honest and talking to each other, it will get easier?”
“I hope so,” he answered, smiling. He lifted their clasped hands and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand then turned it over and pressed another kiss onto her palm, which made her catch her breath. “I’m willing to find out, if you are?”
“I am,” Hallie confirmed, smiling back at him.
Bootsteps in the corridor outside let her know that a pair of the tactical team were on patrol. They would stay in the corridor unless she called them in, so she didn’t move away from Girard, and he didn’t let her go. But as the smile faded from his face, she saw the tiredness and pain.
“You need some more rest,” she told him.
He laughed, the sound broken off into a gasp as if he’d jolted one or more of his wounds.
“Not just yet. I feel like I’ve missed a lot, being unconscious.” He let go of her hand and nodded to the table and the notebooks Hallie had been writing in. “Want to catch me up?”
Not dismissing her, Hallie realised. Nor even trying to put distance between them. But asking for something. Information that he wanted and needed to do his job. Well, she could do that.
“Absolutely.” She moved back to her chair and sat down again. “I was trying to remember the papers that were on that table. At least one of the strikes was aimed at it, so I’m guessing whatever was on there must have been important.”
“You’re sure about the strikes?” Girard asked, leaning forward slightly, eyes intent on her face.
“I am. I’ve gone over it a dozen times in my mind,” Hallie said, and gestured to her notes. “That’s from my perspective, though. The others might have different angles.”
“I trust your judgement,” Girard said. He was frowning now. “I wish I’d thought to film the table or at least take photographs of the pages.”