Chapter 17
Claire Harper was already at the table when the Range Rover pulled up. Emily could see her through the wrought-iron fence that bordered the patio, sitting beneath a canvas umbrella with two menus, a glass of water she hadn't touched, and a cappuccino she'd ordered for Emily. Watching the street.
She hadn't wanted to leave that bed. Hadn't wanted to leave him. That was new.
Jake pulled the Range Rover to the curb. The Saturday morning traffic on Howard Avenue was light, the sidewalks filling with couples and dogs and people who looked like they'd slept well. Emily had slept well. Four hours, maybe five, and she felt more rested than she had in months.
Jake leaned forward and looked through her window. Claire was pretending to study her menu, which meant she'd been watching the Range Rover since it turned the corner.
"She looks like she has questions," he said.
"She has all the questions. Every question that exists."
"Should I be worried?"
"You should be terrified." Emily unbuckled her seatbelt and turned to him.
He was wearing the same jeans and t-shirt from last night because they'd left the Salt Line separately and he hadn't gone home, and his hair was pushed back and he looked like the kind of morning she wanted every morning to be.
"She's going to interrogate me. You understand that. "
"I'd expect nothing less from your people."
Emily leaned across the console and kissed him.
Not quick. Not performative. A real kiss, the kind she'd spent two weeks being incapable of giving him in daylight, the kind that said I meant everything I said last night and I mean it now with the sun up and the world watching.
She felt his hand come to the back of her neck, holding her there for an extra second, and when she pulled back he was smiling.
"Go," he said. "Ranger's been alone since yesterday afternoon. He's going to eat my couch."
"Tell him I said hi."
"He likes you more than he likes me. I'm not giving him your regards. It'll make it worse."
Emily laughed. She opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk and the Florida sun hit her face. She closed the door and leaned down to the open window.
"Call me later?"
He smiled. The one that started slow and meant everything. But his eyes shifted, looking past Emily toward the patio, and Emily turned to see Claire watching them through the wrought-iron fence. Claire's lips moved. Two words.
Thank you.
Jake nodded.
Emily watched him pull away. Stood on the sidewalk watching the Range Rover until it turned the corner, aware that she was smiling and not caring.
When she turned toward the patio, Claire was staring at her.
Not at the menu. Not at her phone. At Emily.
Mouth slightly open, coffee forgotten, eyes doing the rapid calculation that Claire's eyes always did when she was assembling data into a conclusion.
Emily walked through the gate and Claire stood up and pulled her into a hug that lasted three full seconds longer than their usual greeting.
Then she pulled back and held Emily at arm's length and studied her face the way a doctor studies a patient who has made a miraculous recovery.
"Sit down," Claire said. "Sit down right now and tell me everything."
Emily sat. The patio was half-full, the morning warm enough for the umbrella but not punishing. The table was small and mosaic-tiled and the cappuccino Claire had ordered was waiting, hot.
"You're different," Claire said.
"I'm the same person I was yesterday."
"No, you're not. You're sitting differently. You're breathing differently." Claire leaned forward. "You're glowing. You are actually, physically glowing, and if you tell me it's the Florida sun I will throw this cappuccino at your head."
Emily picked up the cappuccino. Took a sip. Set it down. And realized she had no idea where to start because the last eighteen hours contained more living than the last three years combined.
"I told him I love him," she said.
Claire's hand stopped halfway to her water glass.
"I'm sorry. You — what?"
"I told him I love him. Last night. I said the words out loud, to his face, and meant them."
Claire sat back in her chair. She didn’t speak for four full seconds, which was an eternity in Claire Harper time. Then her eyes filled and she pressed her fingers against her lips and made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
"Emily."
"I know."
"Emily Catherine Callahan."
"I know."
"You have never — in the entire time I have known you — you have never said those words to anyone.
You told Brad Henderson you 'cared about him deeply' after two years of dating.
You told Rob Webb you 'valued what you'd built together.
' You once described a man you'd been seeing for eight months as 'a meaningful presence. '"
"I remember."
"And you told Jake Walsh you love him. After two weeks."
"After two weeks."
Claire picked up her water. Put it down. Picked up her napkin. Put it down. She was cycling through objects the way she did when her mind was moving faster than her body could process.
"Tell me how it happened. Don't skip anything. Don't summarize. Don't give me the legal brief version."
Emily told her.
Not everything. Not the physical details that belonged to her and Jake and the darkness of her bedroom. But she started with Marchand, and what she hadn't said in the conference room when they'd both been too professional to fall apart.
"You saw what happened," Emily said. "But you didn't see his face in the hallway after.
You didn't see what it cost him to walk out of that room without saying what Marchand deserved to hear.
" She turned her cup. "Three agents looked at Jake like he was a piece of equipment they wanted to requisition.
And Marchand offered him up like he was doing them a favor. "
Claire's mouth pressed into a line. "I hate him."
"Marchand?"
"Deeply and immediately, yes."
Emily told her about the Salt Line. Leaving out the specifics, the location, Rick Weever, the details that belonged to Jake's world and weren't hers to share.
But she told Claire that Jake had gone somewhere he felt safe.
That she'd found him. That he'd been sitting with his back to a door, which hit her in a way she couldn't fully explain but which had frightened her in a way she couldn't put into words.
"He told me about the people he lost," Emily said. "Overseas. The ones he carries."
Claire went still. Not performing stillness. Actually silent, the way people get when they understand they're on sacred ground.
"He'd never told anyone. Not the specifics. Not the names." Emily turned her cup in circles on the saucer. "He told me, and I sat there and listened, and I didn't try to fix it or contextualize it or turn it into a problem I could solve. I sat with him."
"That's all he needed."
"That's all anyone needs. I didn't know that before." She looked at Claire. "Jake taught me that."
The waiter came. They ordered without looking at the menus because Claire always got the avocado toast and Emily always got the eggs benedict and some things in the world were predictable even when everything else had changed.
"So," Claire said when the waiter left. "The Salt Line. Then what."
"Then I asked him to come home with me."
Claire's eyebrows rose a fraction. "You asked him."
"I asked him. I said I wasn't asking for anything, but I was done pretending I didn't want everything. And he came home with me."
"Emily Callahan said that. Those words. Out loud."
"I did."
Claire pressed both palms flat on the table. "Okay. Back up. You said you found him. Where was he? You said you couldn't share the details, but I need to understand this because I'm trying to picture you — you, Emily — hunting down a man."
"He was at a bar. Not The Anchor. Another place, for operators."
"And you found it how?"
"I went to The Anchor first. Found a man named Rick who knew where Jake would go." Emily took a sip of her coffee. "Rick gave me the location, but he made me promise to tell them I'd threatened it out of him. Couldn't have his reputation ruined by being helpful."
Claire almost smiled. "Then what."
"Then I drove to Clearwater and walked into a bar full of men who looked like they could end a conversation with a look, and a woman at the door asked me if I was Jake's girl. And I said yes."
Claire stared at her. The waiter approached, saw Claire's face, and redirected to another table.
"You drove across the bay." Claire set her water down. "To a town you don't know. Walked into a building full of special operations veterans. And told a stranger you were Jake Walsh's girl."
"Yes."
"Emily." Claire's voice had changed. The teasing was gone. The excitement was gone. What was left was deeper, rawer, the same expression she'd worn on the steps when she'd said you're gone. "You've never done anything like that in your life."
"I know."
"You don't chase. You don't cross town for anyone. You barely cross the hall."
"I know, Claire."
"This isn't a fling." It wasn't a question. Claire said it like a doctor reading a diagnosis off a chart, certain and final. "This is real. This is the most real thing I've ever watched happen to you."
"It's the most real thing that's ever happened to me."
Claire's eyes were bright. She blinked twice, fast, and reached across the table and squeezed Emily's hand once, hard. Then she let go and sat back and Emily watched her best friend rearrange her face into composure that didn't quite hold.
"Okay," Claire said. "So you brought him home."
"I brought him home."
"And?"
Emily looked at her cup. At the patio. At the couple two tables over sharing a plate of fruit and not touching each other, and she felt a pity she had no right to for anyone who hadn't experienced what she'd experienced last night.
"And," Emily said.
Claire waited.
"He carried me down the hallway."
"He picked you up."