Chapter 40
Forty
The door to the bedroom creaked open as Jal added a few fresh strips of bacon to the pan. The meat sizzled and popped as she went to the fridge for eggs. She glanced over to see Ciaran tugging his arms into a sweatshirt as he crossed the living room.
His hair was damp from a shower and tousled like he had scrubbed his head with a towel. His eyes squinted against the light pouring in through the windows. She smiled and went to turn the bacon.
An arm came around her waist and drew her back against him as the other brushed her hair aside so he could access her neck. She sighed and placed her hand on top of his on her stomach. “Good morning,” she murmured, her body humming to life at his touch.
“I don’t know what is better to wake up to, you or the smell of a good fry up.” His breath tickled her ear.
She swatted his hand, and he released her with a hiss of pain. She gasped, realizing what she had done, spinning around to see him standing there clutching his injured hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s no bother, lass,” he said, though the look on his face said otherwise.
She reached into the cabinet over the sink and brought down a bottle of Ibuprofen and filled a glass with water. “Here.”
He took the glass with a grateful expression on his face and held out the other hand for her to shake a couple of pills into. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed them down.
“Do you want some ice?”
“I’ll do, thanks.” he replied with a shake of his head and took the fork from her to tend to the bacon, holding it awkwardly in his non-dominant hand.
Jal stood beside him and cracked eggs into a bowl, added a splash of milk and some pepper and scrambled them with quick flicks of her wrist. After a few moments, she plucked the fork away and added the bacon to the paper towel-lined plate.
She adjusted the burner and added the eggs to the pan. “Do you want to make some toast?”
He went to the cabinet she used as a pantry, and took down the loaf of bread, adding a couple of slices to the toaster.
For a few minutes, they circled around each other like it was a dance they had performed for years to finish everything and plate up.
There was an easy domesticity to it that made her heart do a little flutter, and warmth rise in her cheeks.
“Go and sit,” she told him as she picked up the plates and carried them to the table, then circled back for their drinks. Black coffee for him, matcha for her.
With her hands on the handles, she paused and looked over at him and watched him take a bite of eggs. Her heart fluttered again. Had it only been a few months since he’d barged into this apartment, and into her life?
Yet, here he was, sitting at her grandmother’s table, the only piece of furniture that she had from back home, and eating breakfast as if he had been doing it for years. It struck her then that she wouldn’t mind every morning being like this.
He glanced up and caught her looking. His mouth curved up, his eyes light as amber. “What is it?”
Her first impulse was usually to brush away that kind of question, but this time it didn’t come.
Instead, she picked up the cups. The food smelled incredible, and her stomach growled in anticipation, but her mind was focused on something else.
“I was just thinking that it feels like more than just a few months since you came into my life.
I hated you for breaking into my home and stealing from me—"
“I’ve apologized for that, numerous times,” Ciaran replied, his expression wary, though there was a hint of mischief in his eyes.
“Yes, you have,” she replied, her heart broke into a gallop as she crossed the room slowly, carefully, so she didn’t spill hot liquid on her hands.
Once the mugs were safely on the table, she pulled out a chair and sat on the very edge. “And I’ve realized that there is something else that you’ve managed to steal, something I didn’t think I could ever live without.”
Ciaran set his fork down. “And what is that?”
Jal reached out her hand, but just as Ciaran reached for it, her phone began to ring from where it was plugged in on the other side of the table. “Ignore it,” she said when Ciaran leaned toward it.
He picked it up and unplugged the cable. “It’s Takeda.”
Jal’s eyes widened. “What does he want?” she wondered as she took the phone and put the call on speaker. “Hello, Detective. What can I do for you?”
“Miss Morrow, I’m just calling to let you know that we’ve revoked Andy Paolinelli’s parole, and with the new charges, he is likely facing a very long additional sentence.”
Jal looked up at Ciaran as tears filled her eyes and spilled over. Ciaran swallowed hard, his own eyes red. It was his turn to reach for her hand, and when she took it, he squeezed it and beamed at her.
“Miss Morrow?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but she couldn’t get any words past the thickness in her throat.
Ciaran squeezed her hand again. “That’s wonderful news, Detective.”
Takeda made a startled noise. “Oh, Mr. Gray, you’re there as well.” he replied. “Good, then, that news should come as a relief to the both of you.”
“It does, sir, thank you.” Ciaran replied. When Takeda didn’t immediately speak, he gave Jal an inquisitive glance.
She swiped at the tears on her cheeks with the heel of her hand and cleared her throat. “Was there anything else?”
“We’ve decided to close the case we had opened on you as well. You were right that Mr. Paolinelli had made the allegation out of spite.”
The news should have had her jumping out of her chair with excitement, but there was something in Takeda’s voice that made her stomach twist.
Ciaran was also looking at the phone suspiciously as if he heard it, too.
“But?”
“I’m afraid, we can’t return the items recovered from your apartment unless you can prove the provenance." Takeda sighed. "If you were able to produce documentation, then we would be happy to return them to you. But without any proof, I’m afraid there isn’t anything that we can do.”
What little excitement she’d felt collapsed under a crushing avalanche of ice. The smell of bacon in the air was suddenly cloying and her empty stomach churned with nausea.
“So, he’s cost me everything, after all.”
“I’m very sorry, Miss Morrow.” Takeda responded, and he truly did sound sincere. “If there is anything more that I can do for you, please reach out.”
“Thank you, Detective,” Ciaran responded, though his tone implied that thanking him was the last thing he wanted to do. He punched the button to end the call.
Jal couldn’t move. She stared at the now-black screen of her phone, tears rolling unheeded down her face.
There was a creak of wood as Ciaran got out of his chair, and then his bandaged fingers were on her cheek, gently turning her head. His eyes were now at her level where he knelt in front of her. He cupped her cheek, her tears soaking into the bandage, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
“What am I going to do now?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. She didn’t have to tell him what that money meant. It wasn’t all of her savings, but what little remained wouldn’t last long.
He gave her a reassuring smile. “We will figure that out.” He replied, his thumb skimming over her cheekbone. “We have each had a time in our life where we have started over. Now, we have the opportunity to do that again. Together.”
She wiped at her cheeks and drew in a shaky breath. “You’re right.”
His eyes flashed and one corner of his mouth lifted.
She snorted. “Don’t let that go to your head, Ciaran Gray,” she warned, though her voice was light. “I gave myself a new name, but never really created a life around it, out of fear. But now?” She leaned her cheek into his hand. “Now, I can. With you.”
Ciaran leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. He was silent for a moment, then his head cocked slightly to the side. “Before Takeda called, you were about to tell me about something I stole from you.”
She felt her cheeks warm. “Now, there’s something else that I was wrong about,” she replied. “I see now that it isn’t actually something you’ve stolen from me, but something that I gave to you, that I give to you, freely.”
“And what’s that?” he asked, though the expression in his eyes said that he already knew.
She placed her hand on her chest, over the thing that now belonged to him. “My heart.”
He'd said something similar, right before they’d run into Andy. The flare of his eyes told her that he realized it, too. “Jal—"
She moved her hand, placing her fingers over his mouth. “Please, just let me say it.”
Ciaran’s lips twitched against her fingers.
Jal took her hand away and gripped her hands together in her lap. “For the last two years, I’ve been solely focused on survival. My friends did their best, knowing what I had gone through, but there was only so much they could do when I didn’t really want to help myself.”
She looked down when her eyes threatened to fill and pulled her sleeves down over her hands and fiddled with one cuff.
“But you came along and pulled me out of it, without even trying.” She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes.
“So many men would have run from me as fast as they could… and I wouldn’t have blamed them.
But not you.” A lone tear slid down her cheek and she brushed it away with a self-deprecating laugh.
Ciaran swallowed, a hint of redness returning to his eyes.
Her own throat grew tight in response, and she had to force herself to remain still when her body sought an outlet for her nervous energy by fidgeting or pacing. She dropped her eyes to her lap again. “I’m doing this all wrong.”
He brushed her hair back out of her face. “I think you’re doing just fine, lass.” He took both of her sweatshirt-shrouded hands in his. “And you don’t have to say the words for me to know how you feel.”
She squeezed his good hand. “But I need to say it,” she insisted, shifting forward in her seat.
“Ciaran, you saved me just by being there. Your patience, your generosity, they saved me. You promised me once that your arms would always be a place of safety, and there is nowhere else that I want to be.”
Ciaran’s eyes shone, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Will you just say it already?”
Jal laughed and cupped his face in her hands. “I love you, Ciaran.”
And though her vision was blurred by tears, she felt his answering smile under her fingers. “I love you, too.”