He turned his hand over and closed his fingers around hers. Held on long enough for her to feel the warmth of his palm and the roughness of his skin and the steadiness that had always been the core of who he was. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “For telling me all of that.”
She studied his eyes, his solid jawline. Relief bubbled up inside her, escaping on an exhale. She smiled. “Can you forgive me?”
He ran the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “This is the first step.”
Her gaze fell to his lips. “Are you sure?”
His lips quirked. “Positive.”
Without thinking, she closed the distance between them and kissed the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything other than gratitude.
But then she didn’t pull back—not all the way. She stared at him, heart jumping around in her chest, and smiled at his startled expression. She took his scarred hand fully in hers and leaned in so her cheek was against his. “I might not be here today if it weren’t for you,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m the one who should say thank you.”
His breath was warm against the shell of her ear. “You already thanked me.”
“Life-saving 101—you can never express your gratitude enough.”
When she pulled back for real this time, she saw the smile he tried and failed to hide. “I’ll remember that,” he said, and then put the truck in drive and pulled back onto the road.
She picked up a section of the pencil and started drawing again. Not Blake this time. Not the landscape.
She drew Mack’s hand on the steering wheel—the scars, the tension in his tendons, the way his fingers wrapped the leather with a grip that was damaged but unwavering.
It was the best thing she’d drawn in months.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The landscape changed as they approached Missoula. Wilderness gave way to ranch fencing, then scattered houses, then the thickening sprawl of civilization.
Traffic appeared—other trucks, a school bus, a county plow scraping snow from the main road. The isolation that had kept them cocooned for the last eighteen hours fell away mile by mile, and with it, the fragile sense that they existed outside of time.
Reality was back. And it had teeth.
Mack talked her through what to expect. Claire would be at the field office. Other agents—DEA now, too, because the undercover operative’s death had escalated the case beyond the FBI’s original scope. The debrief would be recorded. They’d want her sketches of the men in the study, her written statement, and a detailed account of Blake’s phone call.
“They’ll ask you to repeat things,” he said. “Go over the same details multiple times from different angles. It’s not because they don’t believe you. It’s how they build a case. Stay with the facts. Don’t speculate, don’t fill in gaps, and don’t volunteer information they haven’t asked for. If you don’t know something, say so.”
She nodded, committing it to memory. “What about Blake? Should I tell them about the money? Those texts?”
“They’ll ask what you saw at the party, what he said on the phone, and whether you can confirm his identity as someone present at the meeting.” He paused. “They’ll also ask about your relationship with him. History, recent contact, and whether you’ve had any indication of criminal activity. So yes, tell them what you told me.”
The six-month secret. Now she had to tell the FBI.
“I’ll tell them everything,” she said.
He glanced at her, respect in his eyes. “You’re going to do well.”
It came out so simple. His voice was so certain. It steadied her more than any reassurance could have.
She looked down at the sketchbook in her lap. Flipped past the drawing of Mack’s hand to the sketches she’d done earlier—Blake, Vega, Guerrero, the enforcer with the neck tattoos. Clean, precise, professionally rendered. The kind of work that would hold up in court.
This was what she did. And for the first time since the party, her skill didn’t feel like a liability that had put a target on her back.
It felt like a weapon she’d chosen to pick up.
They entered the outskirts of Missoula. Strip malls and gas stations, the parking lot of a Walmart, a coffee shop with a line of cars at the drive-through. Normal life was happening while she rode toward the most abnormal thing she’d ever done.
Mack was scanning harder now. His posture had changed—subtle, the way a guitar string was tightened a quarter turn, but she’d learned to read him over the last eighteen hours. The tender man from the shoulder of the road was gone. The operative was fully in control.