Chapter 19: No Promises, Almost

Nobody was in the hangar when we came in, because Hank had taken the crew to his sister's for the night and left the lights low.

I climbed the ladder first.

The loft was cold, and the rain had come back to tap on the roof.

Bruce came up behind me and stopped at the hatch with his coffee-stained jacket still on.

"Sit," I said.

"Gianna, you don't have to..."

"Sit down on the bunk, Donovan."

He sat.

I stood in front of him and held out my hands.

"You're always the one who does the dressing," I said. "Do it."

He took the roll of gauze from the shelf with fingers that were not quite steady.

He unwound the old bandage from my left hand slowly, and the air hit the pink new skin underneath.

He did not look away from it.

He bent his head and put his mouth against my palm, right in the middle, where the burn had healed whole.

My breath came out of me.

"That's not part of the dressing," I said.

"I know."

"Do it again."

He did.

He kissed the heel of my hand, then each healed knuckle, then the inside of my wrist, where my pulse was going hard.

"I was wrong about you," I said, low. "I thought the badge was the whole man."

"I thought you'd never look at me again."

"I'm looking."

I took the jacket off his shoulders and let it drop.

I pulled his shirt up over his head, and the scar under his ribs showed white in the lamplight, a long one I had never seen.

"What's that?"

"Ridge fire, three summers ago. A strut."

I laid my palm against it.

He shut his eyes.

"No promises," he said, with a ghost of a smile. "Your rule."

"I'm breaking the second half," I said. "Here's one. I'm not walking out on you again without a word."

His eyes opened.

They were dark and wet and very close.

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