His Love Was My Poison novel · Chapter 4 of 48
Chapter 4: Ten Minutes
I found Royce outside the tent, saying goodnight to his staff.
"I need one of your candles," I said.
His aide, a young captain with a clipboard, discreetly found somewhere else to be.
Royce stared at me.
Then something opened in his face that I hadn't seen in seven years.
"You remember," he said softly. "You still want to light it."
I let him think that.
It was easier than the truth.
He walked me to his quarters himself, a tan trailer at the edge of the command post.
A cardboard box sat on the steps.
Inside were twelve white pillar candles, packed in tissue paper.
He handed me one.
"Goodnight, Nora."
I didn't correct him this time.
I had more important things to do.
Our trailer was in the contractor lot, a long white box crammed with benches, laptops and spare parts.
Micah was already inside with the lights on and a pot of terrible coffee going.
"You have the face," he said.
"What face?"
"The face you had when you figured out the mercury reading was the solder and not the sample. Your eyebrows go up and your mouth goes flat. It's very sexy and very alarming."
I set the candle on the bench.
He stopped joking.
"Royce's," I said. "I need the wax and the wick. Separately."
"Tell me why while I glove up."
So I told him.
Five years of headaches the base doctors called stress, and the candle he asked me to light by our bed every night.
And the white lines on Royce's nails tonight.
Micah listened without interrupting, which for Micah was a medical event.
When I finished, he turned the candle over.
On the bottom was a small stamp pressed into the wax.
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