Page 80 of Off the Grid
He didn’t know what to say—his throat was too clogged to speak. Instead, he brought his hand to her cheek and ran his thumb along her skin.
“Isn’t that crazy, Leo?” she whispered, uncertain.
“No,” he murmured back, a simple response, but it was the only one she needed to hear. All the doubt fled from her gaze, replaced with something so pure and so brilliant, he was sure he’d been ruined for all other eyes. None would measure up to those blue pools staring up at him, wide open for the first time, so deep he feared he’d drown within their depths. “I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”
And then he kissed her.
The second their lips touched, he knew his world would never be the same. It was as if every kiss he’d previously experienced had been in black and white, like Dorothy before she got to Oz, barren of the essence of what made life worth living. He’d shut himself off from the world for so long, he’d forgotten what he’d been missing. Here, now, with McKenzie, he was seeing in color. She reached up, he leaned down, and they met in the middle, colliding in perfect harmony, the most wonderful sort of chaos. He realized in that moment that he didn’t need to keep proving to the world that he was a hero, someone good, someone different from his father. One person’s faith, if it was the right person, was enough.
A gentle cough interrupted their kiss.
He ignored it.
The cough grew a little louder.
He didn’t want this moment to end.
“Alvarez!”
At the sound of the boss’s voice, Leo jumped about five feet in the air and probably lost about five years of his life in the process. He spun so fast he feared he might have whiplash. At the sight of Tommy standing along in the door with a phone in his hand and a wide grin across his lips, Leo deflated. Behind him, McKenzie snickered.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “I thought he was actually here.”
“I heard that,” the boss said, voice booming from the phone. “What exactly were you so worried I’d see?”
He gulped. “Nothing, sir.”
“Good. Get your ass down to the field office immediately. I’ve got Elizabeth Harper on the other line, biting my ear off about her daughter. Apparently, the doorman tipped her off, and she wants answers. I’d like to give them to her before she rips my balls off and feeds them to me on a silver fucking platter. Understand?”
That’s an image I really didn’t need put in my head.Leo glanced over his shoulder toward McKenzie, who pursed her lips to keep from laughing. “Understand, sir.”
“And drop Miss Harper off at the Four Seasons on Fifty-Seventh Street on your way downtown. Her mother bought her a hotel room for the night and told me to tell you to tell her that she’s sending a car tomorrow to bring her home to Greenwich because she doesn’t want her spending another day in that godforsaken hellhole of a city. Can’t say I disagree.”
Leo couldn’t help but grin as the smile vanished from McKenzie’s face and she muttered, “Good Lord.”
How do you like it?
“Will do, sir.”
The boss hung up.
Tommy shrugged with an apologetic expression and slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Crime-scene investigators are on their way. The coroner too. I’ll stay here to wait them out. The cops took the third guy to the local precinct for questioning.”
Leo’s gaze dropped to the floor and landed on the lumpy white sheet by the door that was splotched with a big red spot of blood. He knew there was a body beneath it, a body he’d shot, and a second one somewhere else. They’d need to take pictures and prints, eyewitness reports. McKenzie’s apartment was about to become a zoo, and he needed to get her out of there before that happened. He turned around to offer her a hand, noticing her cheeks had gone pale. Her eyes were pointed toward the ground. Leo grasped her limp fingers and pulled her to her feet, then gently guided her from the room. He tried to block the wall with his body as best he could, but the blood spatter was unmistakable. So was her shiver. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her close, wishing there were more he could do. But the second those men broke in, they’d ruined her home for her, her safe space. It would never be the same again.
He decided right then and there that her silence truly was the worst sound in the world, and this time was even worse than before. The absence haunted him as he led her down the hall, into the elevator, and out the front door. All he wanted to hear was her laugh. All he wanted to see was her smile.
“You know,” he said when he couldn’t take it anymore. They were in the car, easing from the curb. “Next time you want to see me, you can just ask. I’m flattered you keep finding these really over-the-top ways to get my attention—thrown in the back of a van, locked in a basement dungeon, broken ankle in a storm, second attempted kidnapping—but a simple phone call would suffice. I didn’t grow up like you did. I’m not that fancy.”
McKenzie turned toward him with a sly smile as her cheeks flushed with newfound life. “Now that you mention it, how exactly did you get my number?”
Shit.He stiffened. He’d forgotten that part.Play dumb.“What do you mean?”
“You called me?”
“Did I?”
She tossed a sidelong glance in his direction.
