Dark Heart
Page 29
They stood in silence for a while, Walker with an arm around Eve and holding her close. The proximity and the rising sun and the hot coffee pushed away the morning desert cold.
“What will you do now?” Eve asked.
“You mean what will we do?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Are you asking if I’m gonna get a job?”
“Can you really walk away from the only life you’ve known?” Eve looked up to him. “For good?”
Walker looked out at the shadows that lingered in the nooks and rocks, the remainders of night losing out to the slowly rising sun that snuffed them out with daggers of daylight.
“Yes,” he said. “I like to think so.”
“Do you think you’ll know so?”
Walker looked down at her. Eve’s eyes were bright.
“You’ve left that life behind before,” Eve said. “You’ve gone back. Again and again. You really think you can change? After all this?” Her eyes searched his for an answer, for reassurance, for certainty. “I miss the person I met. Before the Air Force, before the CIA, before all this mess that’s been twenty years of you, out there, fighting. I want you to fight for me, no one else. For us.”
“I’ll try.” He kissed her forehead. “I promise.”
“Jed. You’ve tried before.” She squeezed against him, tight, her head against his chest. “If we’re trying this—being and staying together—then you have to do. Okay? It’s decision time.”
“Then consider it decided.”
“Jed . . .”
“I swear, on everything I hold holy. I’m here. For you. For us. Nothing else.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” She looked up at him and smiled, then put her hands to her stomach. “So, I have news . . .”