The derision in her tone had him chuckling. Eve rolled off and stretched.
“Anyway, it was pretty much connect the big, pulsing red dots, so I put Peabody on as primary. After she started breathing again, she did fine. Sweepers were already sucking up evidence, but she takes this jerk in the kitchen, sits down with him all sympathetic-used all that family business she knows so well. Had him babbling out a confession in about ten minutes. Got him on Man Two.”
“Good for her.”
“It’ll help build her confidence.” She stretched again. “We could use a few more walks in the meadow like that one after the summer we put in.”
“You might take a few days off. We could walk in a real meadow.”
“Give me a couple of weeks with her. I want to make sure she finds her feet before I let her solo.”
“That’s a date, then. Oh, your… enthusiastic welcome, while much appreciated, drove this right out of my mind.” He got out of bed, calling for the lights at ten percent.
In their subtle glow, she could watch him step off the wide platform where the bed stood, move toward the small bag he’d taken with him. Watching him move, graceful as some lean, elegant cat, gave her such pleasure.
Was that kind of grace innate, she wondered, or had he learned it dodging cops and picking pockets as a child on the streets of Dublin? However it had come to him, it had served him well, as that clever boy, and as the clever man who’d built an empire out of guts and guile and a wily kind of genius.
When he turned, and she saw his face in that shadowed light, it blew straight through her. The staggering love, the breathless wonder that he should be hers-that anything so beautiful should be hers.
He looked like a work of art, one carved by some brilliant sorcerer. The keen bones of his face, the generous mouth that was sensual magic. Those eyes, that wild Celtic blue, that could still make her throat ache when they looked at her. And that miraculous canvas was framed by black silk that swept nearly to his shoulders, and continually made her fingers itch to touch it.