“We worked with a translator and a driver. Together we made two trips into Iraq and four into Afghanistan. Me as foreign correspondent, Finn as a photojournalist.”

There was a long silence. “You were a war reporter?”

“I met Finn on my first day in Baghdad, and we hit it off right away. We had an ongoing argument about which was the better medium for telling a story—words or images. He said that I wrote about the truth whereas he showed it. Neither of us wanted to be embedded with the troops. We wanted to be free to tell the stories we wanted to tell. The ones other people weren’t telling.”

She sank down onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Ryan—”

“After a British journalist was killed, Finn decided he’d had enough. He said we’d ceased to see beauty in the world, only the bad and the ugly. Everything we saw was distorted and discolored by conflict. He wanted to take photographs that didn’t involve human suffering. I talked about this place all the time, and we were always making plans. I was going to run a sailing school, and he was going to use his photographic skills to raise awareness of the importance of marine conservation. On really bad days we decided we’d open a bar together and drink our way through the profits.” He stopped and heard the scrape of the chair on the floor as she rose to her feet.

A moment later a glass of water appeared by his hand.

He took a sip, embarrassed by how much his hand was shaking.

“We were about to fly home, but I wanted to do one more story, so we went with our translator and fixer to a local village. Finn was joking that he was going to sail my yacht while I did the work when our vehicle was hit.” Just for a moment he felt it again, the blinding flash and then the white and the lack of sound. “We were close to a military base. A helicopter pilot risked his life to get us out of there, but it was too late for Finn. He was killed instantly.”

Her hand reached across and covered his, slim warm fingers sliding between his.

“I’m sorry.”

“I was the one who was sorry. If it hadn’t been for me, we would have been on our way home. I was the one who pushed for one more story.” Even now, four years later, the knowledge left a bitter taste in his mouth and the gnawing agony of guilt. He reached into the file and pulled out a photograph. “This was one of his last photographs.”

She removed her hand from his and took the photograph. “It’s very powerful.” She stared at it for a long moment and then placed it carefully back in the box and closed the lid. “You were badly injured?”