Although she was wearing her combat gear – tight black shirt, cargo pants, heavy boots. Everything but bandoliers.

‘So you’re going after all,’ she said. She didn’t sound particularly surprised about it, and I recognised the dangerously flat tone of her voice. ‘I’m not sure if you’re crazy or just in love.’

‘Not much difference right now, Eve. I take a couple of weeks, head up to Boston, stay close in case she needs me … and if she doesn’t, if all’s well and she doesn’t want to see me, I come home.’ I was trying really hard to avoid feeling like a stalker, because something inside me was hard-core bent on seeing her, even at a distance. I wanted her to have her freedom – she wanted it, and needed it. But I also just couldn’t shake the idea that letting trouble-magnet Claire go off across the country without backup was … a very bad idea. ‘I just need to make sure she’s okay.’

‘Me too,’ Eve said. She bit her lip, and somehow held back the tears I knew were lurking just under the surface. ‘At least you didn’t sneak off in the middle of the night without a word.’

‘She was trying to make it easier,’ I said. ‘It isn’t that she doesn’t love us. You know that.’

‘I know. Didn’t make it any better to wake up and find her gone, did it?’ She nailed me with a dark look, and I had to agree. The feeling came back to me: shock, abandonment, my stomach dropping toward the centre of the earth. Before I could deal with that, Eve hugged me, and I hugged her back. She felt as familiar and warm to me as the sister I’d lost so long ago now, and all of a sudden it dawned on me that for any number of reasons, I might not make it back to Morganville once I’d left. Accidents happened. They could happen anywhere. ‘You watch your back, Shane. I mean it.’ Her voice was muffled against my shoulder, and it sounded unsteady. ‘You come back to us or I swear, I’ll find you, dig up your stinky corpse and kick its ass until it freaking disintegrates.’

I patted her on the back and kissed her cheek. She smelt like flowers, but not the sweet and innocent kind … more like the night-blooming ones. ‘You watch Michael’s back and don’t worry about mine, tough girl. And damn sure watch your own.’

She sniffled a little, but the tears didn’t quite break free, and she compensated by giving me a hard shot to the shoulder as she stepped back. ‘Don’t I always? What are you going to do when you get there? If you get there, I mean, because knowing you, you’ll end up in a bar fight before you’re out of Texas.’