“You always go right for deep water, don’t you?” He sighed. “I think you’ve figured it out anyway. El Salvador. I went down there like some kind of white knight, ready to shine my light on the truth. And then I saw what was happening . . .”

She said nothing, just kissed the curl of his shoulder.

“My folks had hidden so much from me. I thought I was prepared, but you can’t be. It’s blood and death and body parts being blown off. It’s dead kids in the street and boys with machine guns. I got captured . . .” His voice faded away; he cleared his throat and reinforced it. “I don’t know why they let me live, but they did. Lucky me. I tucked my tail between my legs and ran home.”

“You didn’t do anything to be ashamed of.”

“I ran like a coward. And I failed. So now you know it all, why I’m in Seattle.”

“Do you think it changes how I feel about you?”

It was a moment before he said, “We need to take this slow, Katie.”

“I know.” She rolled over, so that she was pressed against him. She tried to memorize everything about his face and how he looked first thing in the morning. She saw the shadow of a beard that had grown in their sleeping hours and thought: Already, changes.

He tucked the hair behind her ear. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She wanted to say simply, Then don’t, but this wasn’t a time for simple answers or pretense. Honesty mattered now. “I’ll take the risk of getting hurt if you will,” she said evenly.

A hint of a smile played at the edges of his mouth, but she didn’t see it in his eyes. In fact, he looked more than a little worried. “I knew you’d be dangerous.”

She didn’t understand. “Me? You must be joking. No one has ever thought I was dangerous.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

He didn’t answer; instead, he leaned forward just enough to kiss her. She closed her eyes, waiting for it. She wasn’t sure, but maybe, just before his lips touched hers, he said, “Because you’re the kind of girl a guy could fall in love with.”

He didn’t sound particularly happy as he said it.

________

Outside her front door, Kate paused. Only moments before she’d been flying high, reveling in the night spent in Johnny’s arms, but now she was back in the real world, where she’d just slept with a man her best friend had slept with first.

What would Tully say?

She opened the door and went inside. On this gray, rainy morning, the apartment was surprisingly quiet. She tossed her purse on the kitchen table and made herself a cup of tea.

“Where the hell have you been?”

She turned, flinched.