And they had a point, if she were being honest. How long could she really maintain that one plus one just equaled one plus one and not grant that it was two?

But he’d been true to his word this past week, since the night he’d kissed her. Nothing had overtly changed. He hadn’t kissed her again, didn’t hold her hand, never made mention of that L-word again. His encoded letters continued to arrive day after day.

But the irony of that didn’t escape her either. This was his love for her. Respecting her needs. Letting her work through the fears she’d tried to deny were fears.

I dream of a thousand tomorrows, he’d written to her in last night’s letter. Each one a jewel to be cherished at your side.

She paused at Dot’s door and glanced in to catch her friend’s eye.

“Coming,” Dot sang out with a smile, her fingers not slowing on the typewriter keys. “Did Drake and Red make it today?”

“They did. Though they’ve not come up yet.”

Dot hit one last key with a flourish and then whipped the paper from the machine and tucked it into a basket. A moment later she’d grabbed her food and coat, too, and they continued down the hallway and to the stairs. Drake never took the lift up—he still seemed to think he had to use every possible moment to stretch himself, exercise, and strengthen.

And there he was on the stairs, talking to Montgomery, their Fighting Padre. Laughing with him. Margot’s feet slowed. Holmes caught sight of them and hurried to greet Dot, but Margot hung back so that Drake could finish his conversation.

How did he do it so easily? She leaned against the railing and let herself study him. The line of his spine, of his shoulders, the way he always kept his focus on the person with whom he was speaking. The smile that bade the other smile back. The questions that inevitably drew the truth out of them.

He’d taken to wearing his naval uniform again, making him look like he had the day he’d first stepped into her path and asked her if she had a name. “He cuts a fine figure,” one of the secretaries had said with an appreciative grin just the other day.

He’ll soon be going. That was what the uniform said to Margot. He was well again, sooner than the doctors had expected. Healed. They’d already granted him medical leave until after Christmas, but that was only six days away. He’d be sent back into the field after that. Back to Bilbao. Maybe even in time to help with the capture of the wolfram on the Erri Barro, if there were more delays—which seemed likely. He’d be leaving her.

And she’d miss him.