“Then you should understand the feeling.” Giving her a supporting arm around the waist, they began to limp off. After a moment, Eve realized she was limping primarily because she’d lost a shoe. Hardly breaking stride, she stepped out of the other. Then she spotted lights up ahead.
“Cops?”
“I imagine. I ran into Nadine as she was stumbling along the path toward the main gate. He’d given her a pretty rough time, but she’d pulled it together enough to tell me which direction you’d gone off in.”
“I could probably have dealt with the bastard on my own,” Eve murmured, recovered enough to worry about it. “But you sure handled yourself, Roarke. You got a real knack for hand to hand.”
Neither of them mentioned how the knife had come to be planted in Morse’s throat.
She saw Feeney in the circle of light, near the camera, with a dozen other cops. He merely shook his head and signaled for the medteam. Nadine was already on a stretcher, pale as wax.
“Dallas.” She lifted a hand, let it fall. “I blew it.”
Eve leaned over as one of the medics dispensed with Roarke’s first aid on her arm and began his own. “He pumped you full of chemicals.”
“I blew it,” Nadine repeated, as the stretcher lifted toward a medunit. “Thanks for the rest of my life.”
“Yeah.” She turned away, sat heavily on the cushioned support in the triage area. “You got something for my eye?” she asked. “It’s throbbing bad.”
“Going to be black,” she was told cheerfully as an ice gel was laid over it.
“There’s good news. No hospitals,” she said, firm. The medic just clucked his tongue and began work on cleaning and closing her wounds.
“Sorry about the dress.” She smiled up at Roarke and fingered a tattered sleeve. “It didn’t hold up very well.” Getting to her feet, she brushed the fussing medic aside. “I’m going to need to go back and change, then go in to file my report.” She looked steadily into his eyes. “It’s too bad Morse rolled on his knife. The PA’s office would have loved to bring him to trial.” She held out a hand, then examined the raw knuckles of Roarke’s and shook her head. “Did you howl?”
“I beg your pardon?”
She chuckled, leaned on him as they headed out of the park. “All in all, it was a hell of a party.”
“Hmm. We’ll have others. But there’s one thing.”
“Hmm?” She flexed her fingers, relieved that they seemed to be back in full working order. The MTs knew their stuff.
“I want you to marry me.”
“Uh-huh. Well, we’ll—” She stopped, nearly stumbled, then gaped at him with her good eye. “You want what?”
“I want you to marry me.”
He had a bruise on his jaw, blood on his coat, and a gleam in his eye. She wondered if he’d lost his mind. “We’re standing here, beat to shit, walking away from a crime scene where either or both of us could have bought it, and you’re asking me to marry you?”
He tucked his arm around her waist again, nudged her forward. “Perfect timing.”