Broken City

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine

“How’s your arm?” I ask softly. “Do you think it’ll be alright?”

“It’ll be fine.”

Tom doesn’t look at me but pulls a grey and black camouflage shirt over the top of his tee shirt.

“Ryder said you’d been detailed on a special mission,” my voice is strained. “Something about taking the Lewis’s communications down.”

“Yes,” Tom continues to button his shirt.

“Ryder isn’t going with you?”

“No, Jamie and Robin will come—part of the way at least,” answers Tom pulling a bullet proof vest over his head, I move forwards to help him secure it in place and for a few seconds we stand together motionless.

“Your chances aren’t very good, are they Tom?” my voice is quiet.

He steps backwards and away from me.

“Not particularly,” his tone is disinterested.

He checks the magazine in one of the guns lined up on the chest of drawers and slides it into the holster at his waist, his movements quick and precise. For a second I watch his calmness and they capability of his hands as the fiddle with the intricacies of the weapons.

“Why you, Tom?” I arrest his arm as he moves to pick something from off the table. “You have Uncle Jep and the children all relying on you.”

Tom looks down at me and I see a sudden frown settle on his face.

“What are you doing in that get up?” he asks, eyeing my camouflage jumpsuit with disfavour.

“You heard, Val,” I blink at the anger in his voice. “Anyone with any experience is required to help.”

“Not you—so you can go and take that stuff off,” he replies coldly.

“Tom, I’ve got to—”

Tom closes the drawer he has opened with a sharp click and turns to face me, a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“I said go and take it off!”

“But, Tom—”

“For goodness sake, Deeta!” he exclaims impatiently. “Why do you insist on thwarting me, why do you think I volunteered for this mission—so that you could get your head blown off by some Lewis’s thug?” his hands encircle my arms, gripping me painfully. “I’m trying to protect you, Deeta, why are you making it so hard for me?”

The room is silent as I gaze up into his face, watching as the frustration and anger disappear to be replaced by another, very different emotion. How often Tom has looked at me just like this, but before I never guessed at the battle that was raging with in him. It is only now as I see the tautness in his frame and feel the struggle and hesitation of his fingers digging into my flesh that I recognize that he is fighting something in himself. Suddenly one hand comes up and I feel him brush the curls back from my face.

“You’re making it too hard on me, Deeta, far too hard—maybe that’s just an excuse—I don’t know. Maybe it’s just that I’m a little crazy with fever and the fear that, this time I won’t come back—fear that if I don’t my biggest regret will be that I never did this…”

Tom’s embrace is firm but it is a moment before he kisses me, as though even now, at this late stage he might draw back, but after a moment his head drops and his lips touch mine lightly, it is only when he is sure of my acceptance that his arms tighten and his kiss becomes more demanding. Tom is nothing if not thorough and, having waited such a long time, he seems in no mood to rush. I stir a little so that I can steal my arm around his neck and immediately his embrace slackens so that should I want to, I could pull away—I don’t want to.