“Yeah?”

“Tel me why you real y had my wal et that day in Mississippi.”

Marc blushed, just as he had the first time I’d asked, and I was intrigued.

“Come on,” I begged, brushing his lips with a kiss as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Spit it out.”

He sighed, his face stil red. “I took your wal et because your shirt wouldn’t fit in my pocket.”

“What?”

“Promise you won’t laugh?” he asked, and I nodded. “That first day you were gone, I couldn’t think straight. All I could do was yel and hit things.”

I nodded again, thinking of poor Jace.

“Later, I found your shirt on the floor in the hal . I carried it with me al day because it smel ed like you. But when your dad put me in with the search party, I needed something smaller. I came in here, and your wal et was lying on the dresser.

So I took it.” He looked up at me, searching my face for scorn or amusement, but there was none to find.

“Because it smelled like me?” I asked.

“Yeah. I know it’s stupid, but…”

“Yeah, it is stupid,” I said. His eyes widened and his jaw tightened, disappointment fil ing his face. “Thank you for being stupid for me.” I stood on my toes to kiss him, and when I pulled away I met his eyes, preparing to eat my words.

“I love you, Marc. You’re a huge pain in my ass, but I love you.”

He smiled. “You said it.”

“I believe the proper response is ‘I love you, too.’”

He laughed, and shook me gently by the shoulders. “Yeah, but you already know that. And you said it.” He glanced around the empty room, then jumped up and ran into the hall, leaving me staring after him in wonder. “Where the hell is everybody?” he asked from somewhere to the left of my doorway. His footsteps came closer, and he passed by my room on his way to the other side of the house, searching for witnesses. “She finally says it, and there’s no one here to hear her.”

“I heard her,” Jace cal ed from Ethan’s room, where he was recovering.

“Ah-ha!” Marc jumped back in front of the door with a thud, and I shook with laughter. “There’s a witness. You can’t deny it now. You’re caught.”

“All right.” I couldn’t control my grin. “You got me. I’m caught.” So long as you don’t say the M word, I thought. But there was no reason to warn him. Five lonely years had taught him a lesson.

He swaggered toward me and kissed me again. It was a good kiss, the kind where, in the movies, the girl always raises her foot. I didn’t do that, of course, because I wasn’t stupid in love. Not yet anyway. But it was a damn fine kiss.

“So what are you going to do with me, now that you’ve caught me?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.

He grinned. “Put you to work.”

My jaw dropped. “That’s it?”

He nodded. “Come on, woman! Duty cal s.”

Yes, duty cal ed, and apparently it had my home number. For the first time in my life, I was answering to someone other than myself, and for the most part, the workaday world sucked. Fortunately, my new responsibility came with one awesome perk: al the ass I could kick.

What self-respecting girl could say no to that?