The Girl Next Door (Shadow Agents #6)(49)
Author: Cynthia Eden

Cooper suspected that Dylan was too worried about Rachel to let her out of his sight.

The little matter of a life-or-death situation could sure change a man’s perspective.

It had certainly changed his.

Gabrielle climbed from the bed. She picked up the white box and handed it back to him.

Frowning, Cooper studied the box. He had no idea what Mercer could be giving to him. “About…our partnership,” Cooper began as he opened the box.

But then he fell silent.

A ring was inside the box.

Not just any ring. A ring with two diamonds, and a twisted band of gold.

“Cooper?”

“This…this was my grandmother’s ring.” The memory was there, in the back of his mind. His grandmother had visited him when he’d been a kid, maybe four or five, and he’d seen that ring. He’d played with it, tracing the diamonds and that braided twist while he’d sat in his grandmother’s lap. He’d never forgotten that ring.

Then his grandparents had died. His mother had died.

He’d never seen the ring again.

So what in the hell was Mercer doing with it?

“It wasn’t an enemy who took her.” Mercer’s words seemed to whisper through his mind. “Cancer did that. It came in an instant. It took her from me too soon. I blinked, and she was just—gone.”

His fingers closed around the ring. He saw the small note that had been folded and tucked in the bottom of the box.

Gabrielle was at his bedside, watching him silently.

I always want her at my side. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I want Gabrielle there.

He opened up that folded piece of paper. A brief note had been written there. Annalise would want you to give this to the woman you love.

That was all it said.

But then, those few words said everything.

“Cooper?”

He had to swallow twice in order to clear his throat. “I should…I should be on my knees for this.” He tried to climb out of the hospital bed.

Since he was still weak, he pretty much did fall to his knees.

Gabrielle grabbed him and staggered beneath his weight. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to…” He made it. His knees touched down. “Trying to ask you about our partnership. I told you, I want one…that lasts forever.” He lifted the ring toward her.

Her lips were parted. He waited for her to speak. Gabrielle always had plenty to say.

Only she wasn’t speaking at that moment.

And she was scaring him.

The man who’d never known fear was about to shake again.

“Gabrielle?” Cooper prompted.

She blinked. “Y-you were just shot.”

Cooper nodded.

“You’ve been unconscious for forty-eight hours.”

He didn’t know how long he’d been out. Cooper didn’t think it mattered.

“You wake up, and the first thing you do…” She swiped her hand over her cheek. Oh, wait, was she crying? He’d so messed up the proposal. “The first thing you do is ask me to marry you?”

Again, he nodded. “I love you.”

Her arms flew around his neck. “Forever,” she whispered in his ear.

He curled his arm around her. The IV jerked loose. So what? The pain means I’m alive—alive with the woman I love. “Forever,” he told her.

She kissed him.

He hoped that kiss meant yes.

Gabrielle slowly lifted her mouth from his. “I’ll take that new partnership.” She also took the ring. He helped slide it onto her ring finger. The diamonds gleamed.

A part of his past.

He looked into her eyes.

His future.

For a man who’d never looked beyond the next mission, life had sure changed. Because in that moment, when he gazed into Gabrielle’s eyes, Cooper saw every dream he’d ever had.

Love.

A family.

A real home.

Every single thing he wanted—it was right there.

He was going to grab tight to those dreams. No one—nothing—would ever take them away.

Cooper kissed Gabrielle once more, and he knew that he was tasting paradise.

Epilogue

“You can’t go in there!” Judith’s voice snapped. “Mercer is busy! He can’t be—”

His office door flew open.

Mercer leaned back in his seat and studied the man who’d just fought his way past Judith, Mercer’s determined assistant. Judith was currently glaring at Cooper Marshall.

Cooper was glaring at Mercer.

Ah, life was back to normal.

“It’s all right,” Mercer said as he waved Judith back. “I was planning to talk with him.”

Judith narrowed her eyes on Cooper. “You’ve made my list, Marshall.”

Cooper blinked at that. Surprise flashed briefly over his face.

“I won’t be forgetting this,” she added, then stalked away.

The door slammed behind her.

Mercer put his hands flat on the desk. “You’re looking better. For a while there, agent, I thought you weren’t as strong as I—”

“My mother had a brother,” Cooper cut through Mercer’s words. “She said that he was in the military. That he was a soldier who saved lives.”

Mercer’s fingers began to tap on the desk.

“She told me all kinds of stories about him when I was growing up. Stories that made me want to be like him. Hell, those stories are the reason I joined the service. I wanted to make a difference, just like he’d done.”

Mercer’s gaze swept over Cooper’s face. “You have.”

“My mother…she said her brother died.”

Mercer swallowed.

“But then…” Cooper looked out the window at the busy streets of D.C. “I died, too, didn’t I? I thought my ‘death’ was so I could help the EOD, but there was more to that, right? You were trying to cover my past, trying to protect me.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Your daughter has to be under constant guard because you don’t want your enemies getting to her. I figure all of those enemies would go after your nephew just as easily.”

Mercer’s fingers stopped tapping. “Yes, they would.”

Cooper nodded. “My mother…she sure loved her brother. At the end, she called for him.”

Mercer’s eyes burned.

“Just so you know,” Cooper murmured. “She wanted Ben. Her big brother, Benjamin.”

Benjamin Marshall. He’d been that man, in another life. Long before he’d become Bruce Mercer.

“I loved her,” Mercer’s words were rough with emotion.