"Motherfucker," Pierce breathed. Yeah, I could see the appeal to a cop who'd worked so tirelessly to capture an arsehole like McLaren.
I returned my gaze to the sky, swung a little, and waited for his verdict. For the moment he said, 'let's go get it, then'. But it didn't come. Several minutes later and he hadn't said a word. I tipped my head down again, and this time found him watching my every move.
"Well?" I said, holding his intense gaze. "This is what you want, isn't it?"
"Is Rick in that book?" he asked, and I stopped swinging. "Are you?"
"Would it matter if we were?"
"Yes," he answered immediately, and my heart stopped.
He'd prosecute me. He'd do his job.
"This is what I do, Marie. This is my job." His remembered words cut like a knife. More now, than they did back then.
I stared at the ground for a long time, before he came to his knees and knelt before me. Less than a foot away. I could reach out and touch him, if I uncurled my fingers from around the ropes holding the swing aloft. I didn't. He was further away than he'd ever been.
Had he really been within touching distance at all?
"Marie," he said softly. "You don't have to do this."
And my heart kicked into life again.
"We can put you in the witness protection programme, hide you from any fallout McLaren may cause. We'll find a way. I'll find a way to keep you safe without the book."
"Why?" I asked, genuinely dumbfounded that he'd suggest this after everything he'd done to get it.
"Because I've just watched you lying immobile in a bed, unconscious for almost a whole day."
What?
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving his palm at the back of his neck and took a deep breath in. Opened his mouth. Closed it. And then opened it again.
"Ah, fuck," he muttered, then shot to his feet and began to pace.
I watched him, stunned at his behaviour. Surprised to find the Detective Pierce I knew so discombobulated.
"I've been fighting it," he said softly. For a moment I wasn't sure if he was talking to himself or me. "But whenever I take a step back to breathe all I see is you on the floor of your office, under your desk."
My eyebrows shot up and I took a quick glance around the backyard, trying to see who was listening in on this. I couldn't spot them, but that didn't mean they weren't there. I was about to point this out to Pierce, when he started talking again.
"Then a day, that felt like a year, sitting with Daisy by your side. Seeing how much she loves you. Seeing how strong she was being for you. Seeing how much like her mother she is. And I realised I'd made a fucking mistake. The biggest fucking mistake of my life."
I sucked in my bottom lip and just watched the man before me slowly unravel.
"I wish we could start over," he said, still pacing, still not looking me in the eyes. "There's so much I'd do differently. So much I'd tell you, make you see sooner. But what's done is done now. And I can't take it back. But I can stop it getting any worse."
He stopped pacing then and took a step towards me. I was still sitting on the swing, so he towered over me slightly, making me arch my back to look up at him.
"You're beautiful," he declared, and I wondered if he'd knocked his head in that crash. "But it's what you've shown me on the inside that's done it. You're beautiful inside and out. And I don't care whether you're in that ledger or why. But I do care if you get hurt. And that ledger obviously will do it, because you've guarded it with your life."
He sucked in a tortured breath and stood silently, obviously waiting for me to reply. His right hand tapped his thigh steadily, an impatient rhythm that let me know he was very keen to hear my answer.
I had no idea what to say. He'd laid it all out there. Bared himself quite unexpectedly and totally. It was all a little too much, truth be told.
But I wasn't bamboozled enough not realise what he was doing. Not to realise he was jeopardising his job for me. For us.
I stood up slowly from the swing and took one step closer to him. Tension hung on the air between us, but surprisingly it wasn't awkward. It was alive, like electricity. Pulsing, beating, constantly pulling, drawing me closer.
I couldn't deny it. I couldn't dissect it, make sense of it. But there was something about this man that drew me in. Set my blood pumping, my body tingling. He'd barely touched me. We'd not been remotely intimate. It made absolutely no sense.
But I wanted him.
And for a moment, I stood there and tried to work out why. Yes, he was good looking, in that bad boy goatee wearing, intense brown eyed way. But just as he'd said my beauty was on the inside, as well as the out, what attracted me to Ryan Pierce was on the inside too.
His morals, his code of ethics, his strength of character, his right-side-of-the-law style. That was the Ryan Pierce my heart leapt for. That was the man that made me want to reach across the space between us and test that electricity that hummed. To touch. To be more intimate. To push what existed between us to the limits, and then push some more.