He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, and it was a strange moment, for she didn't know why.
"Truce?" she asked, curling her hands around his wrists.
They stood there like that for a long moment. "Truce," Kincaid replied gruffly.
"Then let us finish cataloguing Major Winthrop's belongings, so we can send anything we think might be evidence on to the guild."
For while she might have accepted his apology, her heart still felt a little battered and bruised.
* * *
He'd apologized. They'd called a truce, but something hot gnawed at Kincaid's gut as they finally finished up, and sent Charlie back to Malloryn's while the Nighthawks dispersed.
Ava locked up the Emporium, her head bowed and her manner still quiet. He hated seeing her like this. She was guarding herself, and he knew he was to blame and-
"Penny for your thoughts?" he asked, knowing she'd recognize the phrase.
"No thoughts. I'm just tired."
"And hurt."
A flash of green glanced in his direction, and he realized he'd hit the nail on the head. Ava looked down. "I just keep thinking, where is this going?"
Hopefully someplace private, for the look in her eyes scared him. That look was asking questions, and doubting the answers. "Nothing's changed."
"I know," she whispered, and then looked up guiltily. "But I like you. I do."
"I like you too. Very much so."
And yet he felt like he'd said the wrong thing, for she looked down, nibbling on her bottom lip.
If they weren't standing in the middle of the street then he might have taken steps to chase away that doubt.
Kincaid looked around. Nobody was looking, but it didn't mean they wouldn't draw attention. Capturing her wrist, he drew her into an alley. "Ava." He clasped her hand. "What are you thinking?"
Ava looked up. "That I want you to kiss me."
Normally he wouldn't hesitate. But there was her recent heartbreak over Byrnes's marriage to consider, and her innocence. There were doubts inside him, doubts that grew the more he came to care for her. And maybe they needed to talk right now more than they needed to kiss. Because she was clearly hiding something, and hell, so was he. "Why?"
"Why? Perhaps because when you kiss me, it chases away all the doubts. Perhaps because we argued, and I'm not certain where we stand right now."
"Nothing's changed," he repeated. "But the question is, why me? What doubts? Do you think I don't feel them too? Jaysus, Ava, you decided you wanted to lose your virginity, and I was the first person you saw when you turned around. Do you think that doesn't play on my mind? There's a part of me that wonders if I'm being used to scratch an itch just because you're suddenly curious, or because the man you thought you loved married someone else."
Tell me why you want me. Me, damn you, and not just a man to kiss. Not just any man.
Ava sucked in a sharp breath. "That's not what this is."
"No?" he challenged. "Then what is it? You were in love with another man." He wasn't going to let her sidestep the question.
"In love?" she blurted. "I didn't even know what love meant!"
"And you do now?"
Ava's pretty rosebud mouth opened and shut, her eyes darting to and fro. And something inside him squeezed, a horrified, breathless feeling. No. No. It was safer to keep her at arm's length and guard his heart against her. Safer to say her heart belonged to another, and he would never get his chance at it.
Because then he would never lose it.
Then he could never break hers.
"I don't know," she whispered, as if the realization of what stood between them physically hurt her. "I wanted something that didn't exist, and now I'm staring back at it, and wondering what it all meant. Because my feelings for Byrnes... are very confusing right now."
"Confusing?"
"I don't know what I felt for him!" she suddenly cried. "Because if that was love, then what is this? For this feels... like something more. Like something else. This feels like you're dragging me to the edge of a cliff and asking me to trust you when you push me off it, and it feels like you're taking a blindfold off my eyes and pushing me out into a wondrous world I never even knew was there, and you're there at my side every step of the way, a port of call, my shelter in any storm. It's... a maelstrom of emotions I do not know how to process. It makes me feel both safe, and yet so, so uncertain." She tucked a curl behind her ear, looking at him earnestly. "It scares me. It really scares me, because I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way. And I keep telling myself to be careful, and not go any further along this path, because this ends when the case does."