He'd been alone most of his adult life.
No, that simply wasn't true. You couldn't be part of such a big family and be called alone.
He'd been lonely most of his adult life.
He just hadn't realised it until he met her.
She had the most amazing black hair cut into a Chelsea. Her eyes were the darkest brown, so dark that at first glance she looked like she had no iris at all. Her skin was dark, so dark it reminded him of cocoa made from actual cocoa rather than from hot chocolate. And her laugh – god, her laugh was soft and throaty all at the same time.
He couldn't believe that she was real.
He couldn't believe that she loved him back.
Catching her as she jumped from a burning building was now a metaphor. Who had caught who had become a frequent discussion point.
It didn't matter, though. The snatched times they had together – infrequent that they were – had become so intense that they had moved on from the breathy, fresh-in-love feeling to deep-seated love so quickly it felt like they had always been together.
Neither had jobs that would be easy on the other person. She was a lawyer specialising in immigration human rights, a job that by now should be obsolete but was still an issue. He, of course, was International Rescue. They both received call-outs at odd hours.
Yet, they both wanted this to work. After all, it's not often you find such love, and his family all knew – Tracy's fall fast and they fall hard. He moved her to the island and taught her to fly so that she could still do her job. She grounded him with a reality he had never thought he would have – a family of his own.
They were in this for the long haul.
They were in this together.
