Final Stand

by Lisa Phillips

  “We’re all praying.” Dakota squeezed her shoulder.

  Victoria nodded, not speaking in case she just dissolved right here. Mark lay still, his chest moving in a low rise and fall she could barely make out. She reached out and laid a hand on his sternum just to feel it.

  He was alive.

  I love you.

  The tube down his throat. Machines tracking each beat of his heart so they’d know if it stopped. Long term problems that could come even if he woke up. Possible brain damage from the head injury.

  “He saved your life.”

  “Just like Josh did.” Victoria bit down on her molars to hold back what she wanted to say.

  Dakota sighed.

  “Am I really worth the two of them doing that?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Victoria moved her hand from his breastbone to his forearm, then entwined her fingers with his. She bowed her head and laid it on their hands. Her lips moved as she silently entreated the God that Mark served with his whole life—even when it had been infuriatingly frustrating to her—that He needed to fix this.

  They’d come so close to getting everything they’d ever wanted with each other. Life. Love. Now all that was in jeopardy. Even having gone this far with each other, they still weren’t at the finish line. Life kept moving it. Shifting it farther away with each step they took.

  When she could no longer sit hunched over at that angle, Victoria sat up. She had to blink to bring the room back into focus.

  For a while, she just stared at his face.

  Shouldn’t he have woken up? She’d been hoping he would if she came in here, and if she prayed.

  “He’ll wake up soon.”

  She didn’t need Dakota to try and convince her. “I’m praying as well.” That had to be enough. Maybe she shouldn’t be making it so God had to prove Himself to her. But it wasn’t like she had any power over Mark living, or…

  She swallowed against that lump again.

  “Well…good.” Dakota squeezed her shoulder again. As though physical touch was going to reassure her.

  Victoria didn’t want to know what it was like to live in a world where he didn’t exist. Where she desperately strove to keep his memory alive. Where she had to grieve him and the dreams she’d carried since childhood. Dreams of marriage. A life shared together, with him.

  Things she might have to watch die, right along with the man she loved.

  So good.

  So noble.

  He’d fought that fight for years, knowing he wasn’t the kind of man who could live any other life. She’d crossed so many lines, she didn’t even know what her limits were now. Case in point, she’d lied to everyone she cared about trying to bring in her ex-boyfriend. The man she didn’t want to admit to anyone that she’d gotten close to—a rebound after she’d thought she lost Mark for good.

  Victoria pushed out a long breath.

  “We should get you back to your room.”

  Victoria nodded, not wanting to argue. They were checking her out soon. Sending her home with her bruises and a bottle of pain killers—as though she were all better.

  As though she had anywhere to go.

  Jakeman’s wife had come by the previous day. They’d talked. Mostly Mary Anne had cried and Victoria had sat there awkwardly patting her hand over the fact her husband had almost been killed. He would pull through and was already sitting up in his own hospital bed.

  Mary Anne didn’t know who Mark was to Victoria. She didn’t know what Victoria might have to face.

  Mason was recovering as well, though given the knife damage, it would take longer than Jakeman’s bullet hole. And Josh was on the long road to recovery.

  Victoria had spoken to the sergeant on the phone earlier that morning to thank him for helping.

  Dakota pushed her back into her room. Victoria didn’t want to sit in bed staring blankly at the TV screen, not really watching it, pretending she was all right.

  She turned to Dakota, ignoring the pulling sensation in all the shattered places with every movement.

  Her friend frowned. “What?”

  “Call Haley. Go sit with Josh. I need to get out of here.” She knew then exactly what she wanted. “I need to see Bear.”

  Epilogue

  Last Chance County.

  Seven months later.

  Bear emerged from the water, dripping. The sun beat down overhead. His long hair lay flat, and he padded through the pool of his own deluge.

  Four feet away from their picnic blanket, he paused.

  Mark flinched. “Don’t do—”

  Bear shook, wringing his whole body like the spin cycle on high.

  Victoria held up both hands, curling her legs into her body so she was hidden behind her knees and hands. She still squealed as she got soaked, then started laughing.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  She turned to him as Bear trotted to his side and lay down with an old dog groan. “I was thinking I needed a way to cool off. It’s pretty hot out.”

  Mark’s gaze met hers. The smile encompassed his whole face, relaxing him in a way that was more frequent now and made him look like the young man she’d once known.

  Still, the past few months had been more about wrapping up their careers and figuring out what was next than talking about anything resembling a future that was about them. Victoria fought back the frustration daily, talking to God about it in her journal. Reading her Bible and finding solace in the pages.

  She was growing.

  Things were good. She should be happy.

  Still, there was something between them. She wondered if he felt it, too. “Okay?”

  He pointed to the lake, a distant expression on his face. “They’re at three minutes already.”

  “Shame.” She’d thought the sergeant’s team would set a town record this time.

  As if on cue, an explosion rocked the underwater. The spray spewed up into the sky. Folks gathered on the shore, clapping and cheering for the sergeant and his team.

  “This was a good distraction. A good idea, coming to watch them compete.” They’d done it. They breached the bunker.

  She glanced back at Mark. “Thanks—” She saw what he held, loose in his hand.

  A small velvet box.

  Closed, like he was still mulling it over.

  “This wasn’t about finding something to do while we wait to hear that Allyson has had her baby.”

  Mark shook his head. She spotted the scar above his ear.

  Haley was also pregnant, as was Talia. Both weren’t due for a few months, though. So they had time. All the wedding presents and shower presents had made it an expensive year, but also one where she’d enjoyed being in Seattle. Close to her friends. Minimal travel had been strange at first. Being close to her friends, fully a part of their lives, made the unfamiliar feeling worth it.

  Josh was making strides every day. He was already taking Neema on short walks, and in a few more months should be fully recovered from the spinal injury he’d sustained saving her life.

  “I knew it was big,” she said. “Coming back home this week.”

  “Coming here.”

  “To the watch party?”

  “You don’t remember.” He shook his head. “This was the place where I first saw you. Hacked up jeans you made into cut-off shorts. A raggedy white tank top. Long hair down your back. Bare feet.”

  “I sound like…” She laughed. “I don’t know what I sound like. I probably wouldn’t remember that girl if I saw her now.” She shook her head. “This is what you want to talk about?”

  “It’s perfect.” He scooted closer, shoving the cooler out from between them while Bear watched. “Who we are. All we’ve been through.” The skin around his eyes contracted. “I’ve always loved you.”

  Victoria leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Same.”

  Mark chuckled, his breath warm against her lips. “Marry me.”

  He shifted the box between them, and she
realized it was wider than it needed to be. When he opened it, she saw why.

  Set inside was a thin white gold band next to a ring set with a huge blue emerald. Beside them was a wide band, the same white gold color.

  “Say yes.”

  “Of course I’m going to say yes, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me for years.”

  “You don’t have to wait much longer.” He glanced to the side.

  Most of the crowd had cleared out, leaving three people standing to the side. Two men and a woman holding a bouquet. She also had a tote bag over her shoulder.

  “Reverend Hills.” Victoria blinked.

  “The president wanted to come.” Jakeman grinned. “I took great pleasure telling him ‘no’.”

  Mark chuckled. The reverend looked sideways at Jakeman like he was crazy.

  Mary Anne stuck one hand on her hip. “Well?”

  Mark turned to Victoria. “What do you say?”

  He held out his hand. She took it, and they stood. “Right now?”

  “Right where it all started.”

  Victoria touched his cheeks, pressing a kiss to his lips. When she leaned back, she said, “I’m not wearing cutoffs.”

  Mark laughed.

  “Good thing I’ve brought you a dress,” Mary Anne said. “And I rented that house back there.” She pointed back, over her shoulder. “So you can get ready.”

  Victoria turned back to Mark one last time before she took the first step toward the rest of her life. “Are you sure?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Since I met you, and every day since.”

  He kissed her that time.

  Half an hour later, with their friends as witnesses, Victoria Bramlyn married Mark Welvern on the sand at the lake where they first met.

  At the same moment, in a Seattle hospital, Tori Ellen Alvarez was born.

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  About the author

  A British ex-pat who grew up an hour outside of London, Lisa attended Calvary Chapel Bible College

  where she met her husband. He's from California, but nobody’s perfect. It wasn’t until her Bible College graduation that she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Since then she's discovered a penchant for high-stakes stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever after.

  Lisa can be found in Idaho wearing either flip-flops or cowgirl boots, depending on the season. She leads worship with her husband at their local church. Together they have two children and an all-black Airedale known as The Dark Lord Elevator.

  Lisa is the author of the bestselling Sanctuary (WITSEC town series), the Double Down series, and more than a dozen Love Inspired Suspense novels.

  Find out more at www.authorlisaphillips.com