by Meli Raine
More than I’ll ever be told.
I wrap my arms around Jane as we snuggle together in a lawn chair that isn’t designed for two people. She’s in my lap and we’re under a blanket, the close proximity awesome. Being able to relax like this is a novelty.
“I am so glad you didn’t get shot,” I tell Jane, keeping my voice low.
“No kidding,” she whispers back. “Thanks to you, Drew, and Mark, only Lindsay took a hit.”
“Because she sacrificed herself for the sake of the senator,” I reply, shaking my head slowly. Lindsay’s act is incomprehensible.
“We love our parents fiercely, even parents who aren’t ours by blood. Attachment is so strong. Never underestimate the parent-child bond.” She plays with my hand under the blanket. It’s a sweet, distracted move that makes me smile.
“Never underestimate our bond, either,” I tell her, pulling her to me for a kiss. Smoke from the fire tickles my nose as I inhale her scent, too, the weight of her in my lap centering me.
“I love you, Silas,” she says in a soft voice filled with hope.
“I love you, too.” The fire, the smoke, the orange glow, the men and women around the circle — it all feels primal. Intense. Away from cars and offices and phones and danger, we’re here. No situation ever gives us full closure. Life doesn’t wrap up in a neat little box like that.
But we get enough. It has to be enough.
Jane sinks into me. I hold onto her like it’s my job.
It is.
For the rest of our lives.
Epilogue
Jane
It’s election night, the first Tuesday in November. The polls closed three hours ago in California, but it’s over. They’re about to announce the winner. Two states are still too close to call.
And we’re not at Harry’s campaign headquarters.
We’re collected here at Alice’s ranch, my ranch now – Lindsay and Drew, Silas and me in our media room, watching my father – our father – oh, hell, Senator Harwell Bosworth – as he waits for the official call in the presidential election.
We are sure he’s about to lose.
Silas lives here with me now, and he’s playing the host. After making the rounds and handing Drew a fresh beer, he jolts, checking his phone.
“Text from Mom. Kelly’s science fair project went well,” he tells me, settling on the couch next to me, eyes on the television.
“She’s in first grade. Can’t believe they have science fair in first grade,” I tell him again. Last week we Facetimed with Kelly and Linda on our regular Sunday night chat. Kelly showed us her plants for the science fair with the overeager sweetness of a six year old with gaps as her baby teeth keep falling out.
“I’m just relieved she’s settling in.” He squeezes my hand, the gesture grateful and possessive at the same time. Our fingers still haven’t figured out how to interlace around my engagement ring. “And that’s thanks to you,” he says in an emotion-filled voice.
I smile back, but look away. I don’t like to talk about money. One of the first financial moves I made with Hedding Stuva was to create a trust for Kelly. She’ll never worry about college, and Linda will never have to worry about supporting her granddaughter.
Worry comes with dead moms. I should know.
Turns out it also comes with live fathers. Drew turns up the volume on the television, making us all look.
“With preliminary returns in, Michigan and Texas are officially called for Senator Harwell Bosworth,” the newscaster announces.
“WHAT?” Lindsay, Silas, and I shout, stunned.
“Yee haw,” Drew says, deadpan.
“How the hell did he take Texas?” Lindsay gasps. “His running mate really delivered, didn’t she?”
“Which means, ladies and gentleman, the Associated Press officially calls the election for Harwell Bosworth, the senior senator from –”
Lindsay changes the channel.
“NBC calls the election for Harwell Bos –”
“ABC officially names the winner as Harwell –”
“Staffers from Senator Harwell Bosworth’s campaign are preparing for his victory speech in –”
Drew gently takes the remote from her hand, mutes the television, and holds his beer aloft. The screen is covered with an electoral map of the United States, the same picture of Harry imposed over enough states, a red checkmark over his name, indicating victory.
Victory.
I am the daughter of the president-elect of the United States.
And I am sitting on my couch in Texas, eating pork rinds out of the bag.
“He got everything he wanted, didn’t he?” I comment as I watch the political pundits, mouths moving but no sound coming out, doing their blabber as they fill time before covering Harry’s speech from his headquarters.
“You mean he got everything Monica ever wanted.” The emphasis on her name twists Drew’s mouth into a distasteful sneer. Poor Joey, who had just started nosing around the edge of Drew’s foot in a gesture of trust, sprints out of the room, tail disappearing around a corner.
“She’ll never be first lady,” I say.
“If there’s a way to do it from the grave, she will,” Drew intones.
“Don’t even joke about it. If anyone can come back from the dead through sheer force of will, it’s Monica Bosworth,” Silas says soberly.
“That’s my mom,” Lindsay reminds them, her voice childlike and sad. Her hand floats up to her shoulder, where the bullet went through. Four surgeries later, she can use her arm. All the fragments are out. Physical therapy’s over. Lindsay’s body has healed.
Her psyche, though. That’s still full of bullet holes.
Like the rest of us.
“I’m sorry.” Drew is chastened. I do a double take because I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like this. “That was unkind of me.”
“Oh, I’m not saying it isn’t true,” Lindsay replies. “Just... can we not talk about her right now?”
Out of respect, we all go silent.
“Lily,” she whispers. “My mom. Your mom. Jenna. Tara. Mandy. Mark’s mom and stepdad. Drew’s parents. So many dead.”
“Lily’s not dead,” I remind her. “She’s been in a coma this whole time.”
Silas gives me a compassionate look. “More than a year in a coma? Jane, she might not be dead, but she’s never coming out of this the same.” He and Drew share a look I don’t like.
Not one bit.
“But Bee says Lily shows signs. Lots of them. The last month or so, she’s been moving more. Responding to stimuli.”
“Okay,” Silas says, patting my hand, knocking my diamond to the side of my finger as the ring rotates slightly. “Okay.”
An uncomfortable quiet fills the room. I know I’m the cause of it. Guilt grabbed my heart the day Lily was shot because someone thought she was me. Guilt is tenacious. Guilt doesn’t like to lose.
Like Harry.
“I can’t believe he won,” Drew says, shaking his head slowly. The election returns are tight, but once Texas was called for Harry – with a .5 percent lead – it was over. He clinched the electoral votes.
My father is about to be the president of the United States. I am not on that stage with him.
Thank God.
A good daughter would be up there, smiling and waving, giving a bland, happy grin that telegraphs legitimacy. If a candidate is surrounded by good, happy people, it’s transitive. By extension, he must be good. Happy. The kind of man who makes his wife and children smile.
Except Harry has no wife now.
And his children are here, in the one-time home of a sainted former vice president and Supreme Court justice of the United States, eating popcorn and pork rinds and drinking wine, watching his Pyrrhic victory.
Drew’s hand moves slowly to the new roundness of Lindsay’s belly, the early swell of the second trimester just starting to reveal itself. Harry tried to make her campaign for him, to help him get over the PR ni
ghtmare of Monica’s scandal and death.
Drew wouldn’t allow it.
Lindsay wouldn’t, either.
Marshall performed his magic, though. Made sure I wasn’t anywhere near the grieving widower, the man who wasn’t a fool. Wasn’t a cuck. Wasn’t so stupid as to miss the fact that his own wife was at the center of a drug-trafficking and political-blackmail conspiracy stretching back decades.
Oh, no.
Marshall and his colleagues did what one must do in cases like this. The one and only option. The protocol, if you will: paint the woman as mentally unstable.
What other approach could possibly work so well?
Making Monica look like a psychotic bitch wasn’t hard.
The tricky part was making sure Harry didn’t look weak. The American public will forgive their presidential candidates many, many sins, but weakness? No.
A man running for the highest office in the land can’t be whipped. Can’t be made a fool by a scheming witch who tricked him right under his nose. Harry’s opponent tried to paint him as the bad guy, but it backfired. He didn’t look weak.
And so the scandal that should have broken regarding Monica Bosworth was, instead, shaped.
Spun.
Managed into submission.
And the half truth, half lie that emerged was all about her deterioration. Her derangement. The sad slide into madness that Senator Harwell Bosworth had lovingly tried everything to prevent.
Even his own daughter took a bullet to protect him from her crazy mother. His own son-in-law, a decorated war hero, had to kill Monica to save his wife and father-in-law. That was the story they fed the press. Silas’s role was left out of it. Mark’s, too. Marshall helped craft the fake story. Better press.
It was a tragedy.
In every sense of the word.
“We can turn this off,” Silas says to me, his arm around the back of the couch where I’m snuggled into him. The comfort is key. I can watch it all from afar as long as he’s with me.
“No. It’s fine. Unless Lindsay wants it off.”
“Let’s torture ourselves a little more.” She smirks at the television. “I’m so, so relieved not to be on that stage.”
“How’d you avoid it?”
Drew gives me a sharp look. “How do you think? By saying no.”
“Harry’s not exactly used to that word.”
“He is now.”
“It wasn’t just Drew,” Lindsay says with a discreet cough. “I threatened him with everything. Telling the press I’m not his daughter.”
“How did that detail stay out of the media swarm?”
“We suppressed a lot of the evidence. But we can’t keep it quiet forever.”
“I don’t care if people know I’m not Harry’s daughter. That isn’t dangerous. But knowing I’m Galt’s daughter – and Mark’s half sister – that’s a very different landmine.”
“One I’ll walk you through safely,” Drew says with determination. “And Mark will, too. If you haven’t noticed, he’s a good guy.”
“When he’s not being impersonated by a bad guy,” Lindsay notes.
“Touché.”
“It’s weird. I suddenly have a brother. Two brothers! I’ve always been an only child,” she adds.
“Me, too,” I say.
“Me, too, now,” Silas says softly. I sigh against him, squeezing his knee in kinship. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a sister. I never had one. I look at Lindsay.
She’s the closest I’ll ever get.
The television screen changes, a podium lit on a stage, a sea of people with arms in the air, Bosworth/Ludame signs held aloft. Harry chose the governor of Texas as his running mate, a female fighter pilot and Annapolis graduate with nerves of steel. The choice helped bring more female voters his way, along with endorsements from veterans’ groups.
Alicia Ludame is a widow, too. Internet forums across the land are filled with people “shipping” the two. The idea of the president and the vice president marrying is a romantic relationship fairytale. Camelot come true.
We watch as they come on stage, her blue blazer and white skirt punctuated by a red scarf, Harry’s purple tie a bold statement. Drew unmutes the television, the crowd chanting Harry’s name.
Lindsay sighs. “Everything he ever wanted.”
All our phones go off at the same time, just slightly out of sync. Drew freezes, his hand on the remote steady but stalled. Within seconds, the room is nothing but rings and buzzes, like a disjointed, sinister New Year’s Eve celebration.
“Damn,” Drew mutters, grabbing his phone. I grab mine, the text message making my eyes fill with tears.
“My fellow Americans,” Harry begins. Silas quickly turns the sound off again.
I can’t believe the message on my phone. “It’s Lily,” I gasp, looking at Lindsay, whose face twists with sorrow.
“Oh, no! Did she – is she –”
“I can’t believe it,” Drew says, staring at his phone.
“What?” Lindsay begs. “My phone didn’t go off. What’s going on? Did she die? It’s been more than a year. She held on for so long in that coma, and –”
“No,” I tell her, joy rising in me, making my heart feel like a butterfly on a spring breeze. “No. It’s the opposite. Lily woke up.”
Silas catches my eye. We just stare at each other.
Lily woke up.
*~*
* * *
THE END... for Jane and Silas. But what about Lily? Get FALSE MEMORY, the first book in the new False series:
* * *
It all started with the bereavement flowers with my name on them.
Not the best way to wake up, right? I work in a flower shop. I know a funeral arrangement when I see one.
I know a killer when I see one, too. And one is standing in my hospital room right now, straight behind the man who saved my life.
I can’t tell anyone the truth, because that’s the fastest way to really die. So I do the next best thing. I “lose” my memory.
I fake my amnesia.
Pretending not to remember a brutal attempted murder has its perks. The killer is backing down, spending less time around me, loosening the noose.
The less I claim to recall, the more my rescuer, Duff, works to help me “remember.” I hate lying to him.
But he doesn’t understand that my memory is dangerous. To me. And to him.
Fooling everyone isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Except it’s starting to look like I’ve been fooling myself.
In more ways than one.
* * *
Join my mailing list at meliraine.com for more information on my next series!
Also by Meli Raine
Suggested Reading Order
* * *
The Breaking Away Series (Chase and Allie)
Finding Allie
Chasing Allie
Keeping Allie
* * *
The Coming Home Series (Mark and Carrie)
Return
Revenge
Reunion
* * *
The Harmless Series (Drew and Lindsay)
A Harmless Little Game
A Harmless Little Ruse
A Harmless Little Plan
* * *
The Shameless Series (Silas and Jane)
A Shameless Little Con
A Shameless Little Lie
A Shameless Little Bet
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Meli Raine writes romantic suspense with hot bikers, intense undercover DEA agents, bad boys turned good, and Special Ops heroes -- and the women who love them.
Meli rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.
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