by Lindsey Hart
“Dallas?” She couldn’t really believe it was him. If a ghost had run at her, she wouldn’t have been more shocked. “What are you doing- out- out here?”
He stopped just short of where she stood, between two tall brick buildings. A dumpster stood off to the left, ten feet behind her. Traffic rushed by on the street, but it was too cold for foot traffic. They were alone, their breaths swirling above their heads. Dallas’ shoulders heaved. His breaths were rapid. He didn’t look around or behind him any longer. He stared at her, transfixed. Leena stared back, unable to believe her eyes.
“Leena…” Dallas’ frantic whisper reached her, his breath a puff of cloud in the air between them. “Please, don’t go. I won’t make it if you leave me. I’ve been so blind for so long. You never gave me a chance to finish. I was trying to say that I don’t know if someone like me can love you properly. I have no idea what love even means or if I can give you what you want and need. I’m afraid. I don’t even know how to get through the day most of the time. You’re the only thing in my life that has been constant. You’re the only thing I could give up music for.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
“I do mean it.” Dallas lunged forward and gripped her hands. “God, you’re out here in your bare feet. You’re shaking. Please, come back inside with me.”
“Because you can’t stand to be out here?”
“Because I don’t want anything to happen to you again. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about tonight. Please, give me one more chance.”
“I’ve given you endless chances!”
“I know. I know you have. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve an ounce of the kindness and compassion and love you’ve shown me.”
Leena shivered. Not because she was cold, but because Dallas pulled her into his arms. He was shaking, trembling as she was, but underneath his plaid shirt, he was warm. His hands closed over her back. Her face crushed into his chest and she let him hold her. She let him take her away, transport her to a world where she’d always dreamed of being swept off her feet, like the roles she sometimes played. Swept up and carried off into the sunset.
And like the knight in every hero story, Dallas scooped her up. He cradled her against him, hugged her tight to his chest. She breathed in and didn’t smell the staleness of rumpled clothes or sleepless nights. She just smelled Dallas. The man she loved more than anything on earth.
“Think we can still make it?” He said as he stalked across the street, back towards the theatre. “We might be late, but maybe we can put on some kind of ballet early or whatever.”
Leena looked up, up into the face of the man who had so completely changed her world. From the second, the very second, she’d seen him, she knew that, though she might never be his, he was always going to be hers.
“Minnie might kill you,” she hissed. Dallas reached the door. He managed to pull it open while balancing her in his arms. She hung on tight, wrapped her hands around the striated muscles of his neck, glorying in the warmth that seeped into her frigid hands.
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.” The door slammed closed behind them and Dallas set her back on her feet. He gripped her arms before he pulled her back to him. “If you’re willing.”
A breath escaped between parted lips. A hiss of an exhale. The silence in the hall where they’d just entered seemed to roar around them. Dallas blinked. Leena realized his lashes had little beads of moisture on the tips, probably from the crystalized fog of his breath earlier.
She could say no. Walk away and live an easier life. Find someone who would treat her well, always. She could walk out and just, for the first time in almost a decade and a half, expect the normal.
Dallas’ shoulders sagged in defeat. He blinked rapidly, sorrow welling in his eyes. It wasn’t just the beads of condensed breath that glistened in eyes that were no longer tired, but alive and burning.
“I’m always willing,” Leena whispered. “Always. You should know that by now.”
“You were going to walk away.”
She shrugged. “I was. I might have. Or I might have turned around and come back and just got on with it like I always have, hoping, hoping that you would come around. That this was just a setback. That we’d keep moving forward. That when I cooled down… literally… I would just walk back in here and keep fighting. I love you. I love you with all my heart and soul and all the music that is in me. That is never going to change. Never.”
Dallas blinked hard and silvery tears tracked down his cheeks. He stepped forward and cupped her face. Leena closed her eyes, leaning into the touch, craving more, feeling it all, savoring it all, the entire force of the world. When his lips met hers, the flames of lost years, of all the tremendous hope of the future, of everything, lost and gained and yet to come, burst over them.
When Dallas pulled away, Leena swayed on her feet. He wrapped his hands around her waist, supporting her until the world stopped spinning around her.
“Are we doing this then?”
“Dallas… I love you.” She reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from his face. “If you don’t want to do this, it’s alright. We have a stand-in. For both of us. I’m not going to be disappointed. I have everything I want, right here, right now. I’ve always had it. Always.”
“Then come. There’s still time. I want this. I want this with you. This is our story. I’m not going to let other people tell it.” He looked at her like a man completely captivated, like a man enchanted, like a man in love. She knew then, in that moment, that they were going to be alright. No matter how bad things got, they were going to make it through. Dallas would make it through and she’d be right there with him like she’d always been.
Leena extended her hand and Dallas’ calloused palm curled around hers. She laughed softly, happiness radiating from outside, from inside, from all around. She knew she was probably grinning like a fool and she didn’t mind one bit. “Alright. Let’s go.”
They’d spent nearly a decade making music together, but for the first time, it was really going to be their music. Their gift to the world. That play was the real start of them when she’d written the ending to it years ago. It was their new beginning. It was their heart, their soul, their love, their story. She couldn’t wait to tell it. She couldn’t wait to start their new masterpiece, the story of the rest of their lives.
The End
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LIST OF BOOKS
By Lindsey Hart
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Her Captor
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