Dillon gathered her in his arms and held her shivering body close. “Thanks to you, I’m all right.”
Cheek pressed against his chest, she bit her bottom lip. “You shot him.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head as if this was an unacceptable answer, an unthinkable answer. “I’m glad. A man is dead. I should feel sorry. I should feel guilty. But all I feel is relieved.”
“He would have killed us. He would have killed Amanda. You should feel relieved. I feel relieved, too.”
Drawing back from his arms, she tilted her head back and looked into his eyes. Some of the color had already returned to her cheeks. She nodded and blew a stream of air through pursed lips. “We’re safe now. Amanda’s finally safe.”
“Yes.” He lowered his head and brushed her cold lips with his. A kiss of gratitude. A kiss of promise. Promise for the future. “I have to call the police. Will you be all right here for a moment?”
She drew herself up and set that strong jaw of hers. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll just be a moment.” He moved to the white Lexus and opened the door. Using Fitz’s cell phone, he called 911. A quick rummage through the back seat produced a blanket and a pair of warm boots, required equipment for winter driving in Wisconsin. He gathered the blanket and boots and returned to Jacqueline’s side.
Once he’d replaced her soaked boots with the large insulated ones and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, he ushered her away from the blood. Away from the death.
He’d gotten everything he could have hoped for. Jacqueline’s life. Amanda’s life. His life. And a second chance at a future. And now it was up to him to make that chance count.
He motioned to a fallen tree on the edge of the forest. They sank onto the log. Jacqueline wrapped part of the blanket around him, and they huddled together under its warmth.
He took her hands in his. He had to make this good. He had to make her understand what was in his heart. Because his new shot at life, at a future, didn’t exist without her. “I’ve been a damned idiot.”
A little crease appeared between her eyebrows and she looked at him as if he was speaking another language.
“I’ve given up everything for justice. I’ve turned a blind eye to everything. And not just my own happiness. I’ve ignored how my obsession affects other people. Innocent people. Janey believed in helping people. She believed in family. She believed in love. In my crusade to avenge her death, I’ve gone against everything Janey believed in. Everything I believed in.”
Jacqueline raised a hand to his face and smoothed her fingers along his jaw. Her touch reached into him and moved his heart.
“You asked me once if Janey would want me to be happy and have a family, and she would. More than anything. It would be the best gift I could give her. And the best gift I could give myself.”
He swallowed into a dry throat. He had to make her believe. “When Swain had his gun on you, when I thought I was going to lose you—” His voice cracked with emotion. “I want to start living again, Jacqueline. I want to be happy. I want a family. I want you.”
She drew in a sharp breath. Tears hovered in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak.
He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t say anything. Let me finish.” He moved his finger from her mouth, trailing a caress over her strong jaw and down the silken column of her neck. “A lot has changed in the last twenty-four hours. I’ve changed. I can see things clearly now. More clearly than I’ve ever been able to in my life. And right now I’m looking at the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
She drew in a sharp breath and tilted her face up to his.
He looked into eyes bluer than God’s blue sky and deeper than his ocean. “I love you, Jacqueline. And I want us to be together—you, Amanda and me. I want us to be a family.”
A smile spread over her lips and dented one smooth cheek. “Are you finished?”
An answering smile blossomed on his face. “Yes, I’m finished.”
“Good. Because if I have to wait one more minute to tell you I love you, I’ll burst.”
A bolt of happiness shook him to the soles of his boots. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her the way she should be kissed. With his whole heart. With his whole soul. When he finally ended the kiss, it was only because he had a question he was burning to ask. A question he needed her to answer. “And will you marry me?”
She pursed her lips in a thoughtful pose. “That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On what a certain little girl has to say about a new daddy. But from all indications, she’s as crazy about you as her mom is.”
“So that’s a definite maybe, huh?”
She gave him a decisive nod. “A definite maybe.”
“You know I won’t stop until I get my way.”
She tossed him an amused smile. A beautiful smile full of hope and love and promise for the future. “Yeah, I noticed that about you.”
He was grinning like a jackass eating thistle, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He took her in his arms and drew her close. He couldn’t get enough of her, the feel of her softness in his arms, the scent of her vanilla fragrance, the sound of her soft breathing. His heart danced in his chest, and joy lifted his soul.
He’d finally set things right.
Epilogue
Jacqueline looked around the small crowd gathered in the main dining room of the Schettler Brew Pub. People chatted, glasses of honey Maibock and champagne dangling from their fingers. White roses and lilies topped nearby tables and cascaded from the corners of the oak bar. The lace and chiffon of her wedding dress rustled deliciously with her every movement. Everything was perfect. Just perfect.
Except that just when she needed Dillon, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Mom?”
Amanda peered up at her under the tattered remnants of what used to be a beautiful wreath of freesia in her hair, her cheeks pink with excitement.
“Hi, punkin. What have you been up to?”
“Playing. Dillon gave me some quarters for the pinball machine downstairs.”
Jacqueline almost shook her head. Dillon was a painfully easy mark for Amanda. He couldn’t say no to her daughter if his life depended on it. Of course, his fun-loving indulgences had helped replace Amanda’s bad memories of the brew pub with new happy ones, and she couldn’t argue with that. Her little girl was back and blossoming like never before. “Where is Dillon now, sweetheart?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Listen, Mom, Dedective Mylinski wants to give me some candy.”
Jacqueline frowned. That darned “dedective” and his sweet tooth. “Does he, now?”
“Yes. But he wanted me to ask you first. Can I have some?”
“May I,” she corrected, trying to look stern.
“May I?”
“One piece. We’re going to have cake soon, too, punkin.”
“Cake? All right!” Amanda exclaimed as she scampered away.
Jacqueline couldn’t help but smile. By the time her daughter finished her candy and cake, she’d be bouncing off the walls with sugar energy. Jacqueline would probably have to tie her down.
Oh well, let her have her fun. After all, it wasn’t every day a little girl got a brand-new daddy. And her mommy married the man she loved. Jacqueline felt like bouncing off the walls herself.
Instead she let the smile spread over her face until she was beaming like the sun on a cloudless day, and scanned the room again for Dillon.
It wasn’t like him to disappear when she needed him. He’d been there for her every day since Mark’s death. He’d helped her move on. The past two months had been hard, but she’d gotten through them. Dillon, Amanda and she had gotten through them. Together. She pushed thoughts of the past from her mind. She wouldn’t dwell on those memories any longer. She had a wonderful new life to live.
And a husband to locate.
She moved through the crowd, dodging Kit A
shner’s animated conversation with Dale Kearney and Dex Harrington and the statuesque Britt Alcott’s private tête-à-tête with her husband, Jack—all people Jacqueline had grown to know and like over the past months.
Jacqueline couldn’t help noticing the slight bulge of Britt’s tummy under her simple yet elegant ice-blue sheath. She remembered Britt’s gentle enthusiasm when dealing with Amanda. She would make a wonderful mother. And judging by the way Jack fussed over his wife, he would be a loving father, as well.
She moved past the crowd and to the window overlooking the beer garden. Below, bridal wreath bushes drooped under the weight of their frothy white flowers and cheery yellow daffodils turned their colorful faces to the sky. The stirring excitement of spring permeated the air.
Finally the long winter had ended and spring had come. And finally she was married to the man she loved. She twirled the wedding ring on her finger and smiled.
A door opened below and Dillon stepped out onto the cobblestones, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his tuxedo. At the sight of him, Jacqueline’s heart swelled to near bursting. She turned from the window and scampered down the stairs to the garden below.
Once outside, she walked up behind him and curved her arms around his waist, hugging his warmth to her. “I need you, cowboy.”
He folded his arms over hers. “I need you, too. To make me happy for the rest of my life.”
“I need you for more than that.”
He turned around to face her and read the serious look on her face. His dark brows slashed over his eyes. “Anything you need, I’ll give it to you. You know that.”
“Good. Then you can’t refuse. This is very hard for me to say, but—” She couldn’t stifle the teasing smile that spread over her lips. “I need you to come inside and cut our wedding cake.”
He smiled. “I don’t know. That may be a little much to ask.”
She slapped him playfully in the arm with an open palm.
He grabbed her and encircled her in his arms. “I wish Janey could have met you. And Amanda. She would have loved the two of you. Almost as much as I do.”
“And we would have loved her.”
“Yes.”
She laid her cheek against the lapel of his tux. Safe. Secure. She had everything she wanted. Everything she needed. A smile spread over her lips. Warmth radiated through her soul.
And for that—the smile, the warmth, the love—she had her cowboy to thank.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-0321-4
HIS WITNESS, HER CHILD
Copyright © 2001 by Ann Voss Peterson
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