“You’re okay?” Jordan’s throat felt scratchy and raw.
“I’m fine, my love,” Devon whispered. She kissed Jordan’s lips, her cheeks, and her lips again. “You saved me.”
“You…saved me…first.”
Devon shifted beneath her, setting her down gently. She disappeared but was back within moments. Or maybe it was longer. Jordan couldn’t tell anymore.
“I need to stop this bleeding.” Jordan felt a weight against her stomach, but she no longer felt any pain.
“Where’s your phone, love?”
Jordan gazed up at Devon. She hadn’t failed her. She hadn’t failed.
“Jordan? Baby, I need your phone.”
Jordan opened her mouth but nothing came out. She felt Devon search her pockets. She wanted to say something flirty, something ridiculous, but she was having trouble finding words.
“Baby, you have to stay with me.” Devon was pleading with her. Why was she pleading? Of course she would stay. Where else would she go?
She took in Devon’s face. Her perfect nose. Her delicate chin. Her stunning cheekbones. Her golden hair. Her sparkling blue eyes. No, not sparkling. Shining. With tears.
Don’t cry, my love. Don’t cry.
She was so, so tired. She had never felt so tired.
“Stay awake, baby. You have to stay awake.”
She so desperately wanted to sleep.
Just a little nap, just for a little while.
She heard Devon talking but couldn’t make sense of it. She wasn’t talking to Jordan.
Jordan heard church bells ringing off in the distance. She didn’t remember there being a church nearby. She wondered what kind of church it was. Maybe they would go there sometime.
She felt warm light touching her skin. She searched for its source. Outside the window, shafts of light were beginning to break through the stormy sky. Dawn was breaking. It had finally stopped snowing.
She closed her eyes.
Just for a little while.
Chapter Thirty-one
A crisp autumn sky hung high above the trees, the warm cerulean blue a stark contrast to the dirty snow and cold gray stones of Allegheny Cemetery. Devon pulled her coat lapels in a little tighter, fending off the chill.
At least three hundred people had shown up for the funeral. A sea of blue and black. Police officers from miles away had come, marching behind the procession, lining the road leading into the cemetery in a mournful salute to their fallen comrade.
The cemetery didn’t usually allow dogs, she’d been told, but they’d made an exception.
Max sat beside her, panting softly, still bandaged from his injuries. Jordan’s quick thinking had saved him. Devon still didn’t know how Jordan had had the presence of mind to wrap the coat around him. To come for her. To save her, too.
His leash was wrapped snugly in her hand, not that she needed it. Max wasn’t going anywhere.
Devon stood at the foot of the grave, gazing at the headstone.
I am so sorry. So sorry.
She knew it was not her fault, but that knowledge did little to assuage her regret. Or her heavy heart.
She felt a hand slide into the crook of her arm.
“Everything okay?” Jordan asked, a sad smile gracing her lips. She wore her dress blues, her jacket draped around her shoulders in deference to her heavily bandaged and tender abdomen.
The knife had damaged her spleen and nicked a kidney. The spleen had been removed and the kidney repaired, but the biggest issue had been the blood loss. The doctors had been amazed that she had survived, let alone crawled to the cabin and taken down Billy. They’d lost her twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
“Yeah,” Devon said. She shifted closer, allowing Jordan to lean some of her weight on her.
Devon’s grief was nothing compared to Jordan’s. Jordan hadn’t just lost her partner, but her closest friend. Lieutenant Henry Wayne had been a good man and a fine detective. Without him, she wouldn’t have met Jordan. She wouldn’t even be here. And for that, he’d lost his life.
“Stop that.”
“What?” Devon asked.
“Beating yourself up.” She could read Devon too well.
“I didn’t say anything,” she offered weakly.
“You were thinking it,” Jordan said. “This was his fault. Not mine. Not yours. Only his.”
Devon knew the he in question was not Henry. “I know.”
“Do you?” Jordan asked gently. There was a request in Jordan’s voice, a plea for Devon to accept the truth.
Devon searched her own heart, looking for the deep-seated shame and condemnation that had followed her for so long. She felt regret, and sadness. At the cabin, Billy had confirmed the terrible truth she had always feared. Except it wasn’t the truth. It was all a lie, with Billy at its center. The real truth, the one she had finally begun to understand because of Jordan, was that as much as she might blame herself for all those who had died in relation to her, they had not died because of her. They had died because of Billy. And that truth set her free.
The black pit of guilt no longer consumed her. The wolf was finally dead.
“I do,” she said with certainty. Jordan kissed her mouth lightly. She turned back to Henry’s gravestone, lost in her own thoughts.
Most of the mourners had already left. Captain Buchanan, Special Agent Coleman, and a few others lingered, engaged in hushed conversation.
Jordan sagged, no doubt exhausted by the toll the day was taking on her physically and emotionally.
“We should get you back,” Devon said, her concern growing.
“Not yet.”
Jordan shouldn’t have been out of the hospital, but she had refused to miss Henry’s funeral. Devon had promised the doctors she would return Jordan as soon as the funeral was over, but they had remained reluctant. Jordan’s mother had settled the matter.
“I don’t care if the president of the United States himself orders that she not leave this hospital, my daughter is not missing her partner’s funeral,” Abigail Salinger had insisted. The hospital’s chief of staff had actually shrunk back, stunned by the older woman’s vehemence. The man had finally relented.
Abigail had been called as Jordan’s next of kin. She had gotten on the first plane, arriving just as Jordan was being wheeled out of surgery. The captain had made their introductions, given Abigail a brief summary of events. Devon expected Jordan’s mother to be angry with her, to lash out at this stranger at the root of her daughter’s life-and-death struggle. Instead, Abigail had studied her for several moments. Then she’d hugged her.
In the days that followed, as Jordan began her slow road to recovery, Devon had barely left her bedside. Neither had Abigail. They’d had a lot of time to talk.
“It was a lovely service,” Abigail said, coming up beside Jordan and kissing her softly on the cheek before heading home.
“Henry would have liked it, I think,” Jordan said quietly. “He saved my life.”
Henry was the reason the police and ambulance were already on their way to the cabin before Devon had dialed 911. At five minutes past five a.m., when Henry had not yet arrived at the station, Detective Lawson had known something was wrong. Henry was never late. He’d called Henry but gotten no answer, so he drove to Henry’s house. He had found it unlocked and went inside. He immediately called the state police and raced to the cabin, bringing half the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and EMS with him. As they were stabilizing Jordan, Devon had demanded that Detective Lawson find Max. He had. He’d ridden with the shepherd in the second ambulance straight to the animal hospital.
Telling Jordan that Henry was dead had been the hardest conversation of Devon’s life. She had held Jordan as she wept.
“So, what did the captain say?” Devon asked.
“He said whenever I’m ready to come back, my job will be waiting for me.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“I think I do,” Jordan said. “Would that b
e okay with you?”
Devon felt her cheeks flush. It wasn’t about her or Jordan anymore. It was about the two of them, together. She cupped Jordan’s cheek. “I want whatever you want, my love.”
The smile Jordan gave her lit up Devon’s heart.
Detective Lawson approached. “You ladies ready to go?”
He had been a godsend. Devon liked the rookie detective, beyond the fact that he had saved Jordan’s life. She knew Jordan liked him, too. She said there was a little of Henry in Detective Lawson. Being around him seemed to make Henry’s loss a little easier to bear.
Jordan was quiet as they got into the car. She leaned her head on Devon’s shoulder. “At least he’s with Ella now.” She looked out at Henry’s grave. “Good-bye, my friend.”
Devon kissed Jordan’s head as the car pulled away. They had a long road ahead of them, but it was one Devon knew they would walk together.
Madison Montgomery was gone. She was Devon James, now and forever. And she wasn’t alone any longer.
About the Author
Robin Summers lives in Pittsburgh, PA, and works in public policy in Washington, DC. Her debut novel, After the Fall, is the winner of two 2012 Golden Crown Literary Society Awards, two 2011 Rainbow Awards for LGBT Fiction, and a 2011 Lesbian Fiction Readers Choice Award. Find her on facebook.com/RobinSummersWriting or visit her at robinsummerswriting.com.
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
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Amor and More: Love Everafter edited by Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman. Rediscover favorite couples as Bold Strokes Books authors reveal glimpses of life and love beyond the honeymoon in short stories featuring main characters from favorite BSB novels. (978-1-60282-963-3)
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