“If you would stay away, I wouldn’t have to scare her. I wouldn’t have had to sneak in to leave that message on the mirror when that idiot house cleaner was cleaning. She should be glad I didn’t kill her for leaving the front door open. That man the one who stalked her could have gotten in to hurt her.” Nancy’s voice shook with anger.
“But he didn’t get in.”
“No but you did. You just won’t take the hint.”
“Let Kiloran go.”
“No! No! No! You ruin everything.” Nancy stomped her foot and shook her head but the blade never left Kiloran’s neck “You were supposed to be in that car, not her. She was supposed to be stung, not me. She was supposed to be safe in the ambulance while you went over the cliff just like Mel. You screwed it all up. Then she would have turned to me, just like before. I would have taken care of her. She was going to leave me to go to at house in Canada but she would have been heartbroken and would have needed me. She needs me—me, not you.”
Lucas heard footsteps coming toward them and didn’t bother to look at who it was. “Stay back, this doesn’t concern you,” he said in a voice that he hoped conveyed go get help, moron. He managed to take two steps closer while Nancy’s attention was focused on the interloper. “Then why hurt her? Hurt me.”
“But you won’t die. I keep trying and you won’t die. Why—won’t—you—die??”
Kiloran placed a hand carefully on Nancy’s. “Nancy, please. Just put down the scissors and I’ll go anywhere in the world with you, just you and me.”
“You’re lying. You’re just trying to trick me!”
“Why would I lie? They have a man in custody they think is responsible for everything. If I help you kill Lucas, maybe he’ll die this time. But you have to trust me to help you.”
“You were leaving me. You were going to that secret house of yours in the middle of nowhere. The one you thought no one knew about. I overheard you saying after this movie you were leaving Hollywood behind.”
“I could never leave you. I was just scared. I was afraid everyone around me would be hurt, that includes you. Now I’m safe, so we can be together without me being worried about you.”
Kiloran closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, a different woman stood there. Just like any number of characters Lucas had watched her create. “Look me in the eyes, my love.” Kiloran’s voice was soft and seductive as she turned her head to better look at her captor. The blade now lay limp against her shoulder.
“Do you mean it? Really mean it?”
“Yes, my love. Kiss me.” Kiloran lifted her face to Nancy’s and Lucas waited. It took but a second for Nancy to lower her guard and sweep Kiloran into her arms. The scissors dropped and Lucas leaped into action, closing the distance at sprint. Even as he moved, Nancy wrapped her hands around Kiloran’s throat and squeeze. Lunging, he grabbed Nancy around the torso, knocking her to the wet ground. Nancy was like a woman possessed; scratching and biting, she did anything and everything to draw blood. Wrapping his leg around her thighs, Lucas pinned Nancy to the ground, his hand around her neck. Only then did she stop.
“Lucas, no!” Kiloran cried. “Please stop, I can’t lose you again. Let her breathe.”
Lucas looked up at Kiloran and relaxed his grip, but didn’t let go. “I won’t let her hurt you again. I don’t care if that means I am arrested for killing her.”
“She can only hurt me if you go to jail for murder.”
Three of the set crew came around the corner. Lucky for them, one was a rigger who managed to create an effective hog tie to keep Nancy from moving until the authorities could get there. Armed with a Taser from one of the security guards, Lucas didn’t take his eyes off her. He hoped she would get loose—the thought of Tasing her actually eased the part of him that demanded revenge. But the fight seemed to have left Nancy as she slumped on the ground, crying.
Only when he saw Nancy handcuffed and placed into the cop car, did Lucas turn to Kiloran. He pushed through the crowd to get to her, pulling her into his arms. And suddenly all the pieces fit that nagging feeling that he just couldn’t figure it out. Nancy’s shock at see him that first day hadn’t been surprise they were back together but that he had been alive. She thought somehow she had killed him. “I love you, Kiloran. That’s all there is to it. I love you.”
Tears filled her sapphire eyes, as disbelief turned to hope and finally to joy. In a whisper barely audible over the noise around them she said, “I have never stopped loving you, never stopped praying things would be different. The only thing I have ever wanted was a second chance with you.”
“I think we both deserve another shot, but first I need to get you out of here.” He pulled her through the crowd and found the director. “She isn’t staying. I don’t care what you think.”
“She isn’t any good to me now,” said Daniel. “She has a busted lip, bruised face, and her hair is a mess. We’ll rework things here, do her scenes in LA next month when we get back. We’ll rewrite what we have to.” Then his voice softened and grabbed her hand. “Take some time and heal.”
Kiloran nodded and let Lucas push her toward the car. A stagehand stopped them and handed her a black pocketbook and a handful of pictures. “Sorry, but I figured you might need your purse. I also found these photos when I accidentally knocked over the trashcan in your dressing room.” He gave her a gentle smile then moved off.
Lucas recognized the slightly damaged photos from her mirror. Facing her, he reached for the photos. “Did you or Nancy throw them out?”
“I’d lost hope.” Unable to meet his look, Kiloran turned away, but Lucas needed her to look at him. He was done hiding. They needed to talk this out face-to-face, eye to eye. Placing a finger under her chin, he encouraged her to look at him.
When she remained quiet, he smiled hoping it would encourage her, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere. “Talk to me. No more secrets or hiding fears. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I thought we were truly done. And for a minute I convinced myself that I could continue without you. But deep down, I knew I could never be over you.”
“I think I’ve always known that too. For years I hid behind anger and indifference. But in reality I was really just hiding from the pain.”
“Take me away from here, please. I just want to be alone with you.”
“The police and FBI will want to talk to you.”
“I imagine they will.”
“You need to see a doctor.” His finger brushed over her split lip and down to the red marks on her neck.
“I imagine I do.”
Lucas looked around at the chaos around them. Police lights and the movie set coming to life as if someone hadn’t nearly died there this morning. “I hate this life, but if you still want to act, I’ll support that.”
“All I want is to be with you. I don’t need this. Fame isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. I think a quiet life would be nice.”
“Not too quiet, I hope,” he said looking at her flat stomach.
“You would have to make an honest woman of me first.”
Lucas grabbed her hands and kissed both set of knuckles. “I don’t have a ring. I don’t have the right words to say. I did all that before. But what I do have is what is in my heart. A battered heart, for sure, but it’s yours. And I would like nothing more than to call you my wife.”
“That’s what I was born to be.”
Then he kissed her. Lucas would never know if the applause was in his head or from the people watching. But then nothing else mattered but them.
Epilogue
“She is coming, right?”—Lucas to Tony
Lucas looked down the garden aisle toward the glass doors that led out from the Irish country estate house. She was late; she wasn’t coming. She’d changed her mind. Tony elbowed him. “St
op fidgeting. You’re making me nervous.”
“What do you have to be nervous about? You know this isn’t about you—” Lucas demanded but then smiled as he walked right into the Tony’s trap to divert his brain. “You’re demented, but thank you.”
“Shhh, don’t tell anyone. It would ruin my image.”
But Lucas wasn’t listening to his brother anymore. His eyes focused back on the door at the far end of the garden. He had waited so long for this moment that waiting even a second more for Kiloran to become his wife was agony.
They had opted for a breakfast wedding. Kiloran had told him she had always dreamed of one, and he’d been stupid enough to believe that until he overheard her talking to her mother. “He hates to dance. If we have it in the morning, he won’t have to try,” she’d said. So she loved him enough to alter her dream wedding? Lucas couldn’t wait to surprise her with his wedding gift of a first dance he had spent painstaking hours practicing.
Looking at his watch, he grumbled. “She is coming, right?”
“Are you serious?”
The harp music changed to the Irish melody Kiloran had insisted her father had used to play when she was a girl. Then the doors opened and one by one her bridesmaids came down the aisle.
Finally, Kiloran stepped out in a sea of silk and lace, holding on to her brother’s arm for dear life. Tony’s holy hell was lost as Lucas’s breath caught in his throat. She was more beautiful than he could have imagined. For all it mattered they could be the only two people there. He didn’t see anyone else. Not his parents or his siblings, all of whom had come out despite the fact he had told them not too. Kiloran’s family, whose numbers equaled that of the Shermans, had made a great showing as well. Their two large families were about to become a single larger one.
As she reached him, Kiloran put her hand in Lucas’s and squeezed. Her pixie-cut hair framed her face adding to her beauty. It reminded him so much of the first time they had met. They faced each other as the minister spoke of love and journeys.
They knew more about journeys than most. The last few months had been filled with ups and downs, but they had weathered them together. Two stalkers had meant two trials. Delays and issues with separating which evidence went with which case. In the end some of the evidence just couldn’t be used as the police couldn’t figure out where it belonged. But both stalkers would find it a long time before they tasted freedom again. Nancy’s betrayal had been the hardest for Kiloran to take because she had believed Nancy was her only true friend through all the years.
Lucas looked out at his family and smiled—even some of his cousins had made the trip to Dublin for the wedding. His mother was crying happily as his father smiled up at him. Both had been surprisingly forgiving when Lucas had announced his decision to marry Kiloran. But by then they had known the whole story. His mother had also found a new best friend in Kiloran’s mother when the two women had bonded over wedding plans.
Tony seemed more at ease now that Lucas was settled. And Lucas realized that was the key to Tony’s happiness. When his family was happy and safe, Tony didn’t worry. And now Tony would show anyone willing to look at his perfect abs that he was no longer perfect with his perfect scar. Kiloran had remarked that only Tony could make a scar so ugly look good.
It was Spencer whom Lucas now worried about. Lucas saw the way Spencer watched Haven and—like he finally understood Tony’s need to protect—Lucas understood Spencer. But unlike Spencer, Lucas had got lucky. Spencer would have to find someone else. Then maybe he and Tony could bury the hatchet or so Lucas hoped. Because if there was one thing that this family needed, now that they didn’t have to worry about him, was for that rift to be healed.
Focusing back on the beautiful woman before him, Lucas smiled and let the early morning air fill his lungs. He couldn’t wait to take Kiloran away for three weeks, just the two of them. No family, no phones. No work, no police. Just them. After so many years, didn’t they deserve it?
Then finally it was time, and Lucas smiled and answered in a full, strong voice the question he’d been born to answer. “I do. Till death we do part.”
Acknowledgments
Special Thanks to Liz, Kate, and Val. You three always keep me going and believing in what I do. Thanks to Tracy who helps keep me grounded in RL.
About the Author
Dominique Eastwick currently calls North Carolina home with her husband,two children, one crazy lab and one lazy cat. Dominique spent much of her early life moving from state to state as a Navy Brat, because of that traveling is one of her favorite past times. When not writing you can find Dominique doing her second love…photography.Visit Dominique on Facebook or her website: www.dominiqueeastwick.com
Check out the other titles by Dominique
Hunting JC
Tony's Haven
Kissing the Bridesmaid
Shifting Heart (The Wiccan Haus Book 1)
Siren's Serenade (The Wiccan Haus)
Killing Lucas Page 15