For just a moment, I shut out everything else – my brother, the whimpering of the dogs who were nuzzling the two of us, Spencer and Nora right behind us, the sirens that were getting closer – and just let myself be held safe in his arms.
He pulled away, cradling my head in his hands. “God, I’m so fucking glad you’re okay. I was so scared when we pulled up and I heard shots. I thought– I thought . . .” He hauled me to his chest again and held me tighter, burying his face in my hair.
“Shot!” I jerked out of his arms. “Nora!” I crawled through the dirt to where Spencer had her in his lap, holding her very similarly to how Camden had been holding me.
She tried to give me a reassuring smile, but her face was pulled in a grimace. “I’m fine. Bullet barely grazed me.”
James chuckled, shaking his head and Spencer frowned. “That is not a graze. Took a damn chunk out of your arm.” He cast a murderous glance at the shooter’s body, like he wanted to put a few more bullets in it for good measure.
James walked over and toed the body, then kicked both guns away. He crouched and put his fingers to the man’s pulse. He lifted his head to meet our expectant gazes and shook his head before rising to his feet again
“Let’s get you out of here.” Spencer scooped Nora up, despite her insistence that she could walk just fine as she hadn’t been shot in the leg. Spencer refused to hear any of it and carried her.
Camden, who had been kneeling, checking over Cash and Kota, shot me a look like he was considering lifting me into his arms.
“I can walk,” I assured him.
He rose to his feet. “But now Spencer is going to look like the hero, when really I’m the one that saved you guys. I shot the bad guy,” he grumbled.
I grabbed his arm. “Come on, Superman.”
His pout shifted into a soft smile and he wrapped his arm around my waist and held me tightly to his side. James fell into step on my other side. I reached out and wrapped my arm around his middle, hugging him to me. His arm came around my shoulder and I was sandwiched between the two men who meant the most to me.
James gave me a squeeze and then released me, leaving me in Camden’s arms. Then, maybe suspecting we needed a moment, he quickened his steps and caught up with Nora and Spencer. As Camden and I followed after them, he turned his head and placed a light kiss on top of my head. “I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten there in time.”
“But you did, so don’t even think about it.” I leaned my head into him, and the five of us, with Cash and Kota on our heels, trekked back to the house. The entire cavalry was waiting for us when we cleared the trees.
Thirty-Two
Camden
We were swarmed the minute we stepped through the trees. It was chaos and confusion for several moments. Spencer, James and I were relieved of our weapons immediately and they tried to separate us from the girls. They nearly had a fight on their hands when they tried to take Nora from Spencer.
Fortunately, I recognized one of the officers on the scene and he recognized me. Once it was established that I was a cop, and we weren’t the bad guys, they started in on all the questions. They sent a few men into the woods for the body while more arrived to take our statements and figure out what the hell had gone on here. It was hours before I got Emily to myself again.
Several interviews, a thousand questions and another trip to the hospital later, I finally got to carry her through the door to my house. She’d fallen asleep on the drive back from the hospital and I hadn’t given her a chance to protest when I scooped her out of the car and into my arms.
I’d offered to take us to a hotel, not sure if she’d feel comfortable coming back here, but she’d insisted she wanted to be in our bed tonight.
Her words.
Our bed.
I set her on her feet inside the door and watched her closely, waiting for any sign that she wasn’t okay. I could see it all coming back to her. She walked into the living room and picked her phone up from where it sat on the coffee table.
“I was so terrified when you didn’t answer.” I pressed my front to her back, wrapping my arms around her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my entire life. I thought we were going to be too late.”
“I was upstairs, in the bedroom. I only caught a glimpse of him out the window. I froze for a minute, completely shut down.” I’d heard hers and Nora’s versions of what happened as they’d recounted them several times, but this was different. This wasn’t just a play by play of events.
She’d never once said how she felt or what it had been like for her. I knew, I’d seen it in her eyes when they first fell on me after I shot the asshole who’d been about to kill her. Still, I wanted to listen, and give her the chance to get it all out so it wouldn’t eat her up later.
“I think I might have curled up in a ball and just waited for him to find me if I hadn’t remembered Nora in the shower. She never gave up on me last time, so I couldn’t give up on her.”
“You wouldn’t have waited to die,” I whispered. “You’re a fighter. Today proved that. You were strong, and smart and brave.”
“And none of it would have mattered if you guys hadn’t showed up when you did.” She leaned against my chest, tipping her head back to rest at the hollow of my throat.
“But we did.”
“Yes, you did,” she breathed and turned in my arms, looking up at me through tired eyes. “You saved me. Again.”
“Always.” I bent my forehead to hers.
She closed her eyes and fisted her hands in my shirt. “Don’t make that promise,” she sighed sorrowfully. “You don’t know what’s going to happen and in case you haven’t noticed, I seem to need saving pretty often.”
“Hey,” I tipped her chin up and waited for her to open those sad blue eyes to me. “Always. Every single time. I may not know what the future holds, but I know that I’m going to be there, no matter what. Because I love you. And besides, you need a lot less saving than you think you do. And one day soon, you’re going to realize that, despite everything that’s happened, it’s you who saved me.”
She wiped away the tear that slid down her cheek. “Can we back up a bit to the part where you love me?”
A smile that I couldn’t fight tugged at my mouth. “Yeah, we can, because I do. I love you. It’s crazy and I can see in your eyes that you don’t entirely believe me, and hell it doesn’t completely make sense to me, but it’s still true. I love you. I think I loved you the moment you told me you weren’t going to have slutty wedding sex with me.” She chuckled softly and pressed her forehead to my chest, still gripping my shirt in her hands.
“And I know I loved you the first time you gave me a real laugh and I got to see the light behind all the darkness you carried.” She lifted her gaze to mine again.
“I loved you even more when you let those walls down and allowed yourself to be vulnerable with me and still even more the day at the river, but none of those are as much as I love you right now, which still isn’t as much as I’m going to love you tomorrow, and a week from now and a month from now and a year and even fifty years from now. Every second I spend with you, I only fall deeper and I know I’ve barely scratched the surface with you.”
“It’s not all sex and laughs you know.” Emotion choked her voice. “That darkness you saw when we first met, it’s still in there. You beat it back, but loving me won’t be easy.”
“Not asking for easy, darlin’, besides, I’m not afraid of the dark.”
“My hero,” she teased, her eyes shiny.
“You don’t need me to be your hero. Even without me, the dark wouldn’t win. The light always win, and you’ve got so much light in you.” I grabbed her hips and pulled her in closer. “I just happen to be really good at turning you on.”
“You mean turning it on?” she grinned.
“That too.” I cupped her chin and tilted her mouth to meet mine. I kissed her like it was the first and last time, like I needed to p
our everything into this one kiss to show her that I meant every single word I said.
Because I did.
When I told her I loved her I wasn’t saying it blindly or taking it lightly. It wasn’t some hasty proclamation brought on by the events of this last week and almost losing her twice – heightened emotions and all that.
Or hell, maybe it was, but if that was the case, it didn’t make it any less true or real. Everything that had happened only made me more aware of what she meant to me.
And it didn’t matter if she wasn’t there yet. I didn’t need her to say it. I didn’t even need her to feel it yet. I had a feeling it was going to be a lot of fun making her fall in love with me.
And more than worth the wait.
However long it took her.
Thirty-Three
Emily
He loved me.
Camden Shaw loved me.
It still didn’t feel quite real. Earlier tonight I’d thought I was going to die. I’d been staring down the barrel of a gun, and that was it. And now I was lying in Camden’s bed, tucked safely in his arms.
Nora was recovering from her gunshot, and so was Mr. Shaw. They were both going to be fine. Roy Gallagher was dead and would never hurt anyone else. There was finally closure in Billy Jacob’s death and the deaths of everyone else whose lives he took.
And just like last time, life would go on. It would be different. This was a part of us all now, but unlike last time, the despair wasn’t so heavy. I knew I would get past this.
I would heal.
I would live my life.
I would have a good life.
I knew this because of the man next to me. The man who loved me.
“Camden,” I whispered, hoping he was still awake. I needed to tell him something.
His eyes fluttered open sleepily. “What is it? Were you having a nightmare?”
“No. No nightmares.”
“Then what is it?” He snuggled closer.
“I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”
For a second his expression was frozen, and then a smile broke across his face. “Well that was easier than I expected.”
A puzzled frown pulled at my brow. “What?”
“I was just thinking earlier,” he murmured, stroking his hand over my hip, “how much fun it was going to be making you fall in love with me.”
I took his face in my hands. “Mission accomplished.” I laid a soft kiss on his lips and then pulled away. “I think you knew first, but everything you felt, I felt. I just didn’t want to feel it, so I fought it, tried to deny it. You breathed life back into me the first time you kissed me, and I have been yours ever since. Every time you look at me I fall a little deeper.”
“God, I hope you never stop falling.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I murmured before I kissed him again.
This fall was the endless kind.
So maybe I was wrong before when I said I didn’t get the happily ever after. I think I was wrong about a lot of things. But where my story started wasn’t nearly as important as where it ended.
And it ended in Camden’s arms.
And this, this was right.
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Acknowledgements
Tears was such a fun and challenging book to write. I’m so glad you took this journey with me and I hope you enjoyed Camden and Emily’s story. There are so many thanks I need to give. My mother handed me my very first Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books and so began my love of mysteries and suspense. She has been my biggest supporter and encourager. My parents have always pushed me to achieve my goals and dreams, and because of them, here I am, living out this dream.
A huge thank you goes out to the boys in blue who put their lives on the line every day they put that uniform on. I’m so incredibly proud to be the big sister of one of these incredible men. I love you Kyle.
Thank you to all of you loyal readers who have patiently waited for this story, sharing your excitement for it and offering words of encouragement along the way. You all are amazing, and I’m so thankful for all of my readers. I love hearing from you guys.
Teri, Teri, Teri, my number one fan (besides you, Nicole, of course) I love you and am thankful for your friendship and the support you have shown me from day one!
Next, to all the amazing bloggers out there who have reviewed, pimped, promoted and supported me, I could add another chapter just naming you all, but thank you so very much. Without you guys and all the hard work you put in for us authors, we wouldn’t see nearly the success that we do. An extra special shout out to Colleen and the ladies at Itsy Bitsy, you guys have been so good to me, and Colleen, I’m blessed to get to call you my friend.
My biggest thanks and my heart, belong to Jesus. I thank God every night for this life and this journey. He has been with me every step and in every moment, pushing me, stretching me, taking me out of my comfort zone and showing me that He has so much more in store for me than I could have ever dreamed on my own.
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