by Cynthia Eden
“Cadence…” He’d never seen her look so lost.
“I need to keep my hand right here. I can feel his life…in my hand.”
More tears leaked from her eyes.
His jaw locked.
But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Cadence was pressing a kiss to Kyle’s still lips.
Is he alive?
“I’ll get you out,” she told Kyle. “You won’t stay in the dark. I won’t stay. We’ll get out together.”
Ben’s light swept back to Anniston. He saw the bullet wounds. The gaping throat. The knife.
What the hell was in the guy’s eye?
“He took them all,” Cadence’s voice was hoarse. “Then he tried to take Kyle. I won’t let him do it. I won’t let Kyle go.”
Ben swallowed the lump in his throat. Then he bent next to Cadence. “Show me what to do.” As long as Cadence had hope, he would, too.
“We have to keep his heart beating,” she said, still in a hoarse and broken rasp. “The heart has to pump so his brain gets oxygen.” Her fingers were moving on his chest, in his chest. Keeping his heart beating. “We keep him alive until help gets here.”
Ben nodded. “We keep him alive,” he repeated.
It took five men to get Kyle out of the tunnel.
The airlift was a nightmare. The whirring of the blades—that hollow sound would stay with her forever.
He was flown to the nearest trauma unit. Doctors and nurses rushed out to meet the copter.
They made her let him go.
He’d never opened his eyes. Not when they came out of the tunnel. Not when they flew in the air.
Not when the hospital staff wheeled him away.
His eyes stayed shut the whole time. He couldn’t see that he wasn’t in the dark anymore.
“Cadence…” It was Dani’s voice, sounding worried. Scared.
Cadence turned toward her, her movements sluggish. Her fingers had cramped, locked, because she’d worked on Kyle for so long.
Long enough? Please, please be long enough.
“Cadence, I’m so sorry.” Dani’s arms wrapped around her. Dani held her tightly.
Cadence crumbled.
Kyle wanted to see Maria again. Laughing. He wanted to climb into her car and drive down to Florida with her.
I’m all grown up now, remember.
He wanted to stay with her. To be with her. To make sure she was safe.
I want to go home!
Only there was no home. Their parents were dead. Maria was dead.
Kyle pushed through a sudden surge of pain. His chest—someone was carving it open.
That bastard, James Anniston? Was he still there? Still coming with his knife?
Cadence. If James was still alive, the SOB would go after Cadence. Kyle had to fight. He had to get to her. Cadence. He could save Cadence.
He had to save her.
He loved her.
“Cadence!”
“He’s coming around, Doctor.”
The voice whispered, then floated away.
“Do we need to keep him strapped down?”
His arms wouldn’t move. He’d get the knife. He’d stab the—
“Since he took out two orderlies, yes,” a stronger voice said. “Get the other agent in here. See if she can calm him down.”
Nothing would calm him. James was alive. He was going after Cadence. Trying to take her from Kyle.
He couldn’t lose her.
“Calm down,” that same voice told him—the voice of a stranger. “We spent too many hours repairing you. We don’t want you in the OR again.”
Footsteps. Rushing toward him.
Darkness. Too much darkness.
They were back in the caverns.
He hadn’t killed James.
“Kyle?”
That voice wasn’t a stranger’s. It was Cadence’s.
He needed to see her.
But there was only darkness.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “Everything’s okay.”
Was she lying to make it easier for him?
“You’re going to make it. You’re safe. In a hospital. They fixed your chest. Your nose is broken again, and that’s why you have the bandages near your eyes. They’re swollen, but if you try…” Her voice broke. “Please try, Kyle, please. If you try, you can open your eyes for me.”
For her, he would do anything.
So why won’t my eyes open?
“Anniston’s dead, Kyle. He won’t ever hurt anyone else. We’ve got teams gathering evidence from his home. We’re clearing the tunnels. We even found the other cop, Ken Bailey. He was hurt, but alive. Alive. And the victims’ families are going to get the closure they need. Because of you. You stopped him.”
A sliver of light reached him as his eyes cracked open.
“That’s it,” her voice trembled. “Come on, Kyle. I want to see you. Don’t you want to see me?”
More than anything.
His lashes lifted a bit more.
She was hazy at first, just an outline in a too-bright room. He blinked and then—
The most beautiful woman he’d ever seen appeared before him.
“Hi,” Cadence said. She was crying. He didn’t want her to cry. She swallowed. “It sure took you long enough.”
It had only taken a few moments to open his eyes. It should have probably taken seconds but…
She leaned over him. Her sweet scent filled his nose. “Six days. You were out for six days.”
Machines beeped around him. His chest ached.
Cadence’s golden eyes narrowed. “Don’t ever do that to me again, understand?”
He should be dead. His memories flew back to him. James. The bullets. The darkness. The half-moon necklace.
Cadence. Begging him to live. To stay with her.
She’d been touching his chest. “What did you do?”
“She saved your life.” The stranger’s voice again. The stranger—a male—came into focus behind Cadence. A doctor, wearing a white lab coat. “If she hadn’t been there, you’d be a dead man.”
He had been dead, until he’d met her. A corpse of a man walking around and living only in his past.
When his future was right in front of him.
“Just a few minutes,” the doctor said, his fingers pressing against Cadence’s shoulder. “He won’t be able to stay awake long.” Then the doctor was gone. Vanishing behind a curtain.
“You’re in ICU,” Cadence said. “They couldn’t move you out, not until you were stable.” She licked her lips. “You scared me.”
He’d scared himself.
“You might not remember what happened.”
“I…do…” His voice was a weak rasp. His throat burned.
Cadence’s fingers slid to his throat. Stroked him. “They had a tube down your throat. You were bad, Kyle.” She swallowed. Exhaled slowly. “It was very close.”
He remembered being in the tunnel. Sinking his knife into James’s throat. Jerking the blade. Watching the bastard die.
Then…
Maybe I don’t remember it all.
“Love…” It was so hard to push the word out.
She smiled at him.
His chest didn’t ache so much then.
“I know you love me.” She pressed her lips to his. “And I love you.”
He wanted to smile at her.
“You’ve been in and out for the last few days.” Her head tilted. “Once, you even asked me to have your baby.”
A little girl with golden eyes.
“Just so you know, you’re going to have to marry me before we even start talking about kids.”
He would marry her, if she’d have him. He’d love her, adore her, for the rest of their lives.
Kyle gathered his strength. Pushed. “Marry…”
Her lips parted in surprise. “Do not let that be the drugs talking.” Then her hand lifted and she swiped her cheek.
“Don’t like…when you…cry.” It was get
ting easier to speak.
“I don’t like when you nearly die on me.” Her hand dropped.
It had been a tear.
“I’ll stop crying,” she promised as her eyes held his. “If you promise not to scare me like that ever again.”
She hadn’t answered him before, so Kyle tried again. “Marry…me…”
Cadence nodded. Her slow, beautiful smile spread over her face. “I will.”
He was staring at his hope. His future. There was light all around her. No grave. No darkness.
His Cadence.
The ghosts were gone. The killer dead.
He was ready to live again.
With Cadence. Always, with Cadence.
Cadence made her way to Death Falls. The rocks were slippery, the water even higher that day.
Divers were in the water. Searching, on her orders.
Kyle was still in the hospital. He wouldn’t be released for another day or two.
The remains they’d taken from the caverns had all been identified. Even though Maria’s necklace had been found with the bones, she hadn’t been.
Not yet.
Another diver disappeared into the water.
“Are you sure she’s here?” Dani asked as she crept to Cadence’s side.
“Anniston said Maria got away. Then he said, ‘fall.’ I thought he meant that she fell, but he meant these falls.” On her hunch, she’d done some digging.
The suicide that had made people so fearful of coming to this place? The rumors of the troubled girl who’d thrown herself to her death, the girl who’d given the place the name of Death Falls?
The girl had died seven months after Maria vanished. The only witness to her suicide had been Officer James Anniston. He’d been patrolling when he witnessed the “tragedy.”
No one had ever ID’d the girl because her body had never been recovered. No local reports of a missing person had gone out then, so the story had just been brushed aside.
Anniston had said it was too dangerous to search for her. He’d closed the case.
He hadn’t wanted anyone finding Maria.
A diver’s head broke the surface as he rose. He took off his mask. Glanced toward Cadence.
And nodded.
Finally, Maria would be coming home.
EPILOGUE
His shoulders were hunched as he leaned over the grave. A simple headstone, one just beneath the sweeping limbs of an oak tree.
Cadence stood back, watching Kyle, knowing he needed this time alone.
He’d finally grieved for his sister.
All of the missing women had been identified. He wasn’t the only one grieving.
Paradox, Alabama, would be remembered for years to come. The story was still on the news. The police captain who’d kept women prisoners in his darkness. A man who’d found his own end in that same dark hell.
Kyle stood. Squared his shoulders. He’d put daisies on Maria’s grave.
He’d told her that his sister had liked daisies.
Kyle turned from the grave. His gaze swept the cemetery until he found her.
She didn’t smile. Just waited.
He came to her. His steps becoming faster, stronger, the closer he got to her.
Then he was there, pulling her tightly against him, even as his hand dropped to her stomach.
They hadn’t actually waited until marriage to talk about kids. It seemed fate had other plans for them.
She was already pregnant. So much for being safe on the pill.
Seventeen weeks.
They’d gone to the doctor’s office just hours before and found out they were having a girl.
Kyle had looked at the fuzzy ultrasound and said he could see her perfectly.
She’d never seen him look so happy.
She’d never been so happy.
“Are you ready?” Cadence asked him. There was so much pain in his eyes. His parents had never gotten to see this day. Maria, at peace. But Kyle had. He’d given his sister the justice that she deserved.
His head lifted. He stared down at her. Gazed at her with the brilliant blue eyes that had first made her heart race.
Her tough agent.
Her sexy lover.
The man who’d walked out of the darkness and come into the light, with her.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Her hand was on his chest. Above the scar he’d always carry.
A reminder of what they’d survived. A reminder of the life they needed to cherish.
He smiled at her.
She knew life had finally begun.
Their life.
Together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a huge thanks to all the phenomenal Montlake staff. Working with you all is a pleasure!
Lindsay—thank you for all the insight and your “catches” during the editing process. Kelli—thank you for the brainstorming fun! You ladies push me and strengthen my work, and I love that!
For my romantic-suspense readers—thank you, thank you, thank you for encouraging me to write more of my dark and sexy romantic suspense stories. I had such a fantastic time writing these novels, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading the “For Me” books!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Nicholas Roussos, 2011
A southern girl with a penchant for both horror movies and happy endings, USA Today best-selling author Cynthia Eden has written more than two dozen tales of romantic suspense and paranormal romance. Her books have received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, and Cynthia Eden has also twice been named a finalist for the prestigious RITA award. Her novel Deadly Fear was a RITA finalist for best romantic suspense, and her book Angel in Chains was a finalist in the paranormal romance category. She currently lives in Alabama.
More information about Cynthia Eden may be found on www.cynthiaeden.com. You can also follow Cynthia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cynthiaeden, or you can learn about her books on her Facebook fan page (www.facebook.com/cynthiaedenfanpage).