by Nicole Snow
“Wait. We're going to hang out here until midnight, or until we see the sheriff leave. Whatever happens first. He's thinking things over. Deciding what kind of man he is tonight, one way or another.”
Great, more waiting.
Meanwhile, I think about Ryan, holed up somewhere in the back of this building where they have the tiny cells. He's alone, wondering if his worst nightmare is finally coming true.
I can't lose him again. Touching my ring finger, I let the minutes flow by anxiously, remembering my promise.
When I said I'd marry him again, I meant it, down to my soul. This doesn't change that.
If I have to visit him behind bars, wearing his ring, and be a prison wife, I will. I'll wait my entire life to see him free. I'll keep fighting the bastards as long and hard as I have to.
Nothing's destroying our love a second time.
He's cleared his name with me, retaken my heart, and claimed me again. I'm afraid, but I'm determined.
As long as I hang onto that, I'll always have my husband.
12
Just Breathe (Ryan)
It's amazing how time hemorrhages away in this little cell. I haven't been so numb or detached from the world since the night Nelson died, and Bart sent me away, protecting me the only way he could.
I'm the only prisoner here tonight. Split Harbor rarely ever has more than the odd drunken fist fight or a man wanted on petty crimes passing through town. There are only eight, maybe ten cells. I'm by myself back here, stuffed into a box that hasn't been updated since the 1930s.
Seeing how this is the town's first murder case in more than fifty years, I worry I'm about to become it's most famous inmate. Until they put me through a kangaroo court and shuffle me off to the nearest Federal penitentiary, anyway.
This can't be happening again.
Oh, but it is.
I'm losing her. Ruining her life for a second time because I'm leaving against my will. I'm being torn away, again, only this time I can't come back. Even my big brain isn't likely to hatch a jailbreak scheme.
I stand up, stretch, and walk to the edge of the cell. My hands grip the bars. Staring through the gaps, I let my head fall, wondering how big a mistake it was to come back here at all.
No. Don't you dare, I tell myself.
Whatever happens, it wasn't wrong. I couldn't have lived another day with my success, my billions, without letting her know the truth. It's her kiss on my mind for God only knows how long, hating the fact that I'll never have those lips again as long as I'm stuffed away behind bars. It doesn't matter because I cherish the memory.
I'm remembering last night, our very last in Seattle, when I hear footsteps. The sheriff coming toward me isn't a surprise, but I have to blink to check my vision when I see the other man at his side.
“Back up a bit,” Sheriff Dixon says.
My old best friend stands next to him with his arms folded across his huge chest. Soon as I move, we watch the old sheriff produce a set of keys, jam one in my lock, and undo the door with a deafening crack.
“What's this? What's going on?” I ask, keeping my distance.
“New evidence. There's no reason to hold you while it's pending investigation,” the old sheriff says reluctantly. He turns to Matt. “I want both of you to find him. Only way we stop the Draytons from shooting down this case before it gets off the ground is if they're sent a message, loud and clear. They can't interfere, and it's our job to make sure they understand.”
I don't get what's going on. Before I can even ask, the old officer heads down the hall, leaving us alone with my door half open.
Matt waits for me to step outside. “I was wrong about you, Ryan. Wrong about my sis, too, thinking you'd driven her crazy all these years, thinking you were innocent. She showed me the dirt you had on Reg and Nelson. Mom backed up your story. She knew, all these years, and didn't say a fucking thing.”
He sounds like he can't believe it. I know I can't, and it's like the floor crumbling beneath me, one more twist in the longest, meanest winding road of my life.
Words won't do for what I've got to say. I throw my arms around him, giving the boy I grew up with a brotherly hug. “Forget it. We don't need to dwell on anybody's past mistakes. What did the sheriff mean when he said we need to send a message?”
Matt looks at me and smiles. “It's open season on the next asshole in line to screw this town over. Let's go have a little heart-to-heart talk with Kara's ex. Way more courtesy than he deserves after the sonofabitch threatened her.”
My hands are already fists before we're outside, heading for his truck. Only thing I can think about is how I wish I'd done more than just tie him up with his mistress at that hotel in Marquette.
Too bad. Tonight, it's better late, than never.
He's working late at the office tonight. Working, for real, the lone figure we see through the dim lit window on the third floor of Drayton Financial.
Matt gives me a look as he parks the car. “You ready?”
“Lead the way, Corporal. We'll corner him and figure out the rest from there. Just save some for me,” I say, brandishing the brass knuckles he's loaned me. “I have plenty to give.”
Matt nods, jumps out, and I'm following close behind him. It's a good thing I've stuck to my gym routine religiously. I wouldn't have a chance at keeping up with the quick, built marine any other way.
We're relieved there's nobody at the front desk. It's too late. We won't need to use the story we'd prepped, and we can save all our words for the bastard who deserves them most.
The Drayton office suffers from the same flaw everywhere in this town has – the doors are unlocked. I make a mental note to change corporate policy at Punch so we never have a crazy issue like two men bursting in after hours, eager to knock sense into a CFO.
He never sees us coming until it's too late. Matt steps aside, standing next to the wall, his hand on the pistol at his side in case Reg tries anything crazy. He gives me the honor of kicking the door open. My foot flies into it like a missile.
Who knew Venetian leather was so good at being a battering ram?
“What the hell?!” Reg jumps up, looking around in a panic, his lean, wiry body twitching when he sees me coming. His arms go up, and he screams when he sees I'm not alone. “Oh, God. I put you away!”
“You put yourself on suicide watch, shithead,” I snarl.
In a second, he's cornered. Grabbing him by the collar, I whip him around, slamming him into the wall with a satisfying boom.
He's whimpering. He thinks we're going to kill him. For now, I'm more than happy to let him believe it, too.
Of course, I'm not a killer, whatever happened with his sick great uncle years ago. Despite the damage Reg has done, I want to believe he doesn't share the same wretched tastes as his older relative, even if he's inherited Nelson's arrogance.
“Walk with me,” I say, pushing him toward Matt. My buddy takes his other arm, and we lead him out like a puppet, down the elevator to the parking lot.
“You scream, you tell anyone what's going down here tonight, you're done. I'll see the inside of a cell before I let you get away with what you did to my sister and my best friend,” Matt tells him, motioning to the gun in its holster.
The asshole stays quiet the whole way out to the truck. Before we lead him to it, we bring him to his car, where he stops and looks at us with questions in his eyes. “Why here?”
“Open your trunk,” I say, stuffing his hand into his pocket for him, searching for his keys.
He doesn't understand, but he will soon. Reluctantly, he reaches for the fob and taps the button to unlock it. I pop it open and start rummaging through. There isn't much inside, so it doesn't take long to find the bag with the shoebox.
My gut feeling was right. I tear off the lid and see a fresh new pair of candy blue high heels inside.
“For Amy?”
“Yes,” he hisses, clenching his jaw. “I don't see why that's relevant.”
“Sh
ut up,” Matt barks, turning him around, pushing him toward the truck. We hang onto him so he can't bolt, and I clutch the shoebox underneath my arm.
His icy silence persists as he's wedged between us in the truck, all the way out to the forest, undeveloped land just a few miles from the Armitage lighthouse. He doesn't start weeping until we're parked on the gravel road, noticing how isolated it is out here. Matt gets out, waiting for me to do the same, and drag him off his seat. I remember to carry the shoes under my arm again.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he whines.
“Sorry you got caught?” I look this loathsome piece of shit up and down. It's hard to believe anything he says, even when he's shaking.
This time, his silence is deafening. Matt helps me drag him out, and we take him into the forest. We all walk half a mile before we find the perfect clearing.
“Please don't kill me, guys. I had to protect my family. I was just defending myself after what you did, Ryan. Jesus, you can have her! I never loved the little bitch, just wanted a trophy wife.”
Matt beats me to the first punch. He hits him in the face so hard Reg rocks back, staggering back into my arms. I grip the prick tight, forcefully turning his head so he's looking at the Marine.
My eyes go to the brass knuckles on my hand. Christ, I need to get them off. If I start hitting him now, I'm not going to stop, and then I'll really be a murderer.
“You call her that again, next time it'll be lead going in your skull,” he says. “She loved you once, asshole. Fell for your lies. You come near my sis again, and I swear, I'll kill you.”
He's quiet. Good.
The total lack of response says it's my turn. I push him down in the dirt and decaying leaves, falling on top of him, picking his head up by the neck so he can listen, and listen good. I let him feel the heavy, cold brass lining my fingers before I pull it off, pressing it harder into his cheek.
“You, Reginald, are done. We gave the FBI the truth about your sick dead uncle. It's going to take every weak, miserable fiber in your body to fight your instinct to squawk once the trial begins. We're going to nail your family to the fucking wall, and the entire town's going to know about it. Your parents are going to lose a lot of money. You'll be lucky if you can ever show your face around here again, without the good people turning their backs, or maybe worse.”
“Look, if it's a settlement you're looking for –“
“No.” My fist crashes into the back of his head, knocking him face first into the dirt. “I want justice, asshole. Peace. I want your fucked up family to pay for its crimes because if Nelson did what he did with innocent girls, there's a lot more corruption for the FBI to find, and chances are you've benefited from it. I know he got them here with his charities, the same fucking reason I wound up in this town to begin with.”
“I'm...I'm not Uncle Nelson. Whatever he's done, it isn't me,” he says, venom running into his voice. “God, what's wrong with you? All this over her? I didn't do anything. I never meant to hurt her. She would've had a comfortable life. Nice justice you've got. Attacking a man over his family's sins.”
Matt and I share a look. In any other situation, seeing the huge marine roll his eyes would be hilarious, but not here.
Neither of us are interested in an ethics lesson from this cheating, miserable prick.
“Did I say you could speak?” I ask, rubbing his face into the ground, messing up his hair as much as I can. “Did I ask for your fucking moralizing, when you thought nothing of cheating, manipulation, tearing me away from her? When you and your folks probably knew what Nelson did, and let this town think he didn't deserve what happened?”
Matt steps behind me, and I'm glad he does. I'm afraid he'll have to hold me back from murdering the trash whose face I'm ramming into the ground again and again. Good thing I pulled off the knuckles.
His choking stops me. He's coughing and sputtering, his nose full of dirt and leaves.
Snarling, I roll him over, straddle him, and reach for the shoebox. “You're right about one thing, and only one – you're not on trial here for Nelson's crimes. But I'm damned sure not going to let you get in the way, retaliate, and try to cover his tracks any more.”
His eyes go huge when he sees me pulling out the heels. His face is scratched, his lip bloody, several new bruises promising to overwhelm the makeup on his jaw he put there for sympathy, to make me look like a crazier, more violent beast than I really am when the woman I love is under siege.
Unfortunately for him, he doesn't have to exaggerate much.
“No, no...I don't understand. Those shoes...what're you doing?!”
“Insurance, jackass,” Matt says, pulling out the protective stuffing inside them. He crouches behind me and gets to work on ripping off Reg's shoes, down to his bare feet.
I nod. “You're going to wear the shoes for a change, ass. We'll take pictures, and you won't move a muscle. Because if you decide to do something stupid again after we warned you not to, if you or your folks stick their noses into the investigation, the case, or come gunning for me, Kara, or any of the Lilydales ever again, I'll make sure these pictures hound you like a dog. You're so uptight about appearances, yeah? You won't have a reputation when every employer, every investment firm, every fucking politician you want to bribe knows what you look like in blue.”
He screams and thrashes while Matt stuffs his feet into the slim shoes, several sizes too small. It takes five minutes to get it straight, and by then I'm sure his toes feel like they're about to snap.
Smiling, I look down at his work. Matt smiles, gives me a thumbs up, and we both reach for our phones.
The reprobate has gotten the message. His eyes stay closed and he doesn't move a muscle the whole time we circle around him, snapping pics from every angle. I end with a snapshot of his face, just as his eyes pop open, scared and beaten.
Matt gives me a knowing look. We're done here. It's time to go home, and wait for further word from the sheriff or the FBI investigators who'll surely be calling me soon.
“Wait, wait. Where are you going?” Reg calls after us, his words like mush in his beat up mouth. “You can't just leave me like this?!”
We've only taken a few steps along the path we came when I stop, turn around, and look at the worm twisting on the ground. “Like hell we can't. Your phone's in your shoebox. Use it to call your gold digging mistress.”
His eyes bug out. I smile. “Enjoy her while she lasts. I've seen enough chicks in the corporate world to know she's only putting up with your bedroom antics because you're keeping the heels and fancy dinners coming. Soon as they're gone – and they will be, once the FBI digs through your family history – she'll run so fast she kicks dust in your face. After everything your family did to me and Kara, several years alone will do you some good. Maybe you can clear your head, figure out your shit before it's too late.”
It's not hard to hear him struggling to get up in those heels clenched to his feet like vises. We just keep going, get in the truck, and leave beneath the moonlight.
We're heading back to the police station, where Kara's probably still sleeping. Matt left her there in the waiting room to get me in the back, after the sheriff made his choice. She's blissfully unaware I was being released to give her ex the kick in the balls he deserves.
I don't give him a second thought. Only thing that matters is having her in my arms tonight, back in my bed, a smile on her face because she knows, beyond all doubt, that everything is finally going to be okay.
“Ryan? Don't tell me – I'm dreaming?” She rubs her eyes before she'll believe it's me.
I could wait, let it sink in.
No, screw it. I haul her up off the seat, sweeping her into my arms.
There's nothing worth saying that these kisses can't for the next five minutes. Matt stands behind us, a smile on his face. I'm grinning like a damned fool the whole way through it, my lips conquering hers, knowing the universe is righting itself, one little piece at a time.
“They h
ad you locked up,” she says when I let her catch her breath. “I don't understand. How?”
“An old friend helped me out,” I tell her, motioning to the gentle giant as he walks over. “Sheriff Dixon deserves some credit for doing the right thing, too.”
“We've got to get busy protecting ourselves,” she says, slipping out of my arms, grabbing her purse on the chair. “You know they'll come after us. The Draytons are in a fight for their lives, and they know who's responsible for what's coming.”
“Babe, wait.” I grab her by the wrist. Bringing her hand to my face, I lay my lips on it, planting a reassuring kiss. “Reg is done. Matt and I made sure he's not interfering with anything again.”
She gives us a desperate look, one after the other. “God. Tell me you didn't...you know.”
There's nobody around, but she's smart enough to lower her voice, realizing we're still standing in a police station.
“He'll live, and he won't press charges,” Matt says, throwing a brotherly arm around her shoulder. “All you need to know, sis. I'm not wasting another minute on his corrupt ass. Let's go home.”
“We'll talk to the FBI in the morning, I'm sure. Is it too late to open up Grounded?”
She blinks, not understanding where I'm going. “I'm the manager. It's never too late...why?”
“Because the bars in this town close too early on a Sunday to let me buy my friend a proper drink,” I look at Matt and he smiles. “Coffee will have to do for now, plus a few slices of that awesome cherry pie. I want you to bring your mom and the kid, if he's around. I can't wait anymore. We're sitting down like a family and smoothing things over tonight. As the man you're going to marry, I won't let anything come between us and our wedding.”
“Shit.” Matt pauses, then slaps me on the back so hard my knees lock. “I'd say you're moving too fast, but you were always the one for her, Ryan. We've waited five years too long to make it happen.”
We're both smiling, but it's nothing compared to the angelic grin on her face. My eyes eat her up a little bit at a time. As heartwarming as this is, and as pleased as I am to see her happy, I can't stop the lewd thoughts pulling at me from the inside out.