DEAD CERTAIN

by Carla Cassidy

She nodded and took a step back from him. "I'm so sorry about your mother." Tears filled her eyes. "I'm so sorry for your loss. It was when I heard the news that I realized everything in my life had changed."

  "What do you mean?"

  Lightning flashed, and she waited for the responding blast of thunder before speaking once again. "Riley, when I heard about your mother, the only thing I wanted … I needed to do was be with you. I wanted to be the one who grieved with you, who held you if you cried. I wanted to be the one to help pick up the pieces, and I knew then how deeply, how completely I love you."

  He started to move toward her, but she held up a hand to stop him. She needed to talk, to get out all the emotions that had assailed her over the past couple of hours. "At first I thought it was just the shock of finding out about your mother. My first reaction was to run here … to be with Jimmy."

  She turned and looked at the river, which reflected the turbulence of the sky overhead. "I've always found a certain amount of peace here. I'd climb up there and talk to Jimmy, see his face reflected in the waters below. But this time there was no peace for me and when I looked in the water, all I saw was you."

  She turned back to look at him. "I knew then that it was time to say goodbye." Her words caused pain to swell in her heart, but she knew there would always be a certain amount of pain when she thought of the man who had once been her husband.

  "Jimmy was a wonderful man with a beautiful heart, but he wouldn't have wanted me to close off my heart because he was no longer here. He would have wanted me to go on, to find happiness. I'm ready, Riley. I'm ready to take that chance on you … if you'll still have me."

  "Still have you?" In one long stride he had her wrapped in his arms once again. "Savannah, when I thought of this earth without you in it, my heart went dead inside. Even if I couldn't have you in my life, I needed to know that you were okay, that you'd eventually find love and happiness."

  "I want that with you, Riley. I think you're right, there isn't a quota on soul mates. I've been lucky. Jimmy was my first soul mate … but you, you're my second and hopefully my last."

  She could speak no more, for his mouth covered hers in a kiss that absolutely took her breath away. Filled with love and desire, the kiss confirmed what she knew in her heart. It was time to move on with this man that fate had brought her way.

  At that moment, the skies opened up and rain began to pelt them. With a squeal, Savannah jumped away from him, but he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her toward his car. "Come on," he said. "I'll bring you back to your car later. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a second."

  Laughing with an abandon she hadn't felt in over a year, she raced with him to his car through the pouring rain. She felt so light, so filled with possibility, with happiness.

  When they reached his truck and were in the dry interior, she turned to him, realizing that her epiphany of where her happiness lay had come at a tremendous cost … the discovery of his mother's body.

  "Riley, I'm so sorry about your mother."

  Although his eyes darkened, he nodded. "It's all right. I've known in my heart for a long time that she wasn't coming back, that she was probably dead." He reached across and took her hand. "But you can't lose hope about your mother. According to the medical examiner, my mom had been dead for no longer than four or five months."

  "Four or five months?" Savannah was grateful for the warmth of his hand around hers. "But, Riley, she'd been missing for almost two years."

  "That's my point, honey. If the person who killed my father and took my mother is also responsible for what happened to your father and mother, then whoever had my mother kept her alive for over a year. You have to hang on to that fact. My mother was alive for about sixteen months after she disappeared."

  He reached out and pulled her into his arms, and she came willingly, knowing that even though he'd just suffered a tremendous loss, his thought was to ease her pain.

  "It doesn't make sense, does it?" she asked. "That your mother was alive for all that time and yet we don't know where she was, what she was doing."

  His arm tightened around her. "No, it doesn't make sense. But I'm certain of one thing. If she'd been able to, she would have been home. The only thing that makes sense to me is that she was being held somewhere … a prisoner."

  A chill walked up Savannah's spine as she thought of her own mother. Was that the answer? Had she been taken captive on the night Thomas had been hit over the head? It had been nineteen days since that night. How many days did they have before she was found like Riley's mother, in a shallow grave?

  She shook as another chill possessed her.

  "Let's get out of here," he said. "We need to get you someplace dry. We'll come back tomorrow to get your car." He started the engine of his truck, but before he pulled away from the bridge, he turned back to look at her.

  "Someway or another you'll get through all this, Savannah. I'll make sure you do. I'll be your strength."

  She shook her head. "I don't need you to be my strength, Riley. Alyssa once told me I'm one of the strongest people she knows. At the time, I didn't believe her, but as I sat up there telling Jimmy goodbye, I realized that I am strong. But that doesn't mean I don't need you to love me."

  "I do. I love you, Savannah Tallfeather."

  "And I love you, Riley Frazier," she said.

  Again his lips sought hers in a kiss that spoke of her future. Despite the fact that her mother was missing, that she had two unsolved murders on her plate, in spite of the fact that she would always hold sweet memories of the man she had lost to the waters of the Cherokee River, she felt a happiness that had no boundaries.

  It was the happiness of a future filled with a man who would share her dreams, a man who would give her passion and love in return for her own, a man who was the builder of dreams—the man who would be her husband, her life.

  "Take me home, Riley. Take me to my house. I want you in my bed."

  His eyes shone bright from the truck's interior lights. "At this moment, I feel as if I'm the luckiest man on earth," he said softly. "I can't believe fate brought you to me, I can't believe that after all these years, finally fate has brought me my soul mate."

  Savannah snuggled against his side as he put the truck in drive and pulled away from the bridge. Goodbye, Jimmy, she thought. There will always be a place in my heart for you and what we shared, but now there's a new place opened in my heart, a space to allow in new love, new life … Riley.

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