Epilogue #2
“Does this affect making the others pay?” she asked, meaning the men who’d contracted with O’Connor to have their wives murdered. “Since he can’t testify now?” That was my woman, pivoting immediately from how it affected her to how it affected others.
“No,” Lucas answered. “The last of them reached a plea deal last week. So… I guess it’s finally over.”
“It’s not fair that they get off with reduced sentences after hiring people to kill their wives.”
The deals we’d heard they were getting were ten years instead of the maximum of twenty under the law.
“I understand how you feel,” Lucas said slowly. “But the courts are a procedural system, not a fairness system.”
She shook her head, disgusted.
I didn’t blame her. “Thanks, boss,” I said before disconnecting.
She sighed, looking out the window. A few seconds later, she spoke. “Okay, that’s depressing. Time to move forward. What do you have planned this morning?”
“You’ll see.” I knew that this wasn’t truly over for her. The loss of her friends would weigh on her for some time.
When I parked in front of the narrow house, I mentally crossed my fingers that this went the way I hoped.
After opening the car door for Peyton, I pulled the key from my pocket.
“Rollerblading?” she guessed.
“Stop guessing. It isn’t going to get you anywhere.”
Her words triggered the memory of her saying she wanted to go rollerblading sometime. It was definitely going on my mystery date list for the future.
“Are you allowed to park here?”
“My friend said so.” Like a klutz, I was so nervous I dropped the key before I even got it into the lock. Man, I hadn’t been this nervous in forever, but I did have good reason.
“Who are we meeting?”
I pulled open the door and started up the stairs without answering.
At the top, I walked into the empty room. “What do you think?” Nobody was here, and now I realized how rundown it looked with the dingy carpet and no furniture.
Her mouth dropped open as she noticed the most important thing in the room, the windows, and the view. “Wow.” That was an understatement. This was beachfront property. Nothing lay between these houses and the wide beach with the ocean beyond.
“I love this view.” She walked to the window, mesmerized by the sand and the Pacific. “But why are we here?”
Showtime—I walked behind her and pulled out what I’d brought.
Peyton
The view of the beach, the people, and the water was entrancing.
When Zane didn’t answer, I turned around, then my hands went to my face as I gasped.
He was on one knee with a box in his outstretched hand. “Peyton Clarke. I’d like you to change your name one more time and become Peyton March.” The open jewelry box he held contained a beautiful princess-cut diamond.
Tears flooded my eyes. “Really?” I’d been so focused on reaching the step where we could sleep in the same bed like a normal couple that he’d taken me completely by surprise.
Tears twinkled in his eyes as well. “Angel, this is the kind of question you say either yes or no to.”
“Are you sure?”
“Tell me one time I said something I didn’t mean?”
“It’s just…” I’d lost Zane once before over his fear of his nightmares hurting me. It had been the worst feeling of my life—the feeling that it was truly over between us. Even being taken by Lucifer hadn’t turned my mood as dark because I knew things would get better when Zane came to rescue me.
“Peyton?” he prodded.
What if the nightmares hadn’t completely stopped yet?
He stood, closed the box, and put it back in his pocket.
My legs went weak as I felt my world collapse. “Zane,” I croaked.
He moved forward and took my hands in his. “Look at me.”
I locked my eyes with his, feeling more insecure than I ever had.
“You’re scared, aren’t you?”
Sheepishly, I nodded and wiped under my eyes.
He took me into a hug and rubbed my back to comfort me as he always did. “Do you know what a HALO jump is?”
I nodded into his chest, having heard of the scary jumps out of a perfectly good airplane into dark nothingness at thirty thousand feet.
He pulled my chin up to look me in the eye. “This is your HALO jump moment. It’s time to have faith and take that step into the unknown.”
Serena had warned me that being with a SEAL meant hanging on as you dove into a full-throttle life.
“But what if… the nightmares come back?”
“What if they do?” he interrupted. “What if I get hit by a truck? What if I get shot at my job? What if I get crushed in the next big earthquake? What if I get bitten by a rabid raccoon? There’s a million things that could happen.
I will not allow my life to be dictated by what ifs, and you can’t either. Angel, are you listening?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t love you just a little bit, I love you so much I don’t know how I could possibly live without you, nightmare or not. I want to wake up next to you each and every day for the rest of our lives.”
I swallowed hard.
“You told me once you wanted to have a normal life, eating popcorn on the couch watching a movie together ,kind of normal. Well…” He pointed to the side wall.
“The TV is going right there, and over there is where the couch is going. I brought you here because I bought this place for us. It’s a place for us to be normal and to make a family. ”
The idea of a baby, Zane’s baby, growing in my stomach tugged at my heart. I hugged him tighter, looked up into his eyes, and took that leap into the unknown. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I want the popcorn and a movie. I want it all. I’ll marry you.” I’d thought those would be scary words to say, but instead, they lightened my soul. My tears began again.
He lifted me up and spun me around. “You’ve just given me the third happiest day of my life.” He set me down and pulled the box from his pocket again.
My brow scrunched. “Third happiest?”
He opened the box and pulled the ring from the velvet. “Ready?”
I extended my hand, jittery with excitement. It was hard to believe this was really happening.
He slid the ring onto my finger. It fit. “You’re mine, Angel. And now everyone will know it.” A second later, he wrapped his arms around me and took my mouth with his in a long, hard, possessive kiss.
“I’ll always be yours,” I answered when he broke the kiss. I’d never said truer words. Then questions hit me. I leaned back but didn’t let go of him. “You bought this place? How? I didn’t even know you were looking.”
He smiled devilishly. “It wouldn’t have been a surprise if I told now, would it? Closed escrow yesterday. It’s ours now.”
“What bank did you rob?” Everybody knew that houses on the beach, even small ones like this, cost a fortune.
“Remember when I told you about my grandmother in Los Altos?”
I nodded. “Karla’s mom?” He’d only mentioned her once, and I’d thought it sad that the woman spent her days at the zoo visiting the primates, but refused to talk to her own daughter or grandson.
“She passed away and left the house to Mom and me. Everything else she gave to the San Francisco Zoological Society. The lawyer handling the estate sent us checks last month.”
“You sneak. You didn’t say a thing.” I felt warm inside knowing that he’d gone to all the trouble of hiding this from me so it could be a surprise today. “Hey, wait a minute.”
“What?”
“You said this was only your third happiest day.”
He kissed my forehead. “The second will be the day you show me a pregnancy test with two lines.”
I blushed thinking of how much fun we’d have creating that moment.
“For the fourth time,” he added.
“Four?”
He smiled broadly. “Four’s a good number.”
I cringed, having heard women who swore two were a handful. “Why not six or seven?”
“It gets hard to fit more than four car seats in a minivan, plus the dog, of course.”
“Maybe it would be better if we talked about this later.”
He rubbed his nose against mine. “Sure thing, Angel.” Then he kissed the living daylights out of me.
I loved it when he called me Angel. “And the happiest?”
“It’ll be the day you say I do, and you are forever mine.”
That was sweet. It would be my happiest day too, way ahead of a fourth pregnancy. Picturing that day, I announced, “I want a beach wedding.”
“Wherever you want.”
I pulled myself up to kiss my man, the man who’d saved me, and now promised me the future I’d always craved. “Me too.”
After a thorough make-out session, he checked his watch. “We have to get to the airport. I have another surprise.”
“Rhonda?” I guessed.
“Damn, Angel. Stop trying to ruin it by guessing.” The way he said it, I knew I was right.
Giddy, I stopped to admire my ring before following my SEAL down the stairs.
With this wonderful man, I’d gone from being on the run, constantly looking over my shoulder, to finally looking forward.
The life I imagined was a magnificent full-throttle one, full of joy, surprises, yes a bunch of kids, and most of all love.
The following pages contain an excerpt from the next story.
Defending Dana – Available on here.
(Dana and Pete’s story) After moving across the country and living under a new name, Dana thought she was safe from the angry investors who blamed her for their losses in a Ponzi scheme.
She was wrong, and when crazies with a hundred million reasons to catch her come calling, she runs again.
On leave from his SEAL team, Pete’s new mission is to find the girl he recognized from high school and keep her safe.