Chapter Sixteen
Rose was screaming but she didn’t move from her spot on that patch of grass.
“Shots fired!” she yelled down at the phone. “James? James!”
No one responded. The house was too far back, and she couldn’t see which room the sound had come from.
She also couldn’t stop.
She continued heart compressions on Damon Tillman while her own heart shattered around them both.
James had gone into the groundskeeper’s house after Lloyd and now Lloyd had shot him, and Rose felt as helpless as a person could.
She could go see. She could leave Damon on the wet ground, covered in blood and not breathing, and no one would fault her for it.
The man who had masterminded the attacks meant to kill her over the last week…
The man who had told all his hired helpers that he was out for revenge.
That for him to be happy, Rose had to die.
She could leave him right there.
And no one, no one, could say she did wrong.
Except…her.
Tears hot and heavy blurred her vision and streamed down her face. Her head hurt. Her heart hurt. The world hurt.
But she kept on with her compressions.
She wouldn’t leave Damon Tillman any more than she would leave James had he been beneath her hands. Not when she could still help. Not when there was still hope.
But James could be the one who needs you now, up there, Rose couldn’t help but think. And you’re here with someone who hated you so much.
Rose didn’t hesitate, despite herself.
In fact, a part of her believed that James would tell her to do the same.
Still, it hurt.
Rose screamed out in anger and fear and anguish and exhaustion.
She called James’s name again, absolutely certain that Lloyd had used one shot to end him. A shot that he never would have taken had Rose stayed with him at the hospital.
Rose’s body was wracked by sobs.
She didn’t feel Damon move at first because of it.
Then she realized her hands were moving without her.
Rose held her breath and looked down.
Damon was coughing, water spewing from his mouth.
Then his eyes opened.
Rose let out a breath that absolutely shook.
Then she was scrambling to her feet.
“Don’t move, help is on the way,” she yelled down at him.
Rose stumbled her way up and away from the pond and ran to the patio with everything she had.
Then everything she had quickly met a wall.
She blinked into the impact before realizing it was her wall.
James said something—she was sure of it—but she didn’t hear a word.
Rose collapsed against him.
His arms were warm and strong as they held her up.
In the last week—in the last day—the world had gotten loud, messy and complicated.
But right then, Rose felt only him.
* * *
NIGHT FINALLY FELL.
The Seven Roads Motel was empty again. James’s house was not.
Sheriff Weaver’s badge was on his hip, but his hands were around a beer.
It had been offered to him once his shift had officially ended.
He hadn’t had any sip of it, but then again, James also hadn’t had a drink of his either.
Instead, they were on the back porch looking out at the field of tall grass.
They had been sitting in silence a bit while they waited for the sheriff’s wife to finish seeing about Rose. Both women were upstairs in the guest bedroom. Without being asked the men had given them space.
That morning had been a lot.
Now they were all trying to wind down.
Though there were still concerns. Weaver seemed to guess at James’s main ones. He spoke into the night air with a tiredness that James couldn’t deny he felt a bit too.
“The doctors say Damon might not wake up at all, but if he does, he has a detail on him until we get a better sense of what’s what,” he said.
“But Darius and I agree, we think there’s nothing else out there waiting for Rose.
Whatever conflict went on between Damon and Lloyd, it seemed to put a stop to whatever might have come next.
Still, it might not be a bad idea to let her stay with you a few more days. ”
No one could make Rose do what she didn’t want.
That said, James had already decided he wasn’t going to let the deputy be alone. Whether that meant her staying at his house or him camping outside of her apartment, he was more than prepared to follow her lead.
But he wasn’t about to say that to her boss. Not without her okaying it.
Instead, James nodded.
“I’ll look after her,” he promised.
Weaver was pleased. He scratched at the label on his bottle.
James felt his eyes on him but kept his gaze ahead.
James bet the sheriff was wondering about the two of them—Rose and James.
Weaver had been the first to arrive at the groundskeeper’s house and the first to see Rose, completely folded into his arms.
She hadn’t moved from that position until the EMTs had arrived and insisted on checking both of them. That was when she had finally seen the blood on his sleeves.
“Is that blood?” she had asked, strength zipping through her tears. “Are you hurt?”
He had smiled down at her but felt no joy in it.
“It’s not mine.”
He’d told them about Lloyd then, upstairs in that room. There was no saving him, and when Rose had finally left his side to talk to a newly arrived Price, James had told the sheriff everything Lloyd had said.
Almost everything.
“If you want this to end here, I suggest you don’t repeat what I’m about to say…”
If Lloyd had acted any differently, if he hadn’t seemed so sincere, James wouldn’t have omitted anything from the sheriff or Detective Williams. Yet, he couldn’t find anything to doubt in the man’s warning.
So James kept Lloyd’s last words to himself. If there was any chance it could keep Rose safe, he was going to take it for now.
Maybe that was what Sheriff Weaver suspected now. Maybe he knew James was withholding something. Or maybe he was just tired.
He let out a long breath and turned back toward the field.
“I think it might rain this week,” he said after a moment.
James turned his bottle around in his hand, the condensation wetting his fingers.
“We could use just a little of it,” he said.
“That we could,” Weaver agreed.
They sat in silence, not a bad one, until Blake appeared at the back door. She had one hand on her belly and the other reaching for her husband.
“It’s time for us to go to sleep,” she told him. Then to James, “You too, Mr. Keller.”
Both men stood.
“How’s Rose doing?” the sheriff asked.
Blake looked caught between sad and okay.
“She’ll be okay. She just needs some time to process, is all.” A smile lit her face. She spoke softly to her husband, but James was reassured by it too. “Don’t worry. Wildcard Rose will be back after a good, well-deserved rest.”
That cheering outlook led the three of them back through the house to the front porch. The sheriff said he would check in on them the next day while Blake encouraged James to focus on keeping Rose at home for a bit.
“That girl can roll with a lot of punches but staying put to heal from them has never been her strong suit,” Blake added. “Not to step out of line here, but I don’t think she’d mind healing if you were staying put right there with her.”
James told her not to worry. He’d make sure she got the rest she needed. Then the Weavers locked hands and walked slowly to their car. He couldn’t hear everything they said but he spied them looking up at the stars together.
He turned off the porch light to give them some privacy.
James had only spent one night away from his house, but it felt like a lifetime ago. He went through each room, checking every inch to make sure everything was like it had been.
Then he came to a stop at the guest bedroom door.
It was open enough that James could make out Rose, lying in the bed.
She was facing away from him, wrapped up in a quilt.
James had already told her good-night, knowing she was exhausted, and she had returned the sentiment, eyes swollen and heavy. So there was no reason for him to go in to see her now. No reason to talk to her. No reason to be near her.
He could go to his own room across the hall and probably fall asleep in a wink.
Yet, James couldn’t move from his spot at the door.
She was safe now.
His house was safe.
There was no reason to worry. There was no reason to hover. There was no—
James pushed open the door and walked around the side of the bed. Rose opened her eyes to the sound. She didn’t say a word as she watched him.
She didn’t say a thing as he took the covers off her.
She didn’t make a sound as he scooped her up into his arms, her side against his chest and bare legs dangling freely while he walked her out of the guest bedroom and across the hall.
Instead, she let him place her directly into his bed, watched him get in beside her, and accepted the covers he pulled up over them both. He reached up and clicked the light off and kept that silence going until a few minutes passed.
Then, he told her something he had never told another soul.
“When I was a kid, I got into a really bad fight with a teenager in the same foster home as me. He was pushing around a girl in the home with us and I tried to protect her. I did some damage to him but I was just a little thing and I had to have two surgeries on my arm. I had nightmares after that, recurring bad ones that carried on for years. I’d wake up screaming and crying, and sometimes when it got really bad, I’d just completely shut down until morning.
When that happened, no one could get me talking.
It was like I was dead to the world. Everyone thought the nightmares were from the fight and the surgeries and getting moved around from foster home to foster home, but it wasn’t any of that. ”
He couldn’t see her but knew Rose was looking up at him from her pillow. He took a breath and told her the secret he had kept since he was six.
“The thing that scared me the most was when I woke up in the hospital after my surgery. It was night, the room was dark, and I was alone. And I stayed that way for maybe twenty minutes before a nurse came in to do her rounds. But that twenty minutes? It felt like a lifetime times two. Small, hurt, and in the dark without any idea of what my future looked like. I didn’t know if I was okay, I didn’t know if I was in trouble, and the worst part, I didn’t know if anyone cared about me either.
” James could still feel that terror, those fears that had him frozen in that hospital bed until a nurse came in.
“Since then, I have spent every day working on making a life that never puts me in that situation again. Making sure I can one day help other kids never feel that too. And I think I’ve done a good job of it so far.
I can sleep by myself in a dark room and not worry about a thing.
But I’m here to tell you something right now, Rose Little. ”
He rolled onto his side to face her.
He imagined her dark eyes searching him but could only make out her silhouette now.
Even that brought him comfort.
“For the first time in my life, the idea of falling asleep alone bothered me more than waking up by myself. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to stay with me tonight. At least until I fall asleep, just so I can know you’re here. So I can know that you’re safe. If that’s okay with you.”
In the dark Rose Little said four words.
“It’s okay with me.”
Her hand went beneath the covers and found his. She interlocked their fingers together and, a few minutes later, she was asleep.
James listened to her even breathing, felt the warmth of her hand in his, and smiled into the darkness.
Finally, he let out that breath he had felt like he’d been holding all day.
Then, he slept.