Chapter Twenty-One
Everyone thought Damon had fled the hospital, but to their utter surprise, he had only gone as far as the next room. Wynonna apologized profusely on his behalf.
“I saw that man in the lobby when I was downstairs,” she told Rose, describing the reporter to a tee.
“I recognized him. I never knew his name but he visited the house around the time Derrick passed away. Him and Lloyd got into a big yelling match. I never heard what they said but I remembered Damon left with him. It was actually the last time I saw Damon until now.”
After seeing him, Wynonna had pieced together the same conclusion Rose had.
Someone else had to have been pressuring her brother and Damon.
She hadn’t known all of the facts but that feeling, coupled with impressive speed, had gotten her to take Damon to the only safety she could reach.
Deputy Cameron had come in during the brief moment between her coming in and the reporter showing up.
He too had gotten a bad feeling from the man, and when Cameron had asked to see his hands, the reporter had attacked.
Cameron hadn’t been shot but knocked around good enough that he’d gotten a broken nose and a concussion.
Not too bad considering the man who had attacked him had died on the roof no more than ten minutes later.
That man remained nameless for one more week until finally Damon was able to talk.
And talk he did. To Rose first, of all people.
“His name was Paul Martinez. He hired me and Lloyd to copy and then disrupt the Camden Pharmaceuticals drug trial data. Paul was getting paid by Camden’s competitors and was paying us a lot to help.
We needed the money to clear some debt and, since the drug only treats insomnia, we decided it was the lesser of evils if we botched it instead of some of the other Camden drugs that help treat sicknesses.
” Damon had quieted. Rose had given him the space to get to the hard part of his confession.
“The day of the storm, the generator didn’t work, and the backup power cycled wrong.
Instead of everything being shut down, they actually got some of the power back for the computers before they left on the bus.
Lloyd said that’s how Derrick saw the encrypted message he had been trying to send out before.
It was highly incriminating for Lloyd. And me. ”
His eyes had grown red at that.
“Derrick was always smart, but I don’t know why he chose to confront Lloyd on the bus.
Not when it was already dangerous. Maybe…
maybe he was really upset and afraid and it just came out.
But no matter the reason why, he confronted Lloyd on the bus.
And well, you were the only person who saw what happened next. ”
Damon had said that was when their faux reporter Paul had stepped in.
“Lloyd said that there was no way you heard what they were fighting about, but Paul was never one to let his money be in danger. He thought you might know something and when he saw how angry I was at you…he played on that anger to try and get you out of the way. Just like us, who had made too much trouble in his book. He wanted all three of us to go out at once. And what better way to have that happen without anyone looking too deep into it?”
“Your revenge against me,” Rose had guessed.
Damon had nodded.
“When he realized I couldn’t get you myself, he told us how to stage our deaths and, if we didn’t listen, he threatened Wynonna.”
Paul had given Damon and Lloyd proof that men were watching the young woman. Men they couldn’t protect her from.
It had scared them enough to accept their final scene together.
The betrayal Damon had told Rose about referred to Paul’s betrayal of them, not Lloyd’s betrayal of him.
“No matter what we went through in this life, we never turned on each other,” Damon had said, choking up a bit as he did so. “Lloyd was my person and Wynonna was our person. Even when we didn’t agree with each other’s decisions, we never lost sight of each other.”
That was why they had accepted what they believed to be their only option left.
Their lives for Wynonna’s.
But to Damon’s surprise, when it came to killing Rose in the end, both men had decided, without even speaking, to give her a fighting chance.
Damon was good at tying knots but had left hers loose in case Lloyd had thrown her in. Lloyd had watched Damon go over the edge of the dock but had left Rose alone.
“I think Paul would have left you alone had we both died, especially if you didn’t go after him or bring up anything about Camden. But you saved me.”
Damon had looked at her then with an expression that she couldn’t decipher.
Unlike Paul, he didn’t ask her why.
Rose had been glad for that. She decided she was over talking about heroes.
Everyone involved had simply made choices.
Some hadn’t worked out, some had.
* * *
MONTHS LATER AT Damon’s trial, Rose would speak on his behalf for a lighter prison sentence. Wynonna would thank her after.
“I know it’s not the same as Lloyd being there, but no matter what happens, I’m going to make sure Damon is never alone. Just like he did for me and my brother.”
Rose didn’t know Lloyd well, but she imagined he would have been proud of Wynonna’s decision.
During all the trial and its aftermath, the drug trial at the research annex would be shut down for an extensive investigation that would reach into Camden Pharmaceuticals and its competitors, finding two more cases of attempted tampering with other trials elsewhere.
Rose would keep up with the public updates but eventually would decide to stop after a while.
Paul was gone, Damon and Wynonna were trying to heal, and Rose had finally shaken the press’s fascination with her.
They had all done their parts and it was time to move on.
And move on they did.
Once the investigation closed, the insurance people finally got everything they needed for James and his father.
Keller Auto was rebuilt and had a grand opening party that nearly the entire town of Seven Roads attended.
The sheriff’s department was the most vocal about their excitement.
Mainly because, like Rose, most of the staff had fallen for the only mechanic in town.
James had been a sight and a half, standing next to the old service pit they had jumped into, with a smile on his face and a baby in his arms.
“And this is where Rose Little fell for me,” he joked.
“Didn’t you technically fall after her?” Price teased, his daughter Winnie punching him in the arm as a warning to behave himself. He kept on with a laugh. “You know, after she pulled you off a bomb?”
James waved his free hand through the air, careful to not jostle the newest member of the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department family.
Her father, the sheriff, was standing near them holding the hand of his other daughter while Blake held on to their son.
They laughed along with Rose’s parents as they had come in.
While they had wished Rose would have had a less dangerous experience while meeting a man she liked, they couldn’t argue with the results.
Her father had also taken a liking to Mr. Keller, both men prone to walking around the shop when they were in town and chatting about who-knew-what.
Mr. Donahue, one of James’s favorite people she realized quickly despite James pretending that he didn’t like the man’s constant chatting, was also there and more than ready to mingle.
And when Rose and James were married, he even cried.
But before all of that moving on happened, James had taken Rose home from the hospital that night and then to bed.
They were tired, through and through, but somewhere and sometime between the sheets, James held her close and sighed out long.
“I have another good news, bad news thing but I think it might make me sound a little needy,” he said, all soft and warm.
The lights were off but Rose still glanced up at him from her spot resting against his chest. She had already gotten used to this position, it making her fall asleep faster than anything else. But now she made sure to fight that urge.
“Bad news first this time,” she decided. “I’d like to end today on a good note if we can.”
She felt him nod.
“Bad news, I realized today that you didn’t actually say if you liked me too,” James said. “I mean I said it and then we had a great time and all after, but who knows, that might be Rose Little speak for I like you all right but not that much.”
Rose struggled to keep a laugh in her chest and out of her next words.
“Ah, and the good news?”
“The good news is, even if you don’t like me, I have all of this free time until the new shop is up and operating, so getting you to fall for me should be a piece of cake.”
Rose lost it at that. She laughed against him until he was laughing with her too.
He started to stroke her back when they finished. Knowing him, that could have been the end of the conversation, at least that night.
But Rose decided to tease him because there was just something about James Keller that made her feel comfortable, safe, and loved enough to do so, even with such an important topic.
“How about I make you a deal?” she said. “You buy me some blackout curtains so I can sleep in on my off days, and I’ll like, love, and stay with you for as long as you want?”
Rose’s head bounced up and down a little as James let out a hoot of laughter.
“What?” she asked, worried the joke had been too much.
James kept going. Only after a moment did he get his words out.
“If that’s all it takes, then I can’t wait for you to see what’s supposed to be delivered tomorrow.”
Sure enough, the next day just after lunch a package came in.
It was the set of blackout curtains James had already bought two days prior.
A month later, Rose officially moved in. Five months after that they were married in the field behind the house.
James would go on to confuse everyone in attendance when he credited their entire love to a set of curtains.
Rose, however, would absolutely smile.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from Explosion at the Marina by R. Barri Flowers.