Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46223 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Say it again,” I ask, because I want it in my bones.
“I love you,” he says, softer this time, like the heat in the room might scald it. “I love you. I’m here.”
“I love you too,” I tell him, and it’s the easiest truth I’ve ever said.
He pulls me in, slow and careful, and I fold into him like I’ve been saving the shape for this exact second. He smells like pine trees and sweat and the kind of fear that leaves when love walks in. His heart beats steady against my cheek, and I make mine match. I think I’ve been doing that since Seattle.
Turner appears in my peripheral with a tablet for my statement and a gentleness he hides like a contraband. “Ms. Mercado,” he says, “medics are on their way. We’ll keep this off the blotter for as long as the universe allows. You’ve got a good man here,” he says, nodding at Riggs.
“I know,” I say, voice rough, and Riggs huffs against my hair.
Lalo lifts the rosary off the nail and hands it to Turner with a face like c’mon. The driver goes one way, Kellan goes another, still talking to a camera that isn’t there.
Riggs tucks his chin to my temple. “We’re going home,” he says into my hair.
“Where’s that?” I ask, because I want to hear him say it.
“Where you sleep,” he says. “Where I keep watch. Anywhere the door wedges and the coffee’s bad and you laugh at me for how seriously I take light bulbs.”
I smile, wet and stupid. “That sounds perfect.”
“It will be,” he says, and kisses me—quiet, sure, not for anyone but us. No cameras. No crowd. Just us.
Epilogue
VANESSA
Saint Pierce smells like salt, rosemary, and fresh paint. Our little bungalow sits three blocks from the water, pale blue with white trim because I got sentimental about turquoise and Riggs said “paint it” like it was a mission he could complete in a weekend. We hung string lights over the back patio, planted herbs in mismatched pots, and put a dented metal tub by the grill that he insists is “operational cold storage” and I insist is cute.
It’s been months since Austin. Months of quiet mornings and slow coffee and choosing when to be seen. I took time off from tours, off from airport doors and ring-light mobs, and learned how to make a schedule that includes reading, walking to the market, and kissing a man in a kitchen that creaks the same way every night. He still works—of course he does—but the jobs are quieter: protective runs for authors on book tours, a tech founder who needed a shadow for a board retreat, a museum gala where the only thing that exploded was a champagne cork. He takes the low-profile assignments and comes home and wedges our door anyway, then gives me that look like a habit he doesn’t want to break and I tell him I’m not asking him to.
Tonight the house buzzes. Music low, screen door smacking and squeaking, laughter pinging off stucco. Rae is perched on the deck rail with a sparkling water and a smirk, Hayes is turning my grill into an engineering diagram, Camille is barefoot in my kitchen cutting limes like a goddess, and Sawyer is exactly where you’d expect him—standing between the hallway and the living room, telling a story with one hand while keeping an eye on the sliding door like the born sentry he is.
Riggs moves through it all like he built the place as he salts the steaks with that unbothered competency that makes my knees consider dramatic choices, pausing to adjust a bulb, to pluck a leaf from my hair, to tap the thermostat with the back of his knuckle and pronounce it “fine.” He catches my gaze across the deck and tips his chin toward the horizon where the sky is pretending to be a watercolor again. I mouth later and he mouths always and that’s the whole story.
“You’re glowing,” Camille says, hip-bumping me as we heap chips into a bowl. She’s wearing a sundress the color of ripe peaches, and she looks…happy. She and Sawyer have that same seasoned softness around them now, like people who rebuilt a house together and learned how to argue about paint without burning the floor. “How does it feel to be a part-time recluse?”
“Delicious.” I steal a chip. “Quiet is underrated.”
“Don’t tell your follower count,” Rae calls from the doorway, because of course she hears us. “They’ll revolt.”
“They already did,” I say, grinning. “In a nice way. Turns out everyone is willing to let you breathe if you ask them to be part of it.”
Rae lifts her can. “To boundaries,” she says solemnly. “And to love.”
The side gate creaks. Jaxson slides in backwards with a case of Topo Chico balanced on one shoulder and a complaint already loaded. He looks windblown and irritated and like he hasn’t slept enough, which is to say: normal.