“We’re lucky they were slow ones,” she gasps on a heavy breath, sheathing her weapon. “Those aren’t as common anymore. They disintegrate faster than the hordes of runners.”
All this talking and yelling they’ve been doing could have attracted an even worse crowd. They got lucky this time that it wasn’t Silas, and he’s not trying to test fate.
They’re both drenched. Her clothes stick to her body, and raindrops run down her cheeks like tears.
“Let’s go home,” he offers her his hand, relieved when she slips hers into it.
“Really?”
“Really.”
She’s in his arms a moment later, pressing to him warm and wet, breathing him in with a sharp inhale. “Only forward from now on.”
He was prepared to die today, but now he’s holding the woman he loves while she drops a kiss to his neck. They’ve been given another chance. He won’t waste it.
“We lost our horse,” he says lightly, noticing how alone they are.
“He’ll get back long before we will. Come on. Let’s take a long walk in the rain…but first, I think you forgot something.” She pulls the hair tie from her pocket, holding it out until he lifts his hand for her to slip it over his wrist. “This is yours. It was a gift. You ever give that back to me again and we’re gonna have words.”
“Words, huh?”
“Oh yeah. Lots of them.”
“Guess I better not take it off then.”
“I guess not.”
“Hey.” He feathers a kiss to her knuckles, offering a declaration that’s so much easier to say than he ever expected. “I love you. I meant it.”
He never should have written it in that note, but he’d been afraid he might never see her again. She deserves to hear it in person.
Her smile is bright enough to blind him in a rainstorm as she says it back. “I loveyou.”
What they plan to do about that now is anyone’s guess, but the words have been said, and there is a weight lifted that comes with setting them free.
* * *
The bike is left at the gates a few days after they returned, rain-soaked from a near run-in with Silas. Just in time for their trip west. Wade curves a slow hand over expertly crafted leather and metal.
“You two were really gonna speed off into the sunset and not say goodbye?”
Juliet jogs over to meet them, enveloping Kara in a hug, but hesitating to offer the same to him.
“We would have found you first,” he opens his arms, watching her grin grow three sizes as she moves in to accept what he couldn’t give to a stranger before.
He isn’t one hundred percent better yet. Maybe he never will be, but he can hug someone who has helped them, and Juliet falls into that category.
She squeezes him tight in a way that feels as final as they all know it is. “You’re doing the right thing. Getting out of here. There aren’t many members of Silas’s army left anymore. We’ll pick them off. Eventually. Do me a favor and don’t think about them again.”
“Gonna try real hard not to,” he agrees.
“Good, and don’t take this the wrong way. You’re both always welcome back, but I hope to never see you again. I hope you find what you’re looking for instead.”
He lets out a half-chuckle with a nod.
“Good, now get the hell outta here. What are you waiting for?”
“You heard her,” Kara says. “Ready to hit the road?”
