The facade of control immediately melts with his touch. Tears stream down my face and I let Jordan hold me.
"Lana." My name comes out of him wrecked. "Lana.I've got you. I've got you, sweetheart, you're okay."
I'm not okay. I'm sobbing into the front of his jacket, which still smells like smoke and pine.
"It’s not okay. He found me, Jordan, he found me again, he sent… There was a text, it washim, the fire was him, those kids could have… I’m not a safe person for anyone to be around. I had to leave and I’m so sorry. I know that hurt you. But I had to, I couldn't let him do to you what he does to everything I love. And I love you, Jordan, so much. I couldn't stand the thought?—"
"He's done." Jordan takes my face in both his hands and tips it up so I have to look at him. "Lana. Look at me.He's done."
I go still. “No, you don’t get it. He’s never going to be done. There will never be peace for me.”
"You’re not hearing me, sweetheart. We got him. He’s locked up and he isn’t coming out for a very long time." His thumbs move over my cheekbones. The movement is slow, like I'm something breakable, like I'm something worth being careful with. "It all happened a couple hours ago. He's processed. Arson,stalking, violating a protective order across state lines, and a stack more they're still adding up.”
The words don't fit at first. I've carried him so long he stopped being a man and turned into weather. He’s something I check the sky for, something I plan my whole life around. Now Jordan is telling me the weather's justgone.
"It's over?" My voice is barely there.
He takes my face in his hands. "It's over. He is sitting in a holding cell in Whispering Pines and he is never going to get within six hundred miles of you again. You hear me? He is not a problem anymore. He's just a small, pathetic man who's going to spend a very long time in a very small room."
All the tension and worry I’ve carried for years gives way and my body nearly collapses. But Jordan’s right there to catch me. He drops his forehead to mine, and I feel him shaking too.
"Lana, you almost didn't get to be here for it. You almost drove off into the dark and made me spend the rest of my life looking for you. That scared me."
"I know. I’m so sorry. I left you a note and I know it wasn’t enough?—"
"I didn’t like your note.” He lets out a rough chuckle.
I shake my head, our foreheads still pressed together.
Realization dawns as I look at the scene around us. “Wait, all of this is for me?”
"I called every man I know and I came after you." He pulls back just enough to find my eyes, and his are blazing. "I told you up front. I'm not built for casual. I don't do anything I don't want to do. And I have never wanted anything the way I want you to turn that car around and come home. I was going to get my girl no matter what it cost."
"You don't—" My breath hitches. "Jordan, I'm a mess. I'm boxes I never unpacked and a chair under the doorknob. I'm a woman who throws up and runs. I'm not… I'm not what you saidyou wanted. A wife who wants a big life in a small town, kids walking to school, a porch on the Fourth of July. That's not — I can't be —"
"That'sexactlywhat you are." He says it like it's the simplest fact in the world. "I knew it on a tailgate looking at a valley. The wife in my head finally had a face, and it was yours. It's been yours since the second you walked into a burning building for a kid who wasn't even yours to save." His jaw sets. "You are the bravest person I've ever met and you areworth fighting for.I will fight for you every single day for the rest of my life and I won't ever get tired of it. But I need you to do one thing for me."
The flares pop and hiss along the shoulder. Somewhere behind us a radio crackles. The whole interstate is holding its breath.
"Anything," I whisper, and I mean it, God help me, I mean it.
"Promise me." His voice drops, low and certain. It’s the same voice that pulled me out of the smoke when I couldn't find my own way. "Promise me you'll never leave me again unless we aren’t in love. I’ll never ask you to stay if you aren’t happy. But you don't run because you're scared. You don't slip out at five in the morning. You come to me. You let me stand between you and the whole world if I need to." His thumb catches a tear at the corner of my mouth. "I love you. Promise me, Lana."
"I promise." I fist both hands in his jacket the way I did in the bed of his truck, like deciding something I've been deciding since the fire. "I promise. I'm not going anywhere.”
He kisses me before I can finish my thought, right there in the gap in the wall of light, with half the county watching. The red and blue washes over both of us and he kisses me like the rest of the night can wait. When he finally pulls back, he presses his lips to my forehead and breathes me in.
"When I get you home," he murmurs, just for me. His mouth is warm against my ear so half the county can't hear it. "I'mgoing to spend a very long time reminding you exactly what you almost left behind."
A shiver runs through me that has nothing to do with the cold. "Promise?" I whisper.
His grin against my skin is pure wickedness. "Damn right. Come on, sweetheart." I feel the smile against my skin. "Let's go home.”
CHAPTER 12
EPILOGUE: LANA
One YearLater
