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He had turned the headlights off. Like a shark zeroing in on a kill in the deepest, darkest
part of the ocean, the black car cut through the darkness. Tommy didn’t escape. He had just turned around, using the narrow strait that led into Hamlet as a runway.
The tires were still holding on. He didn’t need to go far. As Grace watched in horror, he headed straight for the gulley. Straight for where Rick was standing near the edge.
“Rick!’ Her throat burned as she shrieked his name. “Rick, move!”
He did. At the very last second, he moved.
She would never know what Tommy Mathers’ final thoughts were before he plunged. The tinted windows on the Jaguar were closed so she didn’t even hear his screams if there were any. One minute he was racing toward the edge where Rick was panting, the next Rick had sprinted away and Tommy—unable to stop so suddenly with his bum tires—vanished over the side.
It felt like years passed in the time between his tail lights blinked out of her sight and the massive crash as the car made an impact with the bottom.
She didn’t know where she found the strength to get up. Had to be adrenaline. Every part of her ached, from her head down to her feet, and it took everything she had to push past the weight of the wedding dress in order to climb to her tender feet.
She had to look. She had to see.
Rick was okay. She could hear him panting, saw him on his knees as he stared into the dark gulley that just had swallowed up Tommy Mathers. He’d still be there once she had the chance to look.
As her toes drew up to craggy edge of the deep pit, Grace braced herself and peered down into the darkness. That’s all she saw. Pitch-black darkness. Even though she saw him fall, knew he was in there, she couldn’t see Tommy or the car. She leaned closer.
And that’s when she felt someone grab onto her, yanking her away from the edge.
Grace thrashed in his hold. He was too strong for her to be able to break free, but he was desperate not to hurt her any more than he already had. It killed him inside when he saw the shiny smear of blood reflecting in the moonlight. Mathers didn’t do that to her—not directly, anyway. Her upper arm had gotten skinned when he tossed her into the road to save her from being hit by Mathers’ car.
The same car that had just disappeared into the open maw of the Hamlet gulley.
“It’s me,” he rumbled. “You’re safe.”
“I know who you are. Rick, babe, please. You’ve got to let me go.”
So she could dance too close to the edge? “Grace, no. I can’t do that. You have to calm down. It’s okay, I swear it to you.”
She shook her head so frantically, she whipped him in the face with her hair. Fingernails bit into the meat of his forearm as she continued to thrash. “I have to see. He might’ve—I have to check—”
“There’s no use.” Rick held her tighter. “He—there’s no way he could’ve survived that fall.”
A hiccup escaped her. Just like that, all of the fight went out of her as she sagged in his arms. “Are you sure? Really, really sure?”
As much as he wanted Mathers dead for what he put Grace through, he would’ve given everything he had if he’d been able to whisk Grace away from the scene before Mathers took his swan dive.
He could feel her trembling under his tight grip, but there was no way he was about to loosen his embrace in case she tried to rush back toward the gulley. Seeing her lean so close to the edge had probably taken a good five years off of his life. For one unholy second, he thought that she was going to follow right behind Mathers.
It was going to take him a long, long time to get over the spike of fear that went through him.
Rick continued to hold onto her. Not because he was afraid she would jump, but because he needed to feel her close. He needed her, just needed her. Safe and whole and in his arms.
He nuzzled the top of her dark hair with his chin, exhaling softly. “Yeah. I am.”
This time, when she bucked against him, he instinctively knew that she wouldn’t be running away. With a soft caress to her injured arm, he let go.
Grace immediately spun around, reaching out to wrap her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek to his chest. The instant he raised his arms again, securing her as he pulled her close, she burst into tears.
“It’s over,” she sobbed. “It’s finally over.”
Rick’s practical mind thought of the calls he’d have to make. Mathers’ car would have to be removed from the gulley; it was too much a threat to leave where it was since, at any moment, it could go up in flames. The armed bodyguard was dangerous with or without his gun. He needed to be taken into custody before he came to.
But none of that mattered as Grace clung to him, her tears soaking through his uniform shirt, scalding his chest. She needed this moment, and she needed it with him.
