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And he was breathing, watching her with lucidity in his eyes, the grin playing on the corners of his lips that she only saw on his face when he looked at her. She had believed in him and he had come back to her.
Just as Sienna had said. Believe in him.
Yet there was still hesitancy in his eyes, the part he held back because he didn’t think he was worthy of her.
She recognized that in him now. Saw it so easily, it may as well be the sun against the sky.
His mouth opened, ready to say something, but she jumped in front of his words. “Roe, you died. You died in that water. Dead when they pulled you into the air. And I need you to understand what a gift that was.”
His forehead wrinkled. “I died, and it’s a gift?”
She nodded. “You died, and with it, you need to bury everything in you that has been asking for death—taunting death since you were eight. You always wanted it and now you’ve had it.”
His look narrowed on her. “Since I was eight?”
“Sienna told me. She told me of your childhood. What you were forced to do just to survive the world you lived in. All of it happened and it will always be a part of you.” Her right fingers went to his temple, smoothing back his dark hair. “But I need you to bury that. Bury that past with your death, so that you can live now. Live with me. Want me. Love me. Don’t want death.”
The steel grey in his eyes went rigid, so strained he might snap. “I do want you, Tor. I do love you.”
“Then accept the fact that you are worthy of it—of me—of my love for you. That it was worth risking my own death to keep you alive—and that was my choice, not yours. I decided you were worth it and now you have all of me.”
Her other hand lifted and she clasped his face between her palms. “Tell me that you will fight with every fiber of your being to stay alive for me—always. Because I need you. I need you like nothing else in this world. You are the heart-pounding destiny that I always dreamed of, but never thought I could have.”
Her hands left him, curling around each other as she clutched them to her belly, holding tight onto every emotion that was welling, rumbling in the core of her—the fire, what he did to save her, watching him for weeks on end near death, only to see him finally open his eyes to her and see her for real.
Her lips parted, her words cracking. “And whatever darkness we have suffered—both of us—that darkness is our light. It is what we suffered to be in this moment, in this place, together. And I don’t intend to throw that away. I intend to leave the in-between and walk in the light with you. But I need you there with me. In the light. In the life.”
Tears crested on his dark lower lashes, spilling over as they slipped down his cheeks.
Her breath lodged in her chest as she stared at his dark grey eyes. Those eyes that were the key to everything.
She couldn’t read them. Couldn’t tell if his tears were because he was going to break her into nothingness, or if he was grasping, reaching out for what the future held for them.
His hand lifted, his knuckles going to her left cheek, lifting away tears that were streaming down her own face. “If you’re leaving the in-between, Torrie, then I will follow you. I will follow you, anywhere. Always. I die with you, I live with you.”
Her breath stolen, she stilled in time. Stilled in the moment that the rest of her life began. The life she’d always wanted. The life she deserved.
The life he deserved.
{ Epilogue }
“You are ready?” Torrie looked across the coach to Roe, her eyebrows lifted.
“I think the question is, are you?” Roe’s steel grey eyes met her gaze.
He was trying to read her, but was having difficulty. Probably because she was more conflicted than she had let him know. She didn’t know what she wanted, but it was too late now to change their course of action.
“We are here, so I have to be,” she said, worrying her lower lip as she looked out the window of the coach and it came to a stop.
The footman came around to let out the stairs and Roe shifted his cane away from the door and leaned forward, opening the latch.
Torrie stepped out of the carriage, her look dropping from the tall turrets of Vinehill Castle to her cousin and his wife standing before the massive front door.
A smile as wide as the sun cut across Lachlan’s face. “You’ve come home, lass. Tis well past time.” He stepped forward and wrapped his thick stumps of arms around her, lifting her off the ground, his Scottish burr warm in her ears.
A laugh bubbled up her throat as he swung her about.
“Lach, give your cousin some space—she doesn’t need to be squashed before she even steps inside.” Evalyn, Lachlan’s wife, poked him in the back with a chuckle as she moved to his side.
