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That was a hard thing to believe. But the idea that they had him and he was finally gone... My chest felt lighter.
“I didn’t marry him,” I blurted out. “I couldn’t move. He signed it with my hand.”
Lucas shook his head. “You didn’t marry him. It’s illegal, and clearly not your signature.”
Good. That was good. My thoughts were jumbled and another one sprang to me. “Lena? Liam and Noah?”
“She’s in a room down the hall. Alive. He gave her an overdose of half a dozen drugs meant to kill her. But she’ll be okay. Liam and Noah had already been discharged and are pissed as hell. They were drugged too, but nothing lethal. They’ll have some pain from the stun gun, but nothing lasting.”
I nodded. “Good.” My breath hitched. “I need to tell you what happened. I want to know everything that happened to you. I’m so sorry—”
Lucas cut me off with a squeeze of his hand. “We’ll have time for you to tell me everything, and I’ll tell you as much as you want to know. But first, I need to tell you.” He shifted to face me more fully. “I love you.”
The words hung in the air, and I closed my eyes. I wanted to hear them again. Like he was reading my mind, he spoke.
“I love you, and the entire time I was trying to find you, I knew that I should have told you sooner. Because not getting the chance—” He had to stop and look away. “I needed you to know that before anything else.”
“I love you too,” I said. “I said it, right?”
“As soon as I had you out.”
I swallowed. “I had the same thoughts. Before you left to go get him, I wanted to tell you, but I was scared. And then I thought that I wouldn’t have the chance.”
He stood up and leaned down, kissing me while holding himself back from my body. He knew what had been done. I didn’t have to hide it. And whatever was flowing into me through the IV made the feelings bearable.
He was right, we had time, and all I wanted was him. “Will you hold me?”
Lucas kicked off his shoes and lifted me with infinite gentleness, settling me against his chest so we lay together. “You don’t have to run anymore,” he said. “And I hope, like I asked you once, that this can be your place. I want you to come home with me, Ev. I want my house to be your house, my bed to be your bed. I want to take you back to the lake and finish making love to you against one of those trees. I want to do everything with you, if you’ll stay.”
I pressed my face against his chest, breathing in the rich, pine scent of him. “I don’t want to go anywhere. Except with you. Garnet Bend isn’t my place. You’re my place.”
Lucas kissed my hair, and his hand stroked down my back. Being here with him wasn’t something I’d ever thought I’d feel again, and now, I got to do it forever. Tension so deep I hadn’t known it was there slipped away, and I melted into Lucas. That relief brought a brand-new wave of exhaustion, and I fell asleep in his arms.
Safe.
Finally.
Chapter 31
Lucas
I didn’t dare close my eyes again. I’d fallen asleep, and she’d woken. Now, I didn’t want to miss anything. Especially since she was in my arms.
There was a part of me that wondered whether it was real. Whether I’d really found her. If she was here.
Nathan hadn’t bothered to hide the grave in the flower bed. He’d thought that we wouldn’t find her in time, and that with the documents he’d forged, it wouldn’t matter. He hadn’t bothered to move the tools that he’d used to bury her.
Harlan, Daniel, and I had dug as fast as possible, and I’d ended up using my hands for the last bit because it was faster. And when I’d opened the lid—
I’d thought she was gone. She’d been so pale and still that the world had crashed down on me in a second, thinking that I’d been too late and she’d suffocated waiting for me to find her. But then she’d breathed, and I couldn’t get her out of there fast enough.
She hadn’t stayed awake long enough for me to tell her that I loved her. I’d just been glad to see her alive. Even when I’d seen the new angry red marks on her arms. And her legs. Creeping beneath her clothes. The ring burned onto her finger. The paramedics had put her into the ambulance, and it had taken both Daniel and Harlan to keep me from going to the police station and killing Nathan right then.
My arms tightened around her sleeping form. She was here with me. And she was going to stay. That’s all that mattered. I didn’t give a shit that she had new scars—there wasn’t anything that would make her not beautiful to me. But Ev would need to be shown that.
In the darkness and solitude, I finally let in the emotions I’d been pushing back. All that panic and fear and rage. It shuddered through me, and I let it. I pressed my face deeper into Evelyn’s hair. She smelled like sunlight and coconuts, despite everything.
When I was too tired to stay awake, I let myself drift. The others were keeping tabs on things here at the hospital and the police station. They’d ordered me in here and to not even think about anything else, and I’d listened. But the feeling of needing to watch our backs hadn’t quite faded. It never did right away.
