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Andie gave a watery chuckle. “We sure are. If you don’t count the last seven or eight months.” He bit her. “Ouch, animal.” She slapped at the rock-hard wall of muscle he had for a chest. “Sheesh, I was kidding.” Then she looked into his melted chocolate eyes and let him see all she was feeling in that moment. “You’re right though; this does feel like a very good start.”
“Marry me,” he told her, and her entire being filled with sparkling light. “I love you, Andrea. I think I started loving you the minute you walked into that hotel lounge, and I know my track record sucks here, but I was trying too hard. I always screw up when something really matters. Marry me, and I promise I won’t try so hard.”
He looked so earnest. So compelling and serious. Andie couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. The joy was contagious though, and after a second of shock, Luke’s expression softened, and then he was laughing with her. She adored him.
A sudden burst of renewed energy flooded her limbs, and Andie rolled them until she was straddling Luke. She sat back and lifted her arms skyward, arching her back in the golden afternoon light streaming through the windows. Laughter faded from Luke’s face, and his eyes coursed over her naked form in frank appreciation. His expression was almost worshipful. Andie smiled down at him and drifted her fingers over his torso, fully aware she was looking at him with the same absorbed fascination he was showing her.
“Yes,” she said with a conviction she felt right down to the tips of her toes. “Yes, Luke. If you promise not to try too hard, I too will promise to be only marginally committed as well.” She squealed when he shot up and grappled with her, tackling and tickling and kissing her as they rolled across the bed like a couple of puppies in a basket.
It wasn’t until the ambulance screamed up the drive with its siren blaring that they realized something was wrong.
Chapter 23
“I still can’t believe you didn’t hear us,” Sharon said a little drunkenly from her sprawl across Christy’s lap. “We were screaming so loud we coulda been heard up in space.”
It had taken hours for everything to get sorted out. Abram had been taken away. He was still alive at last check, which Christy was glad for, Sharon knew. But she hoped the sick little bastard dropped dead in the middle of the night. He killed five people. Four girls, because he’d been attracted to them and considered his temptation a test from God and, in his twisted and demented mind, had been driven to kill the ones he’d not been strong enough to resist.
And he killed Wally, Andie’s uncle, because he found Abe’s hidden stash of mementos he kept from each of his victims. The fresh wave of grief that news brought to everyone here had been just another painful layer in this awful day.
“Well,” Jax cut in. “We were making a pretty big racket too.” His handsome face was covered in bruises, but Sharon had never seen him happier. There was a gleam in his blackened eyes and a smile on his swollen lips. It probably had a lot to do with the pixie-sized artist he had in his lap, and maybe a little with the FBI agent sitting across from him, who looked every bit as beat up as Jax.
“Yeah, I do seem to recall hearing you scream like a frightened little girl more than once.” Max’s good-natured taunt earned him a pillow tossed in his face, but he deflected it with a laugh.
“Keep it up, asshole,” Jax warned. “I can still press charges.” But they all knew he wouldn’t. The atmosphere was too charged, too positive to harbor anything as negative as resentment or retribution. The relief too great.
“I still can’t believe you thought Jax was capable of murder,” Kiki said as she shook her head sadly at Max. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
The statement was a bit ridiculous, since she said it to the man Jax had almost beaten to a pulp.
“Hey.” Under the bruises, Sharon could see a flush creep over the agent’s skin. “Speaking as the man he just tried to rip limb from limb this afternoon, I call bullshit on that.”
“That was different.” She waved away his brush with death like it was nothing. “He was defending me.” And she snuggled into the smug attorney, who looked happy as a fucking clam.
“It was your own fault for attacking without waiting for explanations,” Jax told him flatly.
“Yeah, well, I had good intel that led me to you. Then, when I got here, I found you grappling with what looked like a small, defenseless woman. I didn’t think there was time for a chat. I just wanted to get you secured and her safe. After you were secure, we would’ve had our heart-to-heart.” They all laughed.
“That little spitfire is about as defenseless as a badger. Even I know that.” The Sheriff had come back to the farm with the FBI agent after they finished with all that whatever it is law enforcement had to do when they caught the bad guy. They had both wanted to check on everyone, and Max wanted again to apologize for attacking the wrong suspect.
There was a sharp edge to their joy. Death had come too close to all of them this day, and they were reluctant to leave the warm circle of life affirmation that joined them together.
“I’m telling you I was in quite a fix when I pulled up. That’s the plain truth.” The Sheriff chuckled and shook his head. “When I got here, I heard all of y’all shouting and hollering from all three buildings. I stood right there—” He paused and pointed dramatically at a spot in front of the porch where they sat. “—and my head was whippin’ from one place to the next as I tried to figure on which would be the most likely place. Then I heard Andrea scream.” They all looked to where Andie sat on her porch swing with her legs in Luke’s lap. She turned red as a fire engine, covered her face in her hands, and they all burst out laughing. “Now, maybe it has been a while for me, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t a scream of pain or fear. So, I pelted for the barn.”
“Hey! What about me in the shop? All defenseless and helpless, remember?” Kiki asked and got more laughter going.
“I’ve seen you in action with that blow torch, little lady, and if Abe had come your way, I would’ve been more worried for him than you.”
“Damn straight,” Jax chimed in and earned him a kiss from his pixie.
“Abe wouldn’t have come for you, Kiki,” Logan said solemnly. “He respected you. Your art and stuff. He saw your art as kinda your religion, so he woulda left you alone. At least, I think so anyway.”
Luke reached a hand out and gave a squeeze to the back of his son’s neck. This had all hit him pretty hard, but the stoic kid was keeping a tight lid on things as far as she could see.
“That left only one unknown. I didn’t know who it was causing all that ruckus in the barn, but apparently I wasn’t needed there either.” His kind face turned toward where Sharon and Christy sat wrapped around each other.
“Oh, you were needed, Sheriff,” Christy told him with a shudder. “In fact, I wish you had gotten here a lot sooner than you did.”
His smile drifted away, and there was such compassion in his eyes that Sharon felt a lump in her throat.
