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“Lanston?”
James wakes up to my shouts and the beeping of my heart monitor. He hurries to my side and whispers soft words that I can’t hear, because I’m screaming.
“Liam!Lanston!”
Nurses rush in to tend to me. One pulls out a syringe, but someone calls out for her to stop.
Everyone stops fussing as I cover my mouth and still.
His eyes find me first, then he runs to me and embraces me so tightly that I squeak from the pressure.
“Not so hard,” James snaps furiously from my side.
“Sorry,” Liam mutters as he unwraps his arms from me and caresses my cheek adoringly. Tears fill his blue eyes and he presses a long kiss to my forehead. “I thought I’d never look into your eyes again.” He starts sobbing and shock unfurls inside me. I’ve never seen Liam cry like this.
“Where’s Lanston?” I ask, expecting him to walk through the door any second. I want to tell him about everything he missed. I’m so fucking relieved he wasn’t there.
Liam’s eyes widen and he cries harder, shaking his head. His hands tremble so violently that one of the nurses braces him and tries to coerce him to calm down.
Why is he upset about Lanston? He wasn’t there. He wasn’t…
James takes my hand and looks me in the eyes. He blinks away tears as he shakes his head.
“No,” I say, convinced they’re wrong. “No, he wasn’t there. He didn’t come with me.”
Liam reigns in his sobs and shakes his head.
“H-he s-s-saved us.” Fresh tears fall from his eyes and he grits his teeth as he forces himself to continue. “C-Crosby shot h-him.”
My world ends with those words.
My kindred soul cannot be gone. Surely I would feel the shift in the universe. I would feel the weight crashing in on me like the pressure deep in the sea, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t my heart and soul just… know?
No, they’re wrong.I still feel him. He’s still here.
James frowns and holds my hands firmly, taking on the burden of telling me the news Liam cannot bear to speak. “He was shot in the spine, instantly paralyzing him from the waist down. Somehow, he miraculously remained upright and held his sweatshirt over your heart to staunch the bleeding. You all arrived here alive. Both your conditions worsened. Without a heart transplant, you were going to die. He didn’t pull through.” James lets his tears fall as he clears his throat. “His last request was that you receive his heart.”
I was born with a bad heart—literally and figuratively.
But you gave your heart to me, and because of you, I will live.
Because of you, I will never take my life for granted ever again.
46
Wynn
One year after the fire
Snow fallsoutside the café windows like little puffs of cotton, soft and slow. Boston is a lot warmer than Montana. I rest my head on my palm as I watch people pass, wrapped in warm clothes, their breaths curling in the air as they laugh.
Liam sets a plate down, then two coffees. He presses a kiss to my cheek before he sits down across from me.
“Where do you want to start today?” He grins and reaches his hands across the table for mine.
I intertwine my fingers with his and smile back. “Well, we’ll need to stop by the office and pick up the new floorplans, and then we’re pretty much free until the flights tomorrow.”
He nods and raises a brow with a hint of trouble. “How much free time are we talking, Wynn?”
