I sucked in a lungful of air. Then why did every action she ever made have to be opposite? I wanted to scream, why? Why’d she have to be so vile when I would have happily given her everything?
She cleared her throat and straightened. “I’m leaving here and I’m going straight to the police station. I’m going to turn myself in. Tell them every last thing I know, every name and every detail. I’ll be going to prison, Shea. That is if I make it there. I imagine Martin will be going away for much longer. I just wanted you to know.”
I felt something inside me splintering, old hurt and resentment breaking free. As much relief as her statement brought me, there was no satisfaction.
Nothing to assuage the enormity of what she’d done. The danger she’d put her own daughter in, worst of all allowing it year after year.
She could have stopped this so long ago.
Kallie all of a sudden came skipping over to us, blonde curls a hurricane, her smile the most brilliant force. “Momma!”
She grabbed onto my hand, swaying in my hold as she peered up at the woman who’d done everything to stop her life.
“Hi,” she exuded with all that childlike curiosity.
My mother smiled down at her.
Softly.
Flickers of a memory hit me, and I thought maybe…maybe she’d once looked at me that way.
“And what’s your name?” my mother asked as she stooped down to bring them to eye level.
A hint of interested shyness injected into her tone when she answered, “I’m Kallie Marie.”
“Well…it’s an honor to meet you, Kallie Marie.”
Chloe Lynn didn’t introduce herself to Kallie as anyone, not as my mother or her grandmother or a long-lost friend.
Because both my mother and I knew Kallie would never see her again.
For the briefest flash, my mother touched my daughter’s cheek, hesitating, before she stood.
Sorrow crowded every crease in her weathered face. “Goodbye, my shining star.”
Then she turned and walked away.
Night echoed back from where I stood on the balcony off Sebastian’s bedroom. City lights gleamed and glinted where they stretched across the valley, the pool below in a slow roll from one color to another, the high-pitched drone of bugs floating in the cool night air.
A chill blew across my skin. Thick strands of my hair and the silky material of my short nightgown billowed in the gentle breeze. The same as the billow of the shimmery drapes whipping out from where they hung just inside the room, the large French doors open and bleeding the darkness from within.
My spirit stirred and I grasped the cool railing as I lifted my face to the sky and sent up a silent prayer.
A thank you.
My daughter was safe and sleeping down the opposite hall.
Protected.
Permanently.
Thanks to my mother, the one who’d done so much damage and caused so much pain, Martin Jennings would no longer stand as a threat against my daughter.
Would no longer stand as a threat against me.
Yesterday, a warrant had been issued. DEA had swept in to search every pretentious inch of his home.
Three hours later he’d been arrested.
Fraud and theft and trafficking.
It was all there, hidden in safes and files and computers.
Arrogant, stupid man.
Kallie and I were free.
But my heart…my heart was bound. Tied to the only future I could see.
Wind gusted—howled and thrashed.
Chills skated across the surface of my skin as a swell of that energy crested.
Pressing full.
Consuming.
My hands clamped down on the railing and my body swayed. My ear inclined to the muted click of a door, and my pulse spiked as footsteps moved across the bedroom floor.
Slow yet filled with severity.
And I could feel it. Everything he was. Everything I wanted us to be. Standing right behind me.
I gasped over a breath when I looked over my shoulder to catch sight of this magnificent man.
My magnificent man.
The weight of his stare was overpowering, those strange grey eyes trained on me.
Darkness clung to the defined curves of his face.