They walked to the Tombs, a Georgetown favorite, which was already thrumming with life at noon, the students who didn’t have afternoon classes tilting their pint glasses in happy abandon. Sam ordered a Lagavulin and fried calamari. Baldwin got Guinness and a bowl of chili.
“So. Have you decided you miss this life enough to join us?” he asked.
The server returned with their drinks. Sam swirled the amber Scotch around the glass. “I don’t miss it,” she said.
“You’re lying, and we both know it. You should have seen yourself out there in the woods. The whole place was burning down and you’re scheming, then saving lives at the drop of a hat. The most experienced medics would have had a hard time with Fletcher’s injury. You did it without a thought.”
“I was thinking, Baldwin, trust me.” More than you want to know.
“I know you think you want to teach, be quiet, stay out of the fray, but it’s in your blood, Sam. Just like it’s in mine, in Xander’s and Fletcher’s. In all of us. We’ll make it work for you, however you need.”
“You aren’t going to give this up, are you?”
He grinned at her. “Nope.”
She watched his deep green eyes, and nodded. Raised her Scotch, tapped his pint glass. Gave him a smile. “All right. I’m in.”
*
Xander and Thor were waiting for her at home, sitting out by the pool. Xander couldn’t get in the water all the way to swim, but could dangle his legs on the edge. It would be a few weeks until he could get back into his normal groove, and she knew it was already driving him mad.
Thor barked once in hello. The cut on his nose was healing well. The vet had done a wonderful job.
She kicked off her shoes and sat next to Xander. “Baldwin took me to lunch.”
“Did you give him an answer?”
She ran her hand in the water, watching the ripples. Like her life, everything she did rippled out and affected the people around her. “I said yes.”
He hugged her with his good arm. “I figured so.”
“Are you sure you’re cool with this? It’s going to mean changes.”
“Hon, your drive, your passion, your commitment to helping others is one of the reasons I fell in love with you. Hell, you got me down off my mountain and inserted back into the real world. I wanted my life to start again because of you. I want you all for myself, but I know that’s not going to happen. You’re going to be great.”
“I’ll continue teaching. That would be my primary job. D.C. would be home base. Baldwin said I could pick the cases, and I’d only be called in for special situations.”
“This is good. You can still teach, still drive me mad, still do whatever you want.”
He ruffled her hair off the back of her neck. Air flowed over her shoulder blades, cooling her. She was ready for summer to end. For the next phase of her life to begin. She kissed his cheek. “Thank you for understanding.”
“I do. More than you know. Now. While we’re discussing big, life-changing events, I have something else I’d like to run by you.”
She ran her finger along the edge of the ring he’d given her, and smiled at him. “Do you, now?”
Epilogue
I SUPPOSE YOU realize the truth by now. I was the one who killed Doug.
I know you hate me. I hate myself. I never should have listened to him. Never agreed to his stupid plan, the one he cooked up with that crazy old lawyer.
You’re asking yourself how I could do that to the man who saved my life. Who brought me out of the darkest recess of the world into the light. You want to know how I could kill a man I claim to love. And why I would cry for him when I was finished choking the life out of him.
I had no choice. In the end, Doug betrayed me. He’d conceived a plan to end his own life, because of his guilt, or his sickness, or whatever it was. In so doing, he brought every nasty, seedy, horrible moment of mine to light. I had put the past behind me. I had no desire to relive it. Yet now I have. Every wound reopened, every decision rethought.
Now I know he was lying when he told me he had been to the doctor and was riddled with cancer. That he had only weeks to live, and those numbered days would be incredibly painful. He told me that he would die by his own hand were it not the gravest sin, and if I could take that sin from him, he would be forever grateful.
When I refused, he reminded me of the horrible favor he’d done for me all those years ago, the night I’d been ripped apart from childbirth, tossed bleeding and exhausted into the darkness, left with a bottle of water and an empty womb, my blood leaking onto the dirt floor. He’d found me there, and spirited me away. Treated the infection that almost killed me, nursed me back to health, gave me a chance at a better life.