I wished I could say any other word than “Yes...”
I tensed against another refusal, but this time...she accepted. Curtains swished across her eyes, blocking out life-light. The steely acknowledgement and power she’d always had blanketed her sorrow and weakness.
I’d fallen in love with this woman because of her many facets and capabilities. I’d loved her every way a man could love his girl. And now, I had to commit the most cardinal sin of all...leave her behind.
Death was a divorce. The most bitter, awful divorce.
Pippa screamed again. Louder. Stronger.
And that was the end.
Estelle bent over me, her eyes locking onto mine, giving me an anchor to return to time and time again as a ghost once my immortal soul was free.
Her lips sought mine, neither moving nor kissing. Just breathing and loving and reliving everything we’d been through, every year we’d loved, every night we’d slept, every day we’d lived.
And then, she was gone.
She flew to her feet.
She vanished into the forest.
And I closed my eyes for the final time.
Chapter Sixty-One
...............................................
E S T E L L E
......
“PIPPA!”
Don’t think.
Don’t think.
Don’t remember.
My fists couldn’t stop clenching, shaking, shuddering. My heart couldn’t find its normal rhythm as I left it with Galloway as he lay dying alone on our beach.
Alone.
He’s all alone.
He’s left me.
The shards of my soul clinked like shattered porcelain, rattling in my hollow, hollow chest.
“Stel! Help!”
Pippa’s voice helped me focus. I’d made a promise. Galloway had left me. But Pippa and Coconut would not.
I forbid it.
A man’s baritone echoed through the trees as I charged toward my daughters.
A man?
That wasn’t possible.
Unless Galloway had died and his ghost now haunted me.
Haunt me forever.
Never leave me.
If I could only have him in plasma form, I would take it. I was greedy enough to stay in love with a hallucination.
Coco’s cries turned to screams as another man’s voice rose.
My feet switched from running to tearing and I burst through the palms and flaxes right onto a scene I never thought would come true.
My daughters.
In the arms of two men.
Strange men.
On our island of only five.
Conner.
Galloway.
Three.
On our island of only three.
The man fighting with Pippa looked up. His startled green eyes bugged and everyone froze.
The man holding Coco mimicked our standoff, looking at his colleague, dressed in the same grey slacks and shirt with a royal blue wave on the breast pocket.
My attention to detail went into overdrive.
I noticed e..ve..ry..thing.
I observed the sweat on their temples.
I saw the crinkles around their eyes.
I counted every strand on their dirty blond heads.
I catalogued their similar jawlines and aquiline noses.
I cursed every breath they took.
Every breath Galloway would never take.
Every breath Conner would never have.
They left me.
He left me.
I’m alone.
And that was when I snapped.
These animals were hurting my children—the only people I had left in the world.
I didn’t care how they came to be on our island. I didn’t care if they were here to rescue us or how they’d found us.
I don’t care.
I don’t care.
I don’t care!
They’re dead.
All I cared about was protecting my family.
Galloway had left me.
He’d made me choose.
He’d given me no choice.
I wouldn’t let anyone else make decisions for me.
No more.
No way.
Not with my family.
“Let. Go. Of. My. Children.” I took a step forward. “Now!”
My grief snarled into a nasty, nasty thing, wanting to lash out and maul. I wanted blood. I wanted pain. I wanted to hurt and hurt and hurt until the hurting stopped inside. Until I could breathe without wanting to die. Until I could exist without him by my side.
The men flinched but didn’t obey.
So I did the only logical thing.
I lost it.
I lost myself to tears and fears.
I charged.
I hit.
I struck.
I bit.
I screamed.
I hurt them.
I fought them.
I destroyed them for taking what was mine.
And through it all, I was no longer a wife or mother.
I was a monster.
Chapter Sixty-Two
...............................................
E S T E L L E
......
“ONE DAY, YOU’RE going to be a big fancy singer, and I’m going to be the one scrubbing your back in an overfilled bubble bath.”
I threw my sour lolly at my sister, Gail. “Wrong. You’ll be scrubbing my back in a spa on some cruise sailing the Tahitian sea.”
Madeline giggled. “You’re both wrong. You’ll be scrubbing my back as I’ll be the manager of said success and skim all your royalties for my own.”
I rolled my eyes at my seventeen-year-old friend.
As an only child, Madi didn’t have a bestie like I did with Gail. We’d met on the first day of primary school, and I’d adopted her. Gail (who was two years older) adopted her, too.