“I’m so sorry,” Simone sobs.

“Don’t you ever be sorry,” I tell her, my voice thick with all the things I’ve wanted to say to her, all this time. “I love you, Simone. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I’m never going to stop. Wherever you go, whatever you do, you have my heart in your hands.”

“I love you so much,” she cries, her voice cracking. “I can’t believe you found me . . .”

“I’ll always keep you safe,” I promise her.

“Is Henry—” she cries.

“He’s safe, too. He’s with my father.”

She turns her face against my chest and cries harder than ever, with relief this time.

I carry her all the way back to the ridge.

I’m full of relief that Simone is safe. But the closer we get to Raylan, the sicker I feel, worrying that I’m going to find my friend’s body. Worrying that he sacrificed himself to save the woman I love.

I find the spot where he fell, and I set Simone down so I can look around, over ground that’s rough and muddy, where the leaves are churned up, and I can see a streak of dark blood.

“Oh, there you are,” a wry voice says. “ ‘Bout time. I almost finished my Sudoku.”

I whirl around.

Long Shot is propped up against a tree, holding his hand to his side. I can see blood seeping through the cracks between his fingers.

“Raylan!” I shout, running over to him.

“Relax,” he says. “I’m not dying. It just fucking hurts.”

Du Pont’s bullet has torn out a chunk of his side, even through the Kevlar vest. The hip of his jeans is soaked with blood, but he’s made a kind of compress out of moss, and it does look like the bleeding has slowed down.

Tying the compress on with the remains of Raylan’s shirt, I haul him up. Simone helps support him from the other side.

“I’ve got him,” I tell her.

“No, it’s okay,” Simone says, serious and determined. “I can help.”

Supporting Raylan between us, we start walking back out of the woods.

Raylan is pale, but he looks over at Simone with curiosity.

“Nice to finally meet you,” he says. “I can’t say Deuce told me a lot about you, because as you know, he’s not a man of many words. But when we managed to get him drunk once in a blue moon . . .”

“Watch it,” I warn him. “I can still leave you out here for the wolves.”

Simone shakes her head at me.

“Thank you,” she says to Raylan, sincerely.

“Of course,” he says. “Deuce didn’t say much, but he said enough for me to know you were a girl worth saving.”

He squints at me.

“You did kill Du Pont, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

“Good,” he says, wincing. “I never liked that guy. Did I tell you he used to eat his peas one at a time? I should have known then he was nuts.”

45

Simone

Dante drives Raylan and me directly to the nearest hospital. It’s a tiny clinic in Sarasota, where the only other patient is a kid with a broken arm. He looks thrilled to have some kind of entertainment at hand, besides his own aching arm. The staff are a lot more suspicious. They separate me from the two men, asking a barrage of questions that make it clear they don’t believe Raylan’s story of being shot in a hunting accident.

They let me use the shower at least. I stand under the hot spray for forty minutes, watching dirt, twigs, leaves, and blood swirl down the drain. I start crying again, seeing the cuts and welts all over my body. Remembering the feeling of fleeing for my life.

But I also remember what it felt like to have Dante’s arms wrap around me as he lifted me into the air, pressed safely against his chest. I’ve never felt a more powerful sensation of relief, gratitude, and safety.

Dante’s arms are the safest place in the world. The only place I’ve truly felt secure.

I would face any danger, as long as he was with me.

Once I’m clean, and the doctor has stitched up the worst of the cuts on my feet and legs, the hospital lends me a pair of scrubs to wear. They’re soft and faded from a hundred washings, and quite honestly, they’re the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn.

It takes longer for them to sew up the wound in Raylan’s side. They have to put a couple pints of blood in his arm, and Dante and I check into the only motel in the town, so Raylan can rest and recover overnight.

The motel room is tiny, last decorated in 1982 most likely, with wood-paneled walls, mustard-yellow drapes, and a scratchy wool blanket.

To me, it’s the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in, because I’m staying there with Dante. We eat at the kitschy little family restaurant next door, both of us ordering double stacks of pancakes and bacon, which turn out to be surprisingly delicious.

Then we go back to our room, and Dante throws me down on the creaky, lumpy bed that groans alarmingly under our combined weight.

I look up into Dante’s face—into his fierce black eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, again. “I should have told you about Henry.”

“I should have to come to London,” Dante says, seriously. “I should have never let you go so easily. I should have tracked you down that year, or the one after, or the one after that. I was prideful and bitter. I was a fool.”

“I’ll never lie to you again,” I promise him.

“I’ll never fail to find you.”

He kisses me. His lips are rough and warm. His huge, heavy arms envelop me completely.

He moves his hands down my body, gently squeezing and massaging the aching muscles of my neck, shoulders, chest, and back. He finds every tight and knotted place, and he presses out the stress and pain of the last twenty-four hours. His hands are so warm and strong that they force out trauma from my flesh, leaving a deep, contented pleasure in its place.

My body has been in so much pain that it seems impossible that I could become aroused again. But as his palms brush over my breasts, I feel my nipples responding to his touch. A warm flush spreads from my breasts down to my belly.

Dante takes my breast in his mouth. He sucks gently on the nipple, lapping it with his tongue. He trails his tongue all the way down my navel, to the little patch of skin right below my belly button.

The skin is tight, but if you look closely, there’s few silvery lines, the last ghostly remnants of the stretch marks I got in the final month of my pregnancy.

“I never noticed those before,” Dante says. His voice is soft, with a tone of wonder, not anger. “I bet you were the most beautiful pregnant woman.”

“If you wanted . . .” I say, my voice catching in my throat. “Maybe I could be again . . .”

Dante looks up at me, his hand tightening around mine.

“Do you mean that?” he says, huskily.

I nod, tears pricking at my eyes.

“I’m not on the pill,” I tell him. “In fact . . .” mentally I count back through the days since my last period. “Now could be a good time.”

Dante presses his face against my pussy and inhales my scent. Even with his dark, dark irises, I can see his pupils dilate with lust.