Caine came awake on a hard gasp and found his chest and hips strapped down. He fought the restraints like a motherfucker—because they were keeping him from finding Emma.
“Emma!” he shouted. “Emma!” God, please let her have survived this. Please let her still be here. Please let me have kept my promise, just this one time. “Emma!”
Hands pinned his arms.
And then a face loomed over his. “Caine, stop. Stop, man. It’s us. Emma’s here. They’re checking her out.” Dare. It was Dare.
“She’s…”
He nodded. “Banged up but good.”
“Fuck, fuck, her stalker is after us! Let me…up,” he growled.
“He’s gone. It’s over,” Dare said.
Suddenly Caine was free. Up. On his feet and searching for the threat. But the road tilted and he landed against somebody’s chest. Hands held him upright.
“Sir, we need to finish examining you,” a voice called.
“I got him,” Dare said. “If you can get Emma over here this will get a lot easier.”
“Emma,” Caine said, his gut roiling with the fear that he’d failed again. He wouldn’t survive it. He wouldn’t want to. His hands fisted in Dare’s cut. “I gotta protect her.”
“She’s coming. Just slow your roll and get your wits about you. You took a bit of a header and redecorated the ground with a little skin. You don’t want to worry her, right?”
Caine nodded, the words slowly but surely making sense. As if parts of him were coming back online one system at a time.
“You should know,” Dare said, nailing him with a stare. “She’s the one who took the guy out.”
He hadn’t even processed that when something else demanded his attention more.
“Caine!” The voice was like a magnet. He turned and he and Emma were in each other’s arms. “Caine,” she moaned, shoulders shaking.
“Oh, sweetness, are you okay?” he asked, his hands running all over her. Making sure she was really real. It was hard as hell to break their connection, but he held her back from him, needing to know. Needing to see. And, aw, God, she was beautiful. Dirt on her face and hair a mess and angry-looking road burn on her chin. Beautiful.
Her hands cupped his neck. “I’m okay. I’m okay, Caine. All because of you. You saved me…”
“Christ, I’m sorry you had to be the one to end this,” he said, hating that she’d forever have that memory. He knew firsthand how such things could eat at you in the dark of night.
“I’m not,” she rasped, those blue eyes so bright with life. “And we ended it together, Caine. But how are you? I was so scared. You wouldn’t wake up at first.”
He pulled her into his arms, needing her heat against him more than he needed his next breath. “I’m fine. But, oh, fuck, I’m not fine. I’m so goddamn sorry.” His voice cracked as he suddenly remembered everything that led up to the crash. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. Can you ever forgive—”
Emma kissed him. Her tongue in his mouth. Her arms around his neck. Her body pressed tight. It was forgiveness and acceptance in a physical act, and he felt it into his very soul.
Deep and slow, he kissed her back for everything he was worth. And for the first time, he actually believed he was worth something. To her. His injuries faded. The people disappeared. And they were alone and safe.
“Did you hear me before?” she asked when she pulled back from the kiss. Her eyes were blue fire looking at him, looking into the very depths of him.
“I…I don’t know.”
She rested her forehead against his. “Then let me tell you again. I love you. Every bit of you. Your past and your present and your mistakes and your strengths. I love you, Caine. Nothing else matters to me. And trust me, I’ve considered it all.”
A sob ripped up his throat. His arms went around her and he pressed his mouth to her hair. “I…Christ…I fucking love you, too. I wasn’t sure I knew what it was, Emma. Or maybe I didn’t believe I was capable of it. But I came awake and you weren’t there and in that moment I knew my whole world began and ended with you.”
They fell into each other again, but suddenly there was a mob around them.
“When did all these people get here?” Caine asked.
“He really needs to be seen,” a paramedic argued. And was that Dare’s voice? Phoenix’s? Everything was too much for Caine to make sense of it.
“We’ll go,” Emma was saying. “We’ll both go. But only if you can transport us in the same ambulance.”
Caine pulled Emma into his chest, not caring in the slightest that he suddenly felt about two dozen bruises all down his front. Or that all these people might’ve heard their words. Funny how nearly losing the most important thing in your life suddenly made what mattered most so fucking clear. And that was her. Them. Together.
Caine nodded. “What she said. Because no one’s ever separating us again.”
* * * *
Five Weeks Later
“I protest you going back to work,” Caine said, tempting Emma to stay right there in their bed where they’d spent so much of the past month. After the accident and the investigation into the stalking, she’d taken a leave of absence that was now coming to an end. And she regretted it, too.
She chuckled and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. The one with ink covering scars. God, he was so beautiful. “No one will pay me to stay in bed all day.”
He reached for his wallet on the nightstand, the stretch making him groan just a little. Neither of them had broken anything, and both were nearly fully healed up, but it was amazing how long a body continued to feel a head-on collision with the large immovable object known as the ground. He counted bills out onto his naked chest. “I got sixty-seven dollars. How much more time will that get me?”
Emma laughed, absolutely in love with this new silly side. And his hopeful side. And the side of him that looked toward the future—and saw himself there. Really, she just loved all of him.
Some of his newfound—and hard-fought—optimism was having the threat behind them—Caine knew more about it than Emma did. She didn’t want to hide from the truth, but her psyche didn’t need all the disturbing details, either. What she’d been willing to learn was that Wilkerson had targeted her from almost his first day at Frederick Elementary, judging by time stamps on photos and videos they found on his phone. But now that was all over. And Emma had quickly been cleared of any wrongdoing in his death.
Some of it was the way they’d opened up to each other in the wake of nearly losing everything. Shooting Wilkerson was something she’d remember forever. Taking a life wasn’t a memory she liked having, but it also wasn’t something she regretted. Not given the circumstances. And it gave her a whole new understanding of the shooting Caine had described to her. She couldn’t blame him for it, not when Emma would’ve shot her attacker again even after she’d disarmed him. It was a terrible thing to know about herself, but it was true. And they didn’t hide from the truth.
For Caine’s part, opening up had meant that he had to face the trauma he’d endured. He had to walk through the terrible messy pain of it. It’d taken him four introductory appointments before he found someone he thought he could actually talk to, but he had found someone, and he was going to therapy. And that was huge.
“Dude, I’m sorry, but sixty-seven dollars is not enough for all this.” She slipped out of bed and strutted her nakedness to the door. If she didn’t get in the shower soon, she was going to see her kindergartners again smelling like two hours of sex.
“What about this, then?”
The oddness of his voice made her lean back in the doorway. “What?”
Caine was getting on his knees by their bed. Also totally naked. He held a blue velvet box in his hand that he opened while she watched.
“Caine,” she gasped, the room spinning around her.
“Marry me,” he said, those odd, pale eyes nearly glowing. “You’re so fucking perfect for me, and you have been since the first moment we met. You’re already my everything, Emma. So marry me.”
She went to her knees in front of him, and thought it was perfection that they were both bare in this moment. “Anything, Caine. Everything. You know I want it all with you. I’ll marry you. How could I not when I love you so much?”
He slipped the ring on, a commitment to always be there for each other. To always believe. To always try.
A commitment they made every one of the many days, months, and years that followed after that. Years that included Emma finishing her graduate degree, Caine becoming a regular volunteer at the LGBT youth center they’d donated to that first Christmas, and a baby girl with Emma’s blond hair and Caine’s pale eyes. A daughter they named Grace.
* * * *
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