Ford
We sat there together on the blanket I’d spread out for the two of us, looking down over the perfect grid of the city of LA. It was so different here compared to the desert. Rather than having the millions of stars in the sky over our head, they lay spread out our feet as we looked down on them from this hilltop.
The last eighteen months had been good to me and Micah, even to Kessa and Tanner, who’d been together since that night. When it came to the case with Joseph Tambor, Sheriff Watts must have realized what kind of a powder keg he was sitting on, and what kind of opportunity he’d had. Tambor had “tried to escape custody” that night. Needless to say, none of us had to go back to that shitty small town to testify against him, and no one ever came looking for the money.
As soon as we got out here, I used Tanner’s connections to set up a personal security firm. The way it turned out, apparently, it was just who you knew in this town. With his contacts to start with, and my own reputation and professionalism, I soon had a staff of guys I managed.
Business was good.
Micah’s career was about to take off, too. Her skill as an actress spoke for itself, and she didn’t have any more problems with the casting couch, like she had early on. Especially not after they heard about me.
But, goddamn, just getting to see her happy every day, happy even with the early setbacks and minuscule successes, made it all worthwhile—all the shit we’d had to put up with back at the Mansion, everything we’d had to go through in the early days as we scraped by on her savings.
“See that down there?” Micah asked, half-eaten drumstick in hand, fried chicken grease shamelessly smeared on her fingers and chin. “We’re going to own that town someday.”
“Think so?” I asked.
She smiled at me and laughed a little. “Know so. The world is our oyster, Mr. Taylor. All we have to do is keep the good vibes flowing, keep a good outlook, and be prepared to work our asses off. Promise.”
I dusted my hands free of breading and laid back on the blanket with my hands beneath my head. Micah tossed her chicken bone back in the container and snuggled up next to me, her head on my shoulder.
“Ford?” she asked.
“Yeah, babe?”
“You still love me, right? My past, it doesn’t, you know, bother you?”
Sometimes she got like this. I imagined Kessa did the same thing to Tanner Wilde, too. They were both girls who were running from their pasts. But I always saw the past as something that was meant to stay buried. We left it behind for a reason. Sure, it was part of us, but only in the way soil was to a tomato plant. The plant grew in the soil, but it sure as hell wasn’t the soil, was it?
“Does it bother you that I used to beat the crap out of guys for a living?”
“No. Why would it? That’s how I met you, isn’t it? You saved me.”
“Exactly,” I said. “If you hadn’t been you, we wouldn’t have met. So why worry about it?”
She kissed me on the cheek, squeezed me tighter, and made a noise. “Ouch. What was that? Carrying your gun again, honey? You know I hate for you to have that while we’re snuggling.”
I laughed. “No, the pistol’s in the glove box.”
“Well, what is it then?”
“Why don’t you,” I teased, “reach in and find out?”
She giggled as she reached inside my coat pocket. “Oh? You’re not just happy to see me, are you?”
“Kind of.”
“Jewelry?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, the tiny ring box from my jacket in her small hands.
“Open it,” I said.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered as she looked down at the open box, as she looked down at my mother’s wedding ring, the same ring that Micah had stolen from me those long eighteen months ago. “Ford!”
“Will you, Micah? Will you marry me?”
She threw her arms around my neck. “God, yes, you big goof! Of course I will! I love you more than anything!”
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her on top of me. We kissed like teenagers, holding each other under the LA sky. “I love you, babe,” I whispered as we broke our kiss. “Always.”
“Always,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “No matter what.”
THE END
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