“Please stop!” I cried. I knew he wouldn’t, but I admit, I yelled it for the benefit of the operator on the other end of the phone line.
I wanted absolutely no doubt that what I was about to do was self-defense.
Lex grabbed onto my ankle and grinned up at me. I kicked him in the face and blood bloomed around his teeth. He looked like some funhouse clown that had gone mad.
With a single jerk, he sent me falling backward, landing on my back.
Inside the bathroom, Lucy barked and I could hear her clawing at the door, trying to get out.
“After you’re dead,” Lex said, crawling up my body. “I’m gonna screw your body before it turns cold.”
I shot him.
The bullet slammed into his shoulder and he recoiled. I scrambled out from under him and stood.
“Honor!” Nathan screamed from downstairs, and my knees went weak with relief.
“I’m up here!” I yelled, my voice sounding more like a squeak.
Feet pounded on the stairs, and I moved to rush toward him. I wanted his arms around me. I wanted to see that he was okay.
A hand closed around my ankle and jerked me back.
I screamed.
Lex laughed.
Twisting quickly, without hesitation, I shot him in the head.
Nathan skidded to a stop at the top of the stairs, his wide eyes going between Lex and me. I could only imagine what he saw. Me covered in blood with a busted lip and a heaving chest, holding a gun, while standing over a man with a bullet in his head.
Reality crashed over me.
The gun fell from my hand and bounced off the carpet.
I shot someone.
I killed him.
My kidnapper was dead.
“Honor,” Nathan said breathlessly and rushed across the room to wrap me in his arms. My body shook violently, so hard that my teeth chattered and my skin felt icy.
“I killed him,” I said, shoving my face into his bare, blood-smeared chest.
“You protected yourself, baby,” he murmured. “You did real good.”
Police sirens drew closer and soon, the flashing blue-and-red lights filled the windows and the driveway.
I felt lightheaded and I knew I lost a lot of blood. I pulled back from Nathan and looked at his side where the bullet entered his body.
“It’s not so bad,” he murmured, tipping my chin up so I couldn’t look.
“He was crazy,” I said, my voice hollow.
“Hell yes, he was.” Nathan agreed, swiping the pad of his thumb across my chin. My lower lip was swollen again.
The cops burst in the front door with weapons drawn. I weaved a little on my feet. Standing up was growing harder and harder.
Nathan scooped me up in his arms and turned toward the cops. “I need a medic!” he roared.
Then he glanced down into my face. “Just hang on, Honor.” He got this pinched look in his eyes. “Don’t you die on me.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of dying. I have way too much to live for.”
As my house filled with emergency workers and medical personnel, Nathan and I held each other’s gaze.
“Me too,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Me too.”
EPILOGUE
Honor
One Year Later…
Flashbulbs exploded everywhere around us, blinding me, and I tried not to recoil. This night had been everything that dreams are made of, but all the attention, the crowds, and the noise was starting to wear on me.
Nathan wrapped a solid hand around mine and pulled me through the crowd toward the waiting limo. He held the door while I slid across the black leather seats, and he followed me in, shutting the door behind us.
“Holy cow,” I gasped. “That was awesome and insane all at the same time!”
“Better get used to it. You’re a celebrity now.”
“I think you’re more popular than I am.” I smiled coyly from my side of the very long seat.
Nathan grinned and pushed off the door, slipping right up alongside me so we were pressed together, hip to ankle. “It’s only because this author I know wrote this book about me that made me look like a real hero.”
I climbed into his lap. The red gown I was wearing made it hard to move so I bunched it up around my thighs. “All I did was tell our story.”
“You did more than that,” he said, pride filling his voice. “You gave a voice to every single victim out there.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I did pray that I gave hope to some. Once the questioning, the media frenzy, and the funeral of Mary (her body was found weeks later, disposed in a crude shallow grave on the mountain) was over, Nathan and I settled into life together.
Being with him was more than I could have ever asked for. He made me so incredibly happy that I couldn’t begin to regret being kidnapped.
But it wasn’t something I was able to get over so quickly either. Nightmares, visions of Lex with a bullet wound in his head, and anxiety were all side effects of what happened.
Through it all, Nathan was there. He understood better than most people could. He never pushed, but his quiet strength was always there. He never complained when my screaming woke him in the night, and he put all his guns out of sight until I could look at one without feeling panic claw at my lungs.
I might have been the one to write a book about what happened to me, a book that debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and remained there to this day. I might have been the one whose name flashed in the credits on the big screen after the movie that was based on my book—based on us—premiered tonight. But Nathan was the one who encouraged me to write it.
After watching me go through various stages of anger and guilt, he suggested I write it all down. That I sit and type out how I was kidnapped, what it was like to be in that hole. He told me that even if the book never saw the light of day, it could be a means of healing for me, a way to move on.
And so I did.
I wrote about everything. I wrote about Lex and the things he did to me. I wrote about the fear and loneliness that threatened to drag me down as I sat in that hole and stared up at the faraway sky. I told Mary’s story, and I gave a voice to the family that would forever mourn her. But the book wasn’t just about that. It was also a romance. It was the story of Nathan and me. It was the story of how love bloomed from a terrible thing and how it prevailed to this day.
The war veteran and the writer, both survivors, both getting the happy ending they deserved.
“I love you, Mrs. Reed,” Nathan murmured, kissing my lips.
“I love you, too.”
His palm slid up between us and covered my breast. I groaned and arched into his touch. We had made love about a thousand times in the past year, and I would never get tired of his touch, his feel, his scent.
“Can we skip the premiere party and go back to the hotel?” he said against my lips as his fingers rubbed over my hardened nipple.
I moaned. “I wish.”
He pulled his lips away and leaned his head against the seat. “A bestselling book, a movie deal, a press tour…” he listed. “What’s next?”
“Well,” I said, fingering the ornate buttons on the Dress Blues he wore. “I was thinking we could buy a little place on the beach.”
“Near Jacksonville?” he asked, his eyes lighting with interest.
“Your hometown.” I smiled. “Think Lucy will like the beach?”
He chuckled. “What will your mother say?”
“Oh, I’m sure she’ll call and bug us twenty times a day.”
“Patton called me the other day. He’s getting out of the Corps. I told him my idea about opening up a security firm.”
“What did he say?” I said, excitement for Nathan unfurling in my belly.