All of My Soul (34 page)

“I do deserve Lincoln. He loves me, and I
love him. We were made for each other.” I paused and shook my head.
“But you’re right about one thing. I never deserved to be your
roommate. I never deserved that torture. I wouldn’t wish that on my
worst enemy.”

She clenched her fist and narrowed her eyes
at me but didn’t react.

My left eye had swelled shut, and I could
only imagine what I looked like, but poor Brody was still being
tasered. I needed to stop Asher. He had to be too weak by now to
fight against me.

Keeping the gun pointed at Mackenzie, I
stepped to the side and kicked the Taser out of Asher’s hand.
Brody’s body immediately went still and lifeless, and I sent up a
silent prayer that he would be okay.

Sirens rose up from the street below us
through the open window. Red and blue lights reflected on the
buildings surrounding the hotel and relief washed through me. The
police were here. Mackenzie was going to be locked away for a very
long time. Tears built in my eyes again as I thought of Lincoln. We
would be happy together again without the threat of Mackenzie
looming over us.

I watch my old roommate as she realized the
same thing I had. I could tell she was becoming even more unstable.
She was on the verge of panic, desperate to think of a way to stay
out of prison.

“Give me the fucking gun!” she screamed and
stepped closer to me.

No longer did I have any room to retreat away
from her. Asher’s body was directly behind me, the broken window
behind him.

Just a few more minutes,
I told
myself. Not that I had any other options except… My one good eye
peeked over my right shoulder. I had forgotten about the exit door.
The reason I had come in here in the first place. If I ran for it
now, there would be no way Mackenzie could escape. From the amount
of lights and sirens coming from below us, I guessed the police
probably had the building surrounded.

Mackenzie seemed to know what I was thinking.
“I’m not letting you leave this room alive, bitch. You’re dead.
People like me don’t go to prison. I’ll get off on some
technicality, and I’ll be back to fuck up your life even more until
you learn your place.”

Anger boiled up inside me. How dare she? “My
place
?” I repeated in a shrill voice. “My place is with
Lincoln, and it always will be. Your place is rotting in a jail
cell like the evil bitch you are. Good-bye, Mackenzie.”

I took one step over Asher’s body and was
about to turn to run for the door when something caught my ankle.
Asher’s hand wrapped around my foot, causing me to be thrown off
balance. Instinctively, I threw my arms to the side to help regain
my balance and immediately knew I had messed up.

With the gun no longer pointed at her,
Mackenzie charged toward me. She was close enough that I had no
time to react before her body slammed into mine. Asher let go of my
foot, and I stumbled backward towards the broken window.

Knowing what I was headed toward, I grabbed
for whatever I could to stop myself from going through the empty
hole in the wall, but there was nothing to hold on to except
Mackenzie. I wrapped my arms around her waist but instead of
stopping me from falling, she slipped on Asher’s pool of blood, and
we both lost our balance.

I heard Mackenzie scream as my feet lost
contact with the hotel floor. We were suddenly airborne, the wind
whipping my hair around my face, and my last thought as I sailed
through the air, falling to the earth, was to wish for Lincoln to
be happy again without me.

Chapter
Twenty-Six

Death had always surrounded me. I tried not
to let my thoughts linger on it, but I knew what it was like to be
close to death. First in the house fire when I was ten, and then
again when I had been poisoned at the game. Both those times, it
had happened fast. One minute I was conscious, the next minute I
was standing next to Death, waiting for him to ask me to dance.
Both times I had been saved, which is why I thought this time I was
dead for sure. Four floors doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re
falling to your death, it feels like an eternity. Plenty of time to
wish things had been different. Plenty of time to put on your best
dancing shoes because this time you know it’s for real. It’s your
turn to dance with the grim reaper. I only prayed he wouldn’t make
it painful.

But as I hit the surface of the hotel pool, I
discovered my prayer wasn’t going to be answered. Unbelievable pain
erupted across the surface of my skin as I splashed into the water.
It felt as if every cell in my body had exploded. Pins and needles
swept through me as I submerged into the water, unable to move.
Blood from my mouth tinged the water red, and I sank deeper and
deeper. I had no strength to fight back against the impending
darkness. I wasn’t even sure if I was conscious anymore. I just
wanted the pain to stop.

As the skirt of my ruined dress swirled in
the bloody water around me, I realized I was going to get to see my
dad again.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

I opened my eyes to the most beautiful view I
had ever seen. A warm breeze blew across my face as sparkling blue
water glistened in the distance. Waves broke against a white sand
beach below as I stood barefoot in soft green grass on a high
cliff. To my right, fields of purple lavender stretched out as far
as I could see. This had to be heaven. It was so beautiful.

“Enjoying the view?” Lincoln wrapped his arms
around me from behind and rested his chin on my shoulder.

“Mm… ” I murmured as I leaned back into his
hard chest. It was all the response I could summon. The heat of the
Hawaiian sun washed through me, warming me from the outside in.

Lincoln brushed my hair back and placed a
kiss below my ear. “We should get back to our guests, Mrs.
Monaghan. They’re serving dinner soon.”

I smiled and turned in his arms to face him.
Behind him our loved ones had gathered next to a little stone
building just big enough to host a small gathering. A wooden lanai
stretched out toward the edge of the cliff and our friends and
family members mingled around tables and chairs next to the dance
floor. Deacon had his arm around Rebecca’s waist as they chatted
with Kennedy and Brian. Elliot talked with Lincoln’s father while
Emily chased Ben and Madison through a nearby field of lavender,
and my mom and Lincoln’s mother laughed at something Tabitha had
said. Several Blackhawks players and their dates mingled on the
dance floor while Brody and Carter discussed something off to the
side.

Toward the lavender fields, two dozen white
wooden chairs sat in front of a white arch covered in pink and
yellow plumeria flowers. That was where Lincoln and I had said our
vows and pledged ourselves to each other. I wore a simple white
knee-length dress with a flower behind my ear, and Lincoln wore
khaki pants and a matching vest over a white dress shirt. He had
rolled the sleeves up to his elbows and was also barefoot. It was
simple. Perfect. Everything I never allowed myself to wish for
before I met Lincoln.

It was two and a half months ago that Lincoln
had planned to propose to me. It turned out the night of the
governor’s fundraiser he had planned to surprise me with flowers
and candles and a big-ass diamond ring when we returned to his
house, but of course, Mackenzie had ruined that plan.

I spent four days in the hospital after being
rescued from my near-drowning experience. The day Lincoln brought
me home all swollen and bruised, he carried me into the bathroom,
helped me shower, and tucked me into bed before he crawled in with
me and asked me to take his hand in marriage and be with him
forever. It wasn’t an elaborate proposal, which made me love him
even more. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, followed
closely by the news that Mackenzie would never bother us again.

Somehow that night I had miraculously landed
in the deep end of the hotel’s outdoor pool. It still hurt like a
son of a bitch, and I had inhaled a lot of water and nearly drowned
after I passed out. But the police had seen us fall and were quick
to save me. The cops and paramedics who had come to my rescue all
had tickets to next season’s Blackhawks’ home games with Lincoln’s
gratitude.

Mackenzie, on the other hand, hadn’t fared as
well as I had. She weighed slightly less than I did, and the
inertia from our fall hadn’t pulled her away from the building as
far as it did me. Instead of falling into the deep end of the pool
with plenty of water to soften her landing, she hit the edge. Half
in the water, half on the concrete. Her spine and pelvis had been
shattered. She’d never walk again, and I was okay with that. The
maximum-security prison hospital would be her home for a very long
time.

Asher spent a few weeks there as well before
he was incarcerated upstate. He’d lost a lot of blood, but he
survived and would be eligible for parole in twenty years. I wasn’t
sure how I felt about that. He seemed to be as evil as Mackenzie,
but really he was just a pawn in her games. Carter assured me that
in twenty years we’d fight against his release, but a lot can
happen in twenty years, and I wasn’t going to worry about it
now.

“Hey,” Lincoln said, interrupting my
thoughts. “What’s that look for?”

I smiled and shook my head. I wasn’t about to
tell him I had been thinking about Mackenzie and Asher on our
wedding day. We made a huge effort to not think or speak about them
outside my therapy sessions. They were behind bars where they
belonged, and my injuries had healed, leaving no physical reminders
of my attack. Mackenzie no longer had any power over our lives, and
I wouldn’t give her any by dwelling on things I couldn’t change. I
had looked into the eyes of evil, and not only had I survived, but
I was going to flourish.

I still had nightmares, but now they had
warped from dreaming about fire to dreaming about water. Dr.
Raussman called it a symptom of my post-traumatic stress, and we
were working on overcoming it. I had gotten to the point where I
could recognize it as a nightmare while I was asleep, and I could
change the outcome. That helped immensely. No longer did I wake up
screaming and scaring the crap out of Lincoln.

“Come on, Princess. I’m starving. Let’s go
eat.”

I giggled and rolled my eyes as I let him
pull me toward the simple, yet elegant dining tables. “You’re
always starving, hubby.”

“God, that sounds good.” He beamed down at
me.

“My hubby. The human food processor.”

He laughed loudly, and the carefree sound
made my heart flutter. “But you knew that before you agreed to
marry me.”

“I did. That must be why they pay you the big
bucks. So we can afford your grocery bills.”

He laughed loudly again as we happily
rejoined our wedding guests.

~~~~~~~~

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

Carter tapped the side of his champagne glass
with his knife, calling everyone’s attention to him. He stood next
to Lincoln, wearing a similar outfit as his brother. He was leaner
though, and his wireframe glasses gave him a kind of nerdy,
bookworm quality, but he was still quite handsome.

I glanced at Emily and wondered how she was
feeling. Between being in the hospital, recovering from my
injuries, and planning a wedding, I hadn’t had much time to ask my
sister if anything ever happened between her and Carter. Honestly,
since she hadn’t said anything, I assumed Carter hadn’t had the
balls to go after my sister, and that made me a little sad. They
would have been good together, but now Emily sat at the end of our
head table, as far away from Carter as she could manage while still
being included in the wedding party.

Lincoln’s best man held the microphone up to
his mouth and cleared his throat, obviously nervous.

“In the year 416 BC, a Greek philosopher
named Plato proposed the idea of soul mates.” I smiled as Carter
read from a small note card. Leave it to him to prepare a speech
about love and quote from an ancient philosopher.

“He suggested the idea that each of us used
to be a whole being. Not two souls, but one soul living in one
body. But the gods got angry over how powerful we had become, so
they split us in half and scattered us into the world. Because of
this, we humans were forced to spend our lives looking for the
other half of ourselves. The other half that we would never be
complete without. The other half that would make us into a whole
being again.”

Carter set down his note card on the table
and cleared his throat again. “I never gave this theory much
credence. Sure, it’s a nice idea, but when I look at myself, I feel
pretty whole, you know? I don’t feel like I’m missing half myself,
but I bet if you had asked Lincoln before he met Jillian, he would
have said the same thing. However, when I look at the two of them
together now, it’s obvious that they are complete. They’re whole.
And it makes you wonder how they ever survived before they found
each other.”

Tears pricked in my eyes, and I grabbed
Lincoln’s hand and nuzzled into his side. I had no idea Carter
could be so eloquent, but he had so perfectly expressed how I
felt.

Lincoln’s brother lifted his glass. “And so,
Jillian, thank you for putting up with my brother. You make him
happier than I’ve ever seen him. Welcome to the family. To Lincoln
and Jillian!”

Carter took a small sip of his bubbling
champagne and everyone in the audience raised their own glasses.
“To Lincoln and Jillian!”

Applause broke out from our loved ones in the
crowd, and I was pretty sure I saw my mother wipe away a tear.
Elliot and Frankie sat next to her, with a very pregnant Molly next
to Frankie, all of them beaming up at me.

Lincoln and I stood, and I hung back as my
groom hugged his brother and said something privately into his ear.
Carter nodded as Lincoln let go of him, and I immediately stepped
up to hug him.