Rush (Roam Series, Book Four) (29 page)

“
I don’t want your goddamn pity. You have
ruined my life.
You could have just stayed with me. You could have
loved me like you love him.
”

“
You
broke up with
me
. Before you went to Afghanistan! You had a second chance, and you chose to leave me-…,”

“You’d scream and cry every time I tried to make love to you! I didn’t know what to fucking do with that,” I gripped her chin, holding her face steady.

“How about be
patient
with me?” She slapped my hand away.

“I tried patience. I tried patience for two years! I
never
pushed you.”

“Maybe you… should have,” she let tears slip down her cheeks, her voice
barely a whisper.

Her words
- and alcohol- fueled my crazed, fevered reaction. I shoved my fingers into her hair and pulled, tipping her face before devouring her mouth with mine.

She tasted like innocence, like the past, and like peach schnapps and vodka.

And when she reared back and punched me in the mouth, all I could taste was blood.

“I
hate
you for that,” she half-cried, half-growled, following her blow with an open-handed slap. I caught her wrist before she could deliver a third, pulling her through the opening doors. She jerked out of my grasp, fumbling with the card key in her other hand. “Get away from me. You’re not coming in here.”

“
Oh, I’m coming in.”

“You’re right, Logan, okay? I
don’t
know you anymore. Maybe you are a terrible person. Maybe you can’t be saved. Just go back to your tortured life and I’ll go back to my family and you-…,”

I shoved
inside the moment the lock turned from red to green, pushing her forward and slamming the heavy door behind me.

Rubbing my already-healing jaw, I stared at her.
“I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“Your mouth tastes like crap, by the way,” she gave me an exaggerated glare, marching to the sink and unwrapping the plastic from a hotel glass.

“I shouldn’t have done that. Just like
you
shouldn’t have come here.”

She slammed the glass to the countertop, turning toward me.

“Don’t you
love
her anymore?”

“Of course I fucking love her!” I sank to the bed, shoving my hands into my too-long mop of wave-curls. “I love her with
everything that I am
. I just… don’t…
deserve her, Roam.
”

She
waited.

Finally, she
took a tentative step toward me.

After too much silence, I lifted my face. She stared down at me and then, so carefully, slid her fingers through my hair, covering my hands.

“You think you deserve me. Because… we’re both… ruined.”

I lifted my eyes to her as she stood before me, finally realizing.

Her voice dropped to a ragged whisper. “
Because we’re both killers.
”

I
was locked in her haunted eyes, finally nodding once.

She knelt to the carpet, her hands sliding down over my face. “I love you so much, Logan, I do, and you have to believe me when I say this. You are heroic, and noble, and
brave
… and
so worthy of love.
You have sacrificed yourself, again and again, not to try to save your own soul… but to take care of the
ones you love.
To take care of me… and to protect
my baby
,” she bowed her head, pressing her forehead to my knee.

“
Roam…,
” I slid my hands around her shoulders, gathering her into my arms. I took comfort in her, in the one girl that I
hated
that I loved… as much as I did.

“You are just so…
good
. Why can’t you see you…
how I see you?
”

I held her until she was sleeping, until I was sleeping, until we were both dreaming about nothing and everything in an insignificant reality of time.

When I woke up next to her, I stared at the thin stream of sunlight brightening her sooty lashes, relaxing in a peace that I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

The stillness ended with a su
dden, gut-wrenching realization.

I
miss my wife with all of my heart.

“Take me home,” she murmured, yawning and sighing.

I cringed. “Brush your teeth.”

She squinted and
laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “I still have to pick up one more doll for Eva at
Toys R Us.
It’s Christmas Eve. We have to go.
Please take me home.
”

I knew she could get home on her own. I knew she was capable of deciphering ancient prophecies, enduring heartbreak and torture, and destroying anyone who threatened her child.

And I knew she was my best friend in the whole world.

Reaching for her, I threaded my fingers through hers.

“Okay, Cam. Let’s go home.”

Violet

“There’s my favorite flower!”

Mrs.
Ambly always greeted me at the door of the flower shop as though she was watching out the window for my car to pull into the parking lot.

“Good
morning,” I accepted her gentle hug, reaching to take the shears out of her hands. “Are we getting busy?”

“Christmas Eve, dolly. Everyone needs poinsettias.”

I smiled, nodding. “Well, then, good thing we’re open today.”

“You feel well? Sleep soundly? Hear from your Logan?”

I narrowed my eyes, looking down at my ballet flats. The nights were the hardest. I slept on my phone just waiting for his call. The exhausted mornings at
Gardenia
, the florist that I worked for in Emerald Isle, were torturous. My boss, an eccentric older woman whose husband had served in World War II, sympathized and fussed over me like I was a child, believing the story I told her about Logan still being overseas. At first I was uncomfortable, but eventually I grew to appreciate her distracting dialogue.

“I’ll never forget the day Harry came home- for good. We broke that bed.”

“Mrs. Ambly,” I had protested with laughter, arranging the daisies evenly before me.

“I was pregnant for almost nineteen years.” Her eyes misted over, and she winked, nodding toward the cash register. “
Eight children. And of all four of my daughters, you’re my favorite, Violet Rose.”

I leaned into her first hug that day, thankful to have found her.

“No, I haven’t heard from him yet. But I’m sure he’s just fine.”

She gave me a reprimanding glance, shuffling back to the counter. “Not as though you’re waiting on letters to arrive in the mail, dolly. Almost 2016. He should be talking to you on the
computer at least.” I nodded, pulling my arms out of my light coat and tucking my purse under the counter. She tsked with her tongue, reaching for my waist. “Any names yet?”

I spread my open palms over my stomach, pulling at my tank top
and shirt in a futile attempt to cover all of my skin. “Not yet.”

“Harry had me name all of
our children. It didn’t matter- I usually yelled all of their names before finally landing on the right one.” She chuckled, shuffling to a poinsettia arrangement. “More heartburn?”

I shook my head, reaching for a strip of green velvet.

When I realized that I was pregnant in September, I finally stopped crying.

The doctor had been wrong.
I
had been wrong- about Logan, about any hope for a normal life, and about my future.

My mom and West were so supportive, and Roam promised me she’d be there for me no matter what happened. After almost two months of sitting around with my hand over the growing child inside of me, I finally packed my things and left.

I stopped calling and texting Logan in November.

I had been on my own for most of my life, and now had created another immortal
that was destined to spend eternity in this world, like me. It had been Logan who wanted an immortal child, and now Logan was gone. The guilt was crushing, unbearable at times, but I kept reassuring myself that it wasn’t my fault;
the doctor had been wrong.

“You are half-mortal, Mrs. Rush. I should have realized this was a possibility.”

At my appointment last week, the ultrasound had confirmed what I already knew; I was carrying a girl.

I stopped at a baby boutique on my way home, pouring over ruffled pink dresses
and adorable, flowered sleepers before finally rushing out of the store, near tears.

White Christmas
began on the satellite radio in the flower shop, and I sighed deeply. Mrs. Ambly wrapped one arm around me. “I know you came all the way here, but I really don’t think I’ll need the extra help today. Why don’t you go home and get some rest,” she suggested.

“No, I’d rather not be alone,” I answered softly. “You don’t have to pay me.”

“Of course I’ll pay you. Just want you to be healthy, Violet Rose.”

“Healthy as a horse,” I joked
with one of her favorite sayings, forcing a smile.

She nodded, unconvinced.

The store grew busy after all, and it wasn’t until four-thirty that I pulled into the cottage driveway. Sunset had begun, my favorite time of the day, so I’d have to hurry to catch it from my place on the back porch. The main house remained empty, and the cottage served as the perfect, peaceful atmosphere.

I tossed the keys to the kitchen countertop, dropping my phone into the iPhone speaker dock after choosing my playlist called ‘Everything Sucks.’ Logan would have laughed at the title.

Logan isn’t here.

Natalie
Imbrugila’s
Torn
began as I pulled off my coat. That’s me.
Torn
. All cried out. Blah blah
blah
. Next was Patsy Cline-
Crazy.

Why, yes, I am. Thanks Patsy.

I skipped forward and turned up the volume, stopping on Lifehouse’s
Broken
as movement caught my eye on the back patio.

He sat
, facing the ocean.

My breath caught in my chest, and I froze.

He must have heard the music; he turned to the sliding glass door, rising to his feet.

His eyes met mine… and then drifted over my
stomach. I turned and reached for my keys, hurrying for the front door. I almost made it to the handle before he came through the back door of the cottage. “Just go
away
-…,”

“
Vi
,” he reached for me, and I tried to resist folding into his arms.

“Just go back to where you were,
Logan… just go.
”

“
I can’t go,
” he said, his voice cracking in a way that reminded me of the teenage boy I’d fallen in love with.

I desperately wanted to show him that he couldn’t just walk back into my life after hurting me the way that he did, just expecting me to run right back to him.

But… I didn’t.

I
didn’t because I loved him more than my pride, and I just wanted him to hold me more than anything else in the world.

Leaning into him, so weak, I pressed my forehead into his shoulder as he caught me in his arms. His hair was so much longer, curling at his forehead, but his face was freshly shaven. Those bottomless brown eyes found mine.

“I didn’t know…
how long?
” He begged, running his hands over my sides, resting at my rounded middle.

“How
could
you have known? You left. You left
me
.
I don’t need you, Logan,
” I managed, catching his hands in mine and pushing them away.

“
I
need
you,
Violet
.
”

I stopped from reaching to turn off the music, lifting my eyes to his.

“What did you say?”

He took a step toward me in the kitchen, the same cottage kitchen that was a modern-day replica of the place I first fell in love with him.

“
I need you.
” He held his hand out, and I focused on his wedding band, my heart clamoring. “I need you now, and I need you for the rest of my life. Help me make sense out of this world.
Please
.”

His defenseless words, so vulnerable and so unlike him, broke my heart in
to pieces.