SCARS (18 page)

              There could be no secrets.

              So there were none between us.

              There were things I knew James didn’t want to share. Especially about his time on the streets and in the orphanage. That he didn’t want to glamorize the harshness of life with a mob boss. But there he had found a family of sorts. However, that life crumbled from beneath him the moment he fell in love with Lana. As much as he ached for her and he knew her love had cost him everything, he was a man about it though.

              He did not regret loving Lana.

              Just as he did not regret returning to me that second night on the bridge.

              He loved me. Of that I was sure.

              I loved him. Fiercely. Maybe even obsessively so. The thought of another woman laying their hands on him drove me to distraction.

              But I rarely, if ever, thought about it. I knew his heart was true to me and only me.

              I entered the forest, running the trails, my feet pounding into the packed dirt. I was sweating. The sun burnied bright in the sky. I was dressed a little to warmly for this.

              I started to feel sick.

              Like I was going to hurl.

              I was dizzy.

              My blood sugar. It was either dropping or spiking. It was dangerous for me either way. I needed to get home.

              I checked my pockets for my glucose tablets. My heart was pounding in my ears and my chest. My head swam and my legs felt wobbly. I couldn’t find my tablets. Damn it.

              Like an idiot I’d rushed out the door without them.

              I was starting to see spots. This sucked. I was shaking all over. I stopped and pulled out my phone. I dialed James’ number and he answered. When I said his name my words were slurred. Then something sharp crashed over my head, I dropped the phone and everything went black.

Chapter Twenty-Five

              My arms were over my head and as I floated in and out of consciousness the roaring pain in my skull kept bringing me back to the present and the feeling I was being dragged through the woods by my feet, by someone considerably smaller than me. Someone familiar to me. And when I heard her voice it was difficult to focus, my sugars were raging out of control and the bump to the head was magnified by each tug of my body.

              “You fat, fucking whore. You don’t make anything easy for me do you? Not even when I’m ready for you to own up to what you did to our father. He was a good man. Too good for you to kill him like you did. Thought you could hide behind that weird recluse. Well he ain’t around now to save you is he. No it’s just you and me big sister and no you’re finally gonna pay for what you did to me and mom all those years ago.”

              I heard water and my heart began to pound.

              It was hard to believe this was the same girl who nursed me back to health. Clearly that was a fantasy I had dreamt up in my head. In reality the one who had nursed me through the worst of it was James. It had always been James. It would always be James. I just had to find a way to fight my body’s betrayal of itself.

              She dropped my legs to the ground.

              “I’m gonna roll you off this bridge and you’ll be fish food and won’t nobody know whatever happened to the cunt who killed her own father.”

              I could argue with her. Beat my head up against the wall. But she had been planning this for some time. I was about to die. I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t find my strength. The ghost of my dead stepfather was about to have his revenge and there was little to nothing I could do about it. As my body rolled out onto the bridge tears came to my eyes.

              Only moments before I had been dreaming of a future with James.

              “Say goodbye bitch!”

              Her foot caught me square in the shoulders and as I rolled I reached for something to hold onto. Unfortunately it was her ankle and as I went over it she flew past me. I released her, I closed my eyes and waited for impact.

              Instead her scream followed her down and I was yanked to a stop. I looked up. James had me by my forearms.

              “Let me go!” I shouted. “I’ll just take you with me!”

              We were at the foot of the bridge on our home’s side. He looked at me with a fierce determination. “I’m not losing you. Not like this. Not ever.”

              And then with a heave of such strength I could not imagine any man would have, he pulled us both to safety.

              We held onto one another so tightly neither of us could breathe. I started crying and he showered my face with tender kisses murmuring over and over again, “It’s over, angel. It’s all over. She can’t touch you. She can’t harm you. She’ll never threaten us again.”

              “I love you, James.”

              “I love you, Rayna.”

              “I want to marry you.”

              “Of course.”

              “Now. I want to marry you now.”

              “Okay. I’ll call Ellen.”

              “She can’t know about this. Ever.”

              “She’ll only know if you choose to tell her.”

              “Take me home, James.”

              Without a word he lifted me up in his arms and carried me to the only home we would ever need. Because wherever we were, that was home enough for us.