Tell Me No Lies (28 page)

He pulled me closer. “Remember what I said about finding someone someday? Well, it was me all along, and I knew it. I love your laugh, the softness of your skin, the shape of all those freckles, the way your hair turns gold in the sunlight.”

Orange, he meant, of course, but I wouldn’t correct him now.

“I don’t care who your parents are, or that you’re a grumpy monster in the mornings, or that you cheat at cards.” Between the words he gently pulled me down to kiss my cheeks, my nose, my chin, my eyes. “I love the way you love Serenity and take care of your sister. I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you.” He buried his face in my neck, and I could feel the heat of his breath against my skin as he added, “More than anything, I wish that wedding had been real.”

“We can remedy that,” I murmured. “The first chance we get. We still have the dress.” And the silly little ring, which I would never throw away no matter how many diamonds he might buy me to replace it.

“Good.” He was breathing heavily at the effort he’d expended, so I leaned over him and pressed my cheek against his, urging him to be still. His hand caressed my neck. Despite the uncomfortable ground and the ache of my own cuts, his touch was all I could think about for a long while.

Take that, Bailey.

Sirens cut through the night, and several feel away, Dylan jumped up from the ground. “They’re coming! They’re coming! I’ll go out front and wait for them.”

“No, stay here.” I didn’t know if Bailey and Charlie were out front or if they might hurt him. “I told them where to find us.”

Minutes later, two ambulances, a fire truck, and a half-dozen police cars arrived. Soon, they were bandaging Gage and giving him blood right there in the dirt and weeds.

“Was there anyone else out front?” I asked.

“No,” said the female EMT.

“How many cars? Two or three?”

“Two.”

I looked at Gage. “They got away. After all they did.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I meant what I said when I forgave Bailey. Everything I endured, those six long years—they mean nothing now. They brought me you.”

That made my eyes sting with tears, but I was worried about expunging Gage’s record. Without Bailey and Charlie’s testimony, would there be enough to clear him?

The EMT touched my shoulder. “If it helps, I heard the police say they pulled over a car a few minutes from here. Driving erratically. The man and woman inside smelled like smoke from a fire. They’re holding them for questioning.”

I sighed with relief. Bailey might not talk right away, but Charlie would.

“If you’ll come with me,” the EMT said, “I’d like to look at that wrist before we take you both to the hospital.”

“Don’t forget her leg,” Gage grunted.

He was stable enough, but I was afraid to take my eyes off him. I leaned over and kissed him. “I love you,” I whispered. “I wish I’d known that last Thanksgiving.” Known how I’d feel about him, what we’d mean to each other. Known to look past the exterior mask he’d shown to the world.

“No looking back.” His thumb traced my bottom lip. “Only forward.”

I nodded and thumped him on the arm. “Okay. But for the record, I do
not
cheat at cards.” I waited several heartbeats to add, “Much.”

He laughed. “You’re still bleeding. Go with the nice lady and get patched up. Please.”

Because he asked so nicely, I went.

EPILOGUE

I
’d thought the day would never come, and I’d wondered a million times if waiting so long had been a mistake.

On the night we escaped the burning house, I’d wanted to marry Gage for real right away, but reality soon set in. I needed to be sure our feelings didn’t stem from the passion of the moment. Okay, I wanted to make sure
his
feelings didn’t stem from the moment, because I knew my feelings were real.

Gage wasn’t worried about that so much as making sure the world knew of his innocence. He didn’t want people pointing fingers at me behind my back every time we visited his sister in Kingman. He didn’t want Aiden to be teased. I couldn’t blame him for that.

There were other reasons for the delay—Lily wanted to have her baby so she could dance at my wedding, I decided to go back to school to study psychology, and my parents wanted . . . well, I wasn’t sure what they wanted. I didn’t ask. I told them I loved Gage and if they wanted to be a part of my life, they’d have to accept my choice. I tried not to be disappointed when they kept their distance, rejecting Gage and all the notoriety, despite the fact that I’d saved their business. Despite the fact that he’d never hurt anyone.

Maybe it was all those wedding gifts my mother had to return.

When our story hit the newspapers, it was big in Arizona, especially in Kingman, but it wasn’t until Gage appeared on a national talk show that people in Kingman began stopping him on the street or in the stores to say they’d known that he was innocent all along.

Right.

Gage hated the attention, but he did it for me and his family. Our future family. I hoped the ladies I’d met in the Las Vegas restaurant learned about his false conviction and spread the word. The whole country would know within weeks.

The television appearance also had a huge effect on my parents. My mother backtracked graciously, inviting five hundred of her dearest friends to my wedding reception. Since my father had to foot the dinner bill for all their attendees, I knew his business was doing well.

Dylan was the kid of the hour. For weeks the students crowded around him at school asking for details of his capture and his uncle’s miraculous rescue. With each telling, his story grew a bit more wild, though none of us objected. Besides, I liked the new version of my involvement, how I grappled hand-to-hand with Bailey to free us from her evil clutches and then walked through a wall of fire. Gage, of course, fought both Charlie and Ridge—at the same time, wounded, with one arm, in the dark. He was the true hero in Aiden’s eyes, exactly the way he should be.

Charlie pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison. Bailey’s case was still pending, but the prosecutor was sure she’d be put away at least ten years. It was less, perhaps, than she deserved, but when I testified against her, she didn’t look up from the table where she was sitting, and I felt nothing for her but pity. She was all alone, while I had Gage.

In Flagstaff, I’d been staying with Sadie, who was still my best friend. Taking advantage of my sudden jump to fame, she found me a job as a receptionist for a local psychologist. When I wasn’t at school or work, I was with Gage or Serenity. Weekends we spent with either Lily in Phoenix or with Mia and Aiden in Kingman.

Finally the end of April arrived, seven months after our near fiery death. School was over for the semester, and I was getting married.

“Does it look okay?” I asked Lily, staring into the mirror at the church. Sadie and Lily had swept my hair up on my head, copying the style from the photographs we’d taken in Las Vegas.

“Gorgeous.” Lily hugged me. “Beautiful. He won’t be able to take his eyes off you. I can’t take my eyes off you!”

My mother walked into the room. I turned toward her, the hard little ball of nervousness in my stomach doubling in that instant. Then I saw baby Dillon in her arms, and the incongruity of my elegant mother cradling him dissolved the nervousness and made me want to laugh. Her navy dress was glittering and expensive, and Lily’s two-month old son hadn’t spit up on her yet, but he was bound to before the hour was out. I couldn’t wait.

“Look who I found hanging out with his daddy,” she said in high falsetto, caressing his little cheek with her finger. “Isn’t that right, sweetie? Isn’t it? Isn’t it? But he wanted his grandma. Yes, he did. Yes, he did.”

Lily’s jaw dropped at my mother’s baby talk, but she recovered quickly. “We’re ready here. Where’s Gage and Mario? And Dad?”

“Outside the door,” Sadie answered, peeking out. “Looks like Gage is chomping at the bit to see Tessa. He’s pacing.”

I smoothed my wedding dress, the same one I’d worn in Vegas, though it didn’t need smoothing. The odd feeling in my stomach was back, but now it stemmed more from excitement than nervousness.

Lily hugged me again. “I love you, sis,” she whispered. “I just want to say thanks. You’ve always been there for me. Without you, we would have lost everything.”

“Not me. Gage.”

He’d paid her mortgage for four months until my parents—and their business—had come around. Next week when I received my funds, we’d pay off the house completely. We had big plans when I finished my degree to buy the land next to her house and turn her small halfway house into a larger operation to help more girls.

“It was both of you.” Lily pushed me toward the door. “Hurry, he’s waiting.”

I stopped only to slip the handle of a small gift bag over my wrist.

Gage’s eyes snapped to me as I emerged from the room. I was vaguely aware of my father and Mario, Lily’s husband, standing nearby.

“You look . . . incredible,” Gage said, drawing me away from the others.

I thought he looked even better in his black tuxedo. “Aren’t you supposed to be waiting for me in there?” I motioned to the doors leading into the main room.

“I wanted to see you first. I wanted to tell you—” He broke off and looked back at our small audience before placing his cheek against mine, angling his face toward my neck, his voice lowering. “Tessa, I know we needed to do this for real and for our families, but I have to confess that a big part of me is missing that day in Vegas when it was just us.”

I knew exactly what he meant. A big part of me wanted to get behind him on his motorcycle and driving off into the sunset, just the two of us. It would be easy since Calvin was expecting us at the Lover’s Lane Hotel and Chapel, where we were spending our honeymoon.

“Since that day, it’s always been you,” Gage continued. “Well, actually long before that, but that’s when I finally admitted it to myself. And it will always be you. Always.”

Tears started in my eyes, and I blinked to stop them from falling and ruining Lily’s makeup job. He smiled at me, and I knew I didn’t have to say a word, that it was all there in my eyes.

Gage leaned in tighter and kissed my neck, his thumb teasing the new ring on my finger. Not the one from Lover’s Lane Hotel, though I was wearing that one, too, on my right hand. He took a breath. “Okay, we can go.”

“Wait.” I removed a short length of blue silk from the gift bag on my wrist, letting the bag fall to the ground. “Look what I brought for you.”

He gave a low chuckle, his hand running over the silk and lace. “Mia’s present. I’ve been wondering where that got to.”

I winked at him and pushed the gown into the pocket of his tuxedo. With a low growl in his throat, he kissed me again.

Behind him I could see my father looking at my mother, baby Dillon still in her arms. He took her hand in his. I doubted things would ever really change between them, but they had forgiven Lily enough to talk to her, and they were at my wedding behaving like normal grandparents.

For today, my day, it was enough.

THE END

We hope you enjoyed
Tell Me No Lies.
We invite you to continue on to the first chapter of
The Change
, a romantic urban fantasy novel by the author under the name Teyla Branton.

UNBOUNDED

THE CHANGE

by Teyla Branton

CHAPTER ONE

O
n the day I set foot on the path to immortality, I was with Justine in her car driving down 95th on our way to pick out her new sofa. Ordinary. That’s what the day was. The plain kind of ordinary that obscures the secrets lurking in the shadows—or behind the faces of those you love.

Justine was the sister I’d never had, and our relationship was close to official since her brother had asked me twice to marry him. Tom was sexy, persuasive, and best of all, dependable. The next time he asked, I was considering saying yes.

A van came from nowhere, slamming into Justine’s side of the car.

Just like that. No warning.

Justine jerked toward me but was ultimately held in her seat by the safety belt. My head bounced hard off the right side window. A low screeching grated in my ears, followed by several long seconds of utter silence.

An explosion shattered the world.

When the smoke began to clear, I saw Justine’s head swing in my direction, though not of her own volition. Her blue eyes were open but vacant, her face still. Fire licked up the front of her shirt. Her blond hair melted and her skin blackened.

“No!” The word ripped from my throat.

I tried to reach out to Justine, but my arms wouldn’t move. Heat. All around me. Terror. Pain. The stench of burning flesh.

Fire and smoke obscured my vision, but not before I saw something drip from the mess that had been Justine’s face. We were dying. This was it. The point of no return. I thought of my parents, my grandmother, my brothers, and how they would mourn me. I couldn’t even think about Tom.

A premonition of things to come?

I lost consciousness, and when I came to I was lying flat on my back. A sheet covered my face. I was suffocating.

“Witnesses say . . . in flames almost on impact,” a man’s voice was saying. “A fluke . . . not for the fire . . . might have survived.”

I turned my face, struggling to move my mouth from the sheet. Searching for air. Agony rippled up my neck and all over my head and down my body, the pain so decimating that it sapped all strength from me. I couldn’t move again, but that little bit had been enough.

“What the freak!” the voice said. I could barely hear the words, but they gave me something to focus on through the pain. I clung to them. “Gunnar . . . the oxygen . . . thought you said she was dead.”