Chapter Thirty-four: Your Guardian Angel

Chapter Thirty-four

Lincoln

YOUR GUARDIAN ANGELS

Performed by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

As we drove toward town and The Tea Spot, it settled in that Poco wasn't the one leaving the notes. That left Felicity, the Viceroys, or some unknown we hadn't identified.

"One down," Axel said, and the satisfaction in his voice had a chuckle escaping me.

"Thought you said you weren't a hit squad."

" We aren't." He looked over his glasses at me and winked.

The tension in my chest eased ever so slightly. Special Agent Hardy wouldn't have walked out and left Poco to his just rewards. As much as I admired and respected the former head of my detail, I knew he was too honorable of a man to let someone die, and he would have been too enticed at the thought of bringing down a bigger fish by catching the small one to let Poco go. He would have hauled the man in for questioning, and then tried to cut him a deal in order to get him to turn on Paul so the Secret Service could take the whole organization down. But Axel had shown me he only cared about what I'd hired him to do, which was to protect Willow and end whatever was happening. It proved to me I'd hired the right team.

As we entered the alley behind the café, Axel's com beeped, and one of his men said Willow was on her way out to us. I got out of the car and strode toward the door.

She was beaming when she emerged, and it stole my breath. Baking had put that smile there. Creating food for others brought her the same joy creating my art brought me. It was who she was down deep. If she had to relocate, and could never bake again professionally for fear it would tie her to this version of herself, it would rip a different piece of her soul away than having her father taken away had.

I refused to let that happen.

I'd just pulled her hand into mine when tires screeched to a halt behind us and a loud pop sounded through the alley. The air by me sizzled and cracked. And all chaos let loose. The Marshal behind Willow screamed, "Shots fired! Shots fired!"

I heard but didn't register Axel and the other bodyguards yelling out commands as I reacted on pure instinct, pushing Willow to the ground and shielding her with my body.

Return gunfire burst around us, the bodyguards and the Marshals aiming in the direction of the street. One thought mixed in with the rage that consumed me—I wanted him dead. If he fucking hurt Willow, I'd find him and end him with my own hands. I desperately needed to scan her body and make sure she wasn't hurt, but I didn't dare move. Not until the gunfire stopped.

In those awful seconds, the truth hammered me as hard as my heart beat against my rib cage: our world had crumbled a bit further.

Men swarmed over us as wheels squealed against asphalt.

"Get them inside!" Axel hollered, and then I heard his SUV burning rubber out of the alley, giving chase to whoever had driven up and shot at us.

The security team all but picked us up and carried us into the café as sirens wailed in the distance.

A comm unit on one of the men erupted with Axel's voice demanding status.

"Clients secured," The man replied. "What's the status of the shooter?"

"I have a gray sedan in sight. The Marshals are right behind me."

The gray fucking sedan. Knowing I could have stopped this sent anger and disgust curling through me. If I'd only approached the goddamn car when I'd had the chance.

Willow's uncontrollable shaking had me pulling away enough to search her body for blood. For wounds. To reassure myself she wasn't hit.

She scoured me with tortured eyes, combing me for the same damn reason.

"That sound, Lincoln!" Her voice was strained and terrified. "God… that night… I could feel the bullets in the air. Just like this… coming for me. For us."

I tucked her into me, so tight it felt like it might fuse our skin and bone.

I wanted to be in the car with Axel. I wanted to pull the shooter from the sedan and pound him. I wanted to destroy whoever this was for making her relive that night. For jerking her back to that damn closet where she'd almost died. Where a fucking speaker had come between her and death. Where she'd tried to save her dad with her own hands.

Instead, all I could do was spew words I hoped to somehow make true. "We're okay, Sweetness. You're safe. I've got you. You're safe."

A loud, unhappy protest from the line of men behind us drew our attention to Hector trying to get through. Willow tore herself away from me, heading toward him, and the men let him into our circle. Hector hugged her to him, glaring at me over her head as if I was the one who'd pulled the trigger. As if I was the one who'd caused this.

And damn it, I just might be.

Willow stepped away from Hector and turned panicked eyes on a man wearing a US Marshals vest. "My mom?!"

"She's okay. Her detail reported in. Everything is calm at the school."

"I want to see her!" Willow demanded.

"Both of you are in lockdown until the sedan is found," the Marshal said.

Hector squeezed Willow's arm. "I'll go see her. Right now. I'll make sure she's okay and that she knows you are too."

She nodded, shoulders sagging. "Okay. Th-thank you."

"Don't thank me. We're family, Willow. That's what family does."

As Hector hurried from the room, his words stabbed at me. Because it was true and also because I didn't want this family to be taken from Willow if she was forced to run and hide again. I hadn't kept my promise to Erica. I hadn't protected her daughter. I wasn't doing a good enough job. Not even close. Maybe we needed to head to some secluded island. Some place far, far away from all of this. I could hide forever if I needed to. My family would hate it, but I'd make the choice if it was the only solution.

But damn it, neither of us should have to run. That's when the anger hit all over again. A fury that made me want to punch someone until my knuckles were raw. I slammed my hand down on the steel counter, and silence settled over the kitchen. It felt as heavy as the weight pulling me under.

All the eyes in the room turned on me. But only one pair mattered.

Willow took in a huge breath and then let it out. In two steps, she'd reached me. She fisted my T-shirt and rose up on her toes to look into my eyes.

"Stop it," she insisted. "This isn't on you."

I surrounded her with my arms, dipped my face into her hair, and inhaled the sweet scent. We were okay. We'd continue to be okay now that Axel was chasing down whoever had done this. I knew with a certainty I couldn't explain that he wouldn't stop until he had the man either in cuffs or dead on the ground.

Between Axel and me, we'd make sure she stayed safe. I wouldn't be in the passenger seat when the truck slammed into us. I'd be driving this time, making sure I was the one who took any more hits that came. No one else.

Willow squeezed me as tight as I'd squeezed her before, fusing us together. Her voice was firm and solid, no tremble in sight, when she repeated, "Stop." She shifted so she could take my face in her hands, forcing me to meet gray eyes that flashed. "My mom was right last night. None of us can take responsibility for evil and hatred. This isn't on you."

"You were almost shot!" My voice clogged.

"But I wasn't. Because you hired Axel and his team to take care of me. Because you took care of me."

"I love you." It just poured out of me before I could stop it. She deserved to hear it when there wasn't an audience, when we weren't holding on to each other for dear life with men milling around, comm units screeching, and a sense of foreboding in the air. She needed to hear it when romance was the only thing that existed—candles and champagne and dancing that led to a long night tucked together.

Just as she went to speak, to say those three words back, a woman stormed into the café, wearing a US Marshal's windbreaker and her hand resting on the butt of the gun at her hip.

"Thank God you weren't hit," she said. "This is exactly why we need to relocate you. The situation is out of control."

The rumble of disagreement was almost out of me before I caught it.

I wanted Willow safe. I wanted her to live more than I wanted to keep her with me.

When Willow didn't respond, the Marshal turned to me, assessing me in a way that made me feel like a teen caught sneaking in a window, before she extended a hand, saying, "Deputy Marshal James. I'm the Earharts' handler."

I shook the hand she'd offered but didn't offer up my name. I didn't need to.

The Marshal's phone rang, and she picked it up with a grunted, "James," and listened for so long I thought I might lose my patience. Finally, she grunted out some acknowledgement and then hung up. "The suspect crashed and almost went into the Potomac."

It took several long seconds for the words to finally register, and when they did, the relief that coursed through me caused my ears to ring so loud I almost didn't catch her next words. "He's unconscious and being taken to the hospital. Axel says the vehicle is full of clothes and wrappers, as if the man has been living out of the car. It's being towed to the police yard. It might take a while to go through it all, but it looks like we've caught him."

Was it over? God, please let it be over.

My arms flexed around Willow as hope shot through me, heady and unrestrained. Maybe, just maybe, I'd actually be able to keep her.

When I looked down into her face, her eyes were glossy, and she was biting her lip in an attempt to hold back tears.

A shimmer in the hallway brought Sienna. I wanted to snarl at her to go away, to step back from this moment and let me just have it, but she was shaking her head violently and saying something that, for the first time ever, I couldn't hear. I didn't know if it was because of all the people in the café's kitchen, or because of Willow tucked up next to me, or because of the buzzing in my ears. When I clearly didn't understand her, she threw her hands up and paced, frustration eking from her.

"What is it?" Willow asked, and I dragged my eyes from Sienna's to a pair of concerned, gray ones.

"Nothing."

"Lincoln—"

"Really. Just my past tugging at old scars. We both had our worst moments slapped in our faces today. But all I am feeling now is grateful. Grateful and relieved."

She stared at me for a moment, as if deciding how much to push me. How much to let her own past spill into what was happening now. How much to let those old wounds bleed into our present…our future. "Take me home, Lincoln."

I swallowed hard, her words almost undoing me. I wanted my home to be a safe haven for her, and I could only hope, with one car crash, it would be. That this was over.

We'd survived again. She'd survived. But what would I have done if that bullet had hit her? I couldn't even think about it. I closed my eyes and kissed her softly, thoroughly. I let the warmth of her sink into me. The delightful scent of her. The peace I found when I was next to her.

She was safe. We'd made it through this storm.

The man responsible was caught.

We were going to be okay.

We were alive and here and in love.

That was what I had to focus on. It was what truly mattered.

When I opened my eyes, Sienna was there again. Glaring at me. Talking. Gesticulating wildly.

And for the first time ever, I truly didn't want to hear her. I didn't want to be haunted by the failings of my past. I wanted to finally hand over my guilt about not being the one who'd died that day when the truck hit us. If I had been, I wouldn't have been here to push Willow into living a full life. I wouldn't have been here to show her the joy that came from this, from being joined in every part of our body and soul, and she deserved that. She deserved the happiness of this moment. To focus on our present where life and love filled us.

So, I rotated our bodies, putting Sienna behind me, and headed for the door.

Willow was the only thing that mattered.