Chapter Thirty-five: Inside Your Heaven

Chapter Thirty-five

Willow

INSIDE YOUR HEAVEN

Performed by Carrie Underwood

Once Lincoln and I got home , we tucked ourselves into his study, closed the door on the security team, and lost ourselves in another heated kiss. It felt different than any of the ones before. It felt as if Lincoln was kissing me so he wouldn't remember anything that had happened. As if he needed to feel our hands and bodies seeking and soothing and loving so he wouldn't feel anything else. And I gladly and willingly gave it to him because I didn't want either of us to think about what could have happened. I didn't want to remember the sound of the shot that had brought me straight back to Dad bleeding out on our living room floor.

We were alive. There should be no guilt in that. His or mine. We'd survived. We'd lived.

The relief I felt at knowing the man who'd done it had actually been caught bloomed large and strong. I didn't care that he was hurt. Didn't care that he might die. Perhaps I should have felt bad about it, but I didn't. If he died, it meant I wouldn't have to live through another four years awaiting a trial.

I was tired of being on the receiving end of violence. Tired of waiting to see evil punished. And I was tired of dragging remorse around with me. Lincoln and I continuing to hold on to bags of self-blame wouldn't honor anyone who'd lost their lives instead of us…because of us.

So, I let myself rejoice in Lincoln. In the touch of our mouths and hands and souls. In the three glorious words he'd uttered in the café kitchen that I hadn't been able to repeat yet.

I'd just torn my mouth away from his, determined to say the words right then and there, when our phones started ringing—and they didn't stop for hours.

We spent the afternoon fielding calls—from Axel, the Marshals, and our families. Hector told me not to come in the next day and then handed the phone to my mom. She said Hector had demanded she stay the night with him in a high-handed but sexy way, and it had ripped a laugh from me. But afterward, she'd gotten quiet and serious and asked if I was okay. I was surprised how honest I could be when I said I was. She told me she'd come by Lincoln's in the morning. While I talked to Mom, Lincoln's parents and sisters sent frantic messages that turned into long conversations I could tell were pure torment for someone who hated being on the phone.

But after the relief, the outpouring of love, and the adrenaline crash, a new concern started to flicker to life. This one was entirely about Lincoln because, as the afternoon turned into night, he kept sending scowls to the corners of the room, as if he was chasing away the boogieman. I didn't understand why he wasn't feeling as relieved as I was. I didn't know what was causing his brows to remain furrowed and the air around him to remain broody.

This chapter was closed. It was behind us. Wasn't it?

Was his reaction just the remnants of runaway endorphins? Aftershocks?

I'd started to tell him a dozen times that I loved him, needing to say the words as a comfort to us both, but every time he darted a glance to the corner of the room, it stopped me. Something was still eating at him. A shadow had surrounded him. One that seemed to be sucking him back into the black vortex I'd thought we'd escaped.

By the time we fell asleep with me tucked up against him, I thought maybe he'd started to come around, as his shoulders loosened and the furrow relaxed. But when I woke without his arms around me, I panicked, until the scratch of a pencil on paper drew my eyes to where he sat propped up against the headboard. He had a sketchpad in hand and a look of concentration on his face as his pencil moved over the page in the moonlight streaming in the window.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked. He looked up at me, hand freezing. Backlit as he was from the moon, it kept his eyes shadowed, hiding his thoughts from me.

"A while," he said. "Did I wake you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Once I'm awake, once I get an image in my head, my body can't remain still," he said apologetically. "Normally, I get up. But I didn't want to leave you. I'll try not to wake you if it happens again."

I sat up, the sheet fell away, and Lincoln's eyes fell to my naked chest.

I closed the little distance between us, took the sketchpad and pencil, and tossed them aside before saying, "I don't care. Wake me up. Didn't you just tell me yesterday that it simply means we have more minutes together? We have a lifetime together now. For as long as this body gives me…" I trailed off, instantly feeling bad I'd brought up the FFI and the mutated gene. But maybe this was what he was still worried about—now that the physical threat had been removed, it brought my internal one into full focus.

He ran a hand over my arm and up along my collarbone and then cupped my neck. Goosebumps erupted at his touch. The very best kind.

"About that," he said.

I didn't let him finish. A moment of alarm had me preventing him from saying what Chad had said. That he couldn't take the leap. That knowing I might die early was just too much. So I kissed him, lips sliding over his, tongue seeking pleasure. And just like I'd hoped, the fire we never seemed to fully quench burst into an inferno, stalling all talk, all thought.

Until he pulled away, grabbed my chin, and stopped me from continuing my onslaught.

"Listen. My mother has contacts—or maybe it's my dad and she's using them, who knows. Regardless, she contacted a lab in California, and they can send one of their scientists here. To us. They can test you for the mutated gene."

Shock rippled through me. "What?"

"I don't care if you have it, Willow. I want every single moment with you, no matter what that looks like. So it wouldn't matter to me if you were ever tested, but I don't want you to live with the uncertainty. I don't want it hanging over you."

My stomach tensed, flight instincts rushing through me. Mom and I hadn't officially told the Marshals we were leaving, even though I was positive it was where we'd landed. But the thought of being tested after years of hiding, years of being as quiet as possible, years of trying to blend in instead of standing out, only made the panic grow. It was mixed in with these new concerns I had for Lincoln and a larger concern that knowing the truth brought. Because if it came back that I had the mutated gene, Lincoln and I would have different decisions to make. A life to live or not live. A risk to take for both of us. Could I hurt him that way? Could he accept the burden of knowing I might die?

But what if I didn't have the gene? What if the test freed me? What if it gave me the gift of a true forever with Lincoln? Glorious decades without dreading the moment the gene ruined everything.

He frowned at my silence. "I should've asked…"

My eyes caught on the sketch Lincoln had been working on. It was me again, eyes closed as they'd been in the drawing this weekend—another Sleeping Beauty. It was fitting in many different ways because I did feel like I was coming awake…coming alive for the first time since Dad had been killed.

The alarm that had wrung through me disappeared, replaced with a sure resolve I promised myself I'd finally keep.

"What you see… This girl…" I tapped the page and shook my head, emotions clogging my throat. "You said I brought you into the light, woke you up out of a dream. You did the same for me. And now that I'm awake, I don't want to go back to sleep or into hiding or play it safe. I have a list in my journal I thought was full of small joyous experiences I could have while still living within the witness protection rules and with the unknown of the FFI. But I don't want small anymore, Lincoln. I want big. I want huge, overwhelming joys that mean taking all the leaps I can. Sometimes I'll fall, but it's worth the risk. The idea of getting to keep you…of building a life together…that's what I want."

He wrapped his arms around my waist and tugged me into his chest, kissing my temple. "First, you're not a girl. You're a woman who's got more strength and fire and courage than pretty much anyone I've ever encountered. And you weren't sleeping. It's more like you were waiting for the right time to step fully into your life. We both were. The asshole leaving the notes was wrong. We can have a happily ever after." He kissed my cheek, my neck. "Don't you feel it?"

I nodded. Because I did. I felt the pleasure, the peace, the hope all twined together, expanding and filling every piece of my soul. "Thank you, to your parents and you, for figuring out how to get the test done. It's a beautiful gift."

His eyes went behind me once again, as they had repeatedly in the last day, and I turned my head in the same direction with a spike of worry returning. Nothing was there except the shadows of the room. I turned back to him. "What is it?"

When I'd asked him that before, he'd said it was his past haunting him. I'd understood that. Hearing the shots had thrust me right back to that awful night. I'd felt the vibrations of the bullets hitting the speaker all over again. Seen my bloody hands pushing at the bullet holes and all the wounds I couldn't heal on my father. But whatever was bothering Lincoln felt different. It was as if he was expecting to see someone—or actually seeing someone. Goosebumps trailed over my skin.

"Is someone there?" I asked.

He pulled me tight. "No. It's just us here. Just us and our future."

But for the first time since he'd sauntered into the cemetery and demanded Poco let go of me, I wasn't sure I believed him. Something had drawn his gaze. Something was still worrying him. A tiny trickle of doubt seeped in before I pushed it aside.

I'd live in each moment like Dad had said. Savor every one of them.

And I'd start right now.

I moved, straddling Lincoln, and his eyes landed fully on me, going dark with that look of love and passion and hope I so adored seeing in his eyes. His body was hard beneath me, aching to be rejoined just like mine was. I shifted so I could take him deep inside. His nostrils flared, his hands tightened on my hips, and then we were moving. The pace was almost frantic, wildness rippling around us as if we were proving to ourselves, the world, and the fates that we were here. We were alive. We'd survived. We'd have a huge, beautiful life.

We'd live, damn it. We'd live.

My nails dug into his shoulders. Our soft pants and pounding hearts filled the room. Nothing existed but the delicious beauty of him inside me, becoming one with me, and taking me right up to the edge of the abyss that awaited us.

"I love the feel of you," I said, gaze locking with his. "I love everything about this. About you. I love you."

His body went completely still. The cobalt of his eyes turned dark and stormy once more. Midnight skies of passion.

"Say it again," he demanded.

"I love you."

"Forever. You and me, Willow. Forever."

For the first time in what felt like hours, I smiled. " Ridiculous to say forever when we barely know each other."

He grunted in protest, hips slamming into mine and making me gasp with pleasure.

"We've already proven what happens when you use that word in regard to us."

I met his intense look with a solemn one. "I want it, Lincoln. I want whatever the length of my forever is to be spent with you. Ridiculous or not. It's what I want."

"Then take it, Sweetness. Take it all. Take whatever you want."

Staring down at the gorgeous man who'd somehow, miraculously, become mine, I did what he asked. I took and took and took until we were both murmuring sensual words of love and gasping carnal words of lust. Until our bodies trembled from extreme pleasure instead of fear. And as I hit the peak and went over the edge, he took the leap right with me.

? ? ?

We didn't make our way downstairs until the sun had already crept over the horizon, and the birds were bursting with song outside the windows. When we walked into the kitchen, Axel and Deputy Marshal James were there, sipping from plain take-out cups that didn't have The Tea Spot logo on them.

"What do we know about the man in the sedan?" Lincoln asked as he went about fixing tea for us.

"Ryan Jennings. Age thirty-five," Axel said. "He has a history of mental health issues. We believe he first met Felicity when she was in a facility herself as a teen. Their time there overlapped."

Lincoln looked surprised. "How'd you find that out? She said she'd had her records cleansed of any hospital stays."

Deputy Marshal James snorted. "Nothing is ever really gone. And digging is part of our job."

"Did she hire him? Ask him to do this?" Lincoln asked, and I could hear the guilt in his voice that I hated because none of this would ever be his fault.

"We don't believe so," James said.

"From what we can gather, as Ryan is still unconscious, he lost his job at a Hollywood studio last year and has been living in his car ever since. He was ticketed in D.C. for parking and sleeping overnight near one of the monuments around the time Felicity and you were together last summer. In addition to the notes on his phone, there were handwritten journals in the car. We haven't gone through them all, but enough to know he was angry and obsessed. Some of the pages are love letters to Felicity, others are angry notes to her for being with you, and even angrier notes to her for ignoring him. Some vow to get revenge on you for hurting her. There are lots of pictures and news articles about Felicity and some of you, Lincoln. But no more photos of you and Willow besides the one he'd already sent to her," Axel said.

"It's over, then?" I asked, my voice wavering.

"For the most part. The only open question at the moment is where he got the gun. With his mental health issues, no state would grant him a gun license, and it's hard to see him having the right connections to get one on the black market." Axel and Deputy Marshal James exchanged a look.

"What?" I demanded.

"It's a Glock with an aftermarket switch attached. Two magazines with thirty bullets each." Some of the relief I'd felt spun away, a cold shiver creeping up my back.

"What's a switch? Why is any of this important?" Lincoln asked.

"Switches allow a shooter to literally switch back and forth from single shots to automatic. It's a favorite adaption made by many street gangs," Axel explained.

"It's what Danny and Roci used." My voice sounded hoarse and hollow. Lincoln reached over and grabbed my hand, and the warmth of it, the strength of it, grounded me.

"We don't think it's connected to the Viceroys," James explained quickly. "There's no evidence linking Ryan to them, and it doesn't look like he's ever been to Chicago."

"You think he followed me here from D.C.?" Lincoln's voice was dark.

"Yes."

I felt the shudder that went through him. He'd grounded me when I'd started to panic, and now it was my turn to do the same. I pushed at the frown between his brows and then squeezed his hand. "We're taking our future back, Lincoln. No more regrets. No more living small. We have you and me and our big futures. You promised. Forever. You and me."

He hesitated for a mere second before wrapping me in his arms and kissing the top of my head. "We'll put it behind us, Sweetness. It's over. All of it."

? ? ?

Because it was the only way I knew how to show my gratitude, I made Lincoln run to the store so I could make breakfast for the entire security detail and the remaining Marshals. I made enough food that it probably could have fed another twenty people. So, when Mom showed up with Hector, there was plenty for them as well.

I hugged each of them and then asked, "Who's at the café?"

"I shut the doors for the day," Hector said. "Hung a sign that said family emergency."

"Hector! No!"

He looked at me with serious eyes and said, "I'm not upset, and you shouldn't be either. If I've learned anything in this life, it's that love and family come first. Those are the only things you can leave behind. The only things that truly matter."

He pulled me into another tight hug before dragging my mom into the embrace with us. When I saw the sweet smile they shared, I nearly swooned.

"I can see you've decided to stay," Deputy Marshal James said with a resigned look at the three of us tangled together.

One glance at Mom's glowing face had closed the deal for me. We'd found happiness here. I was done letting evil have even one more minute of my time. The ugly feeling in my chest that wouldn't stop beating…I'd bury it. Bury it in the past with this Ryan guy as we said goodbye to the Marshals.

When we nodded with stupidly happy smiles on our faces, Deputy Marshal James said, "Well, crap. I guess it was bound to happen to me at some point." She headed toward the back door. "I'll send the paperwork for you to sign. It might take a few weeks, as government paperwork tends to move at a snail's pace, so it'll give us time to make sure things have really settled down here."

Then, she walked out without waiting for our response.

Mom's arms around me tightened, and her joy all but leaked into me. It filled me with hope that I could truly be the princess after the credits rolled, after the bad guys were banished.

"Take a walk with me?" Mom asked.

I nodded, and we headed out the back door. For some reason, I made my way to the cemetery gate, and Mom joined me. She wrapped her arm through mine as we walked amongst the quiet of the tombstones.

"We've earned this, Willow. I want you to live every moment from this day forward with only peace and happiness accompanying you."

"Same, Mom. I want the same for you." And to prove to her and myself I was embracing this new life, I told her about Lincoln's mom sending a scientist from the lab in California to us. "The doctor will be here this week."

"How do you feel about it?" she asked, eyes searching mine.

"Relieved."

"Really?" She seemed surprised.

"Knowing won't change what I have with Lincoln, but it prepares us. And I won't have the weight of the unknown hovering over me."

She tipped her head into mine and then let go, spinning around to eyeball the graveyard.

"I'll never understand your fascination with this place."

I took in the ornate carvings, the statues, the sweet words embedded in marble and granite. I still believed these people needed to be remembered, still hoped my dad's grave was visited by someone occasionally, and I'd still come here and celebrate these people who'd come before us, but I also wanted to look for the future and the new beginnings rather than the past.

Aaron was still out there. Who knew where? But he had far more important things to worry about than getting revenge on me. And I couldn't live, waiting for his shadow to block the sun.

"Let's go home and plan a huge dinner to celebrate closing this chapter of our lives and starting a new one," I said.

"I love that idea."

When we slipped back inside the house, Lincoln wasn't in the sunny kitchen anymore, but Hector was still there. He rose from the table with a goofy grin on his face. "Don't you both look beautiful. Happy."

"We are," Mom said. "Because of you. Because of Lincoln. Because we finally get to live our lives."

He pulled us both into a hug. "I love you both."

Happy tears filled my eyes. For me. For Mom. For him. I squeezed them to me. We had more people in our lives who could be targeted as we stepped away from the Marshals, more people who could be hurt, but I believed Lincoln when he said he'd protect us. I believed now that we could protect them together, so I wouldn't let worry sneak in.

"We're family," Hector said gruffly. "We already were, but Shay agrees. We'll be like the damn Brady bunch, except with only two kids instead of six."

"Maybe we'll have six grandkids," Mom teased.

And the thought lodged itself inside me like a beautiful dream you want to keep after waking. I tried not to get my hopes up. Tried not to think about having a family with Lincoln—babies with his blue eyes and wavy locks. Cupcake drives and parent-teacher association meetings. The thought of kids had always been an impossibility. But it dangled in front of me now as something I might just be able to have. A reality shimmering around the corner.

I'd let the doctors test me, and we'd deal with the results together.

I'd forget about Aaron and the Viceroys.

I'd do what we all were yearning to do. Live in the now. Live fully. Live with joy and love and hope, banishing the darkness.