by Nora Roberts
She took one step back, then two, but Livingston paid no attention to her. He was wiping his gun hand over his dry lips.
“It's over,” Holt told him. “Drop the gun, kick it aside.” But Livingston continued to stare at the necklace, breathing raggedly. “Drop it.” Braced, Holt moved closer. “Get out, Suzanna.”
“No, I'm not leaving you.”
He didn't have time to swear at her. Though he was prepared to kill, he could see that the man was no longer concerned with his weapon, or with escape.
Instead, Livingston merely stared down at the emeralds and trembled.
With his eyes trained on Livingston, Holt reached up to grasp the wrist of his gun hand. “It's over,” he said again.
“It's mine.” Wild with rage and fear, Livingston lunged. He fired once into the ceiling before Holt disarmed him. Even then he struggled, but the struggle was brief. With the next crash of thunder, he howled, striking out wildly even as the others raced into the room. Disoriented or terrified, stunned by Holt's blow to his jaw or no longer sane, he whirled.
There, was the crash of breaking glass. Then a sound Suzanna would never forget. A man's horrified scream. Even as Holt leaped forward to try to save him, Livingston pinwheeled through the broken window and tumbled to the rain swept rock below.
“My God.” Suzanna pressed back against the wall, her hands over her mouth to stop her own screams. There were arms around her, a babble of voices.
Her family poured into the tower room. She bent to her children, pressing kisses on their cheeks. “It's all right,” she soothed. “It's all right now. There's nothing to be afraid of.” She looked up at Holt. He stood facing her, the black space at his back, the glitter of emeralds at his feet. “Everything's all right now. I'm going to take you downstairs.”
Holt pushed the gun back in its holster. “We'll take them down.”
An hour later, when the children were soothed and sleeping, he took her by the arm and pulled her out on the terrace. All the fear and rage he'd felt since Jenny had run crying down the hallway came pouring out.
“What the hell do you think you were doing?”
“I had to keep him away from Jenny.” She thought she was calm, but her hands began to shake. “I suddenly had an idea about the emeralds. It was so simple, really. And I found them. Then he was there— and Jenny. He had a gun, and God, oh God, I thought he would kill her.”
“All right, all right,” Holt said. Suzanna didn't choke back the tears this time, but clung to him as they shuddered out of her. “The kids are fine, Suzanna. Nobody's going to hurt them. Or you.”
“I didn't know what else to do. I wasn't trying to be brave or stupid.”
“You were both. I love you.” He framed her face in his hands and kissed her. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She sniffled a little and wiped her eyes. “He chased me up there, and then...he snapped. You saw how he was when you came in.”
“Yeah.” Two feet away from her, with a gun in his hand. Holt's fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Don't you ever scare me like that again.”
“It's a deal.” She rubbed her cheek against his, for comfort and for love. “It's really over now, isn't it?”
He kissed the top of her head. “It's just beginning.”
Epilogue
It was late when the family gathered together in the parlor. The police had finally finished and left them alone. They were drawn together, a solid, united front beneath the portrait of Bianca.
Colleen sat, a dog at her feet, the emeralds in her lap. She had shed no tears when Suzanna had explained how and where she had found them, but took comfort in having that small, precious memory of her mother.
There was no talk of death.
Holt keep Suzanna close, his arm firm around her. The storm had passed, and the moon had risen. The parlor was washed with light. The only sound was Suzanna's soft, clear voice as she read from Bianca's journal.
She turned the last page and spoke of Bianca's thoughts as she'd prepared to hide the emeralds.
'“I didn't think of their monetary value as I took them out, held them in my hands and watched them gleam in the light of the lamp. They would be a legacy for my children, and their children, a symbol of freedom, and of hope. And with Christian, of love.
'“As dawn broke, I decided to put them, together with this journal, in a safe place until I joined Christian again.'“
Slowly, quietly Suzanna closed the book. “I think she's with him now. That they're with each other.”
She smiled when Holt's fingers gripped hers. Looking around the room, she saw her sisters, the men they loved, her aunt smiling through tears, and Bianca's daughter, gazing up at the portrait that had been painted with unconquerable love.
“It was Bianca, more than the emeralds, who brought us all together. I like to think that by finding them, by bringing them back, we've helped them find each other.”
Beyond the house, the moon glimmered on the cliffs far above where the sea churned and fought with the rocks. The wind whispered through the wild roses and warmed the lovers who walked there.
