by Roni Loren
She nodded, making herself hear it. “Okay.”
“You’re talented. Accept it, Livvy.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Sleeping with me has clearly freed up your creative genius. Thank God I showed up when I did, or the world would be denied your art.”
She snorted. “Oh, it’s the sex, huh?”
He gave her a well, duh look. “Obviously.”
She shoved his shoulder, and he caught her hand. He brought it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
Warmth tracked up her arm and filled her chest. And other places. Finn looked damn good on her arm. But she tucked that particular urge away for later. She had work to do. “So are you ready to get the personalized tour by the artist herself?”
“Yes, and then I’d like to take a personalized tour of the artist herself,” he said, green eyes sparking with mischief as his gaze traveled over her sleek black dress.
“That can definitely be arranged.” She slid her arms around his waist, her heels giving her just enough height to kiss him without getting on tiptoe. “Do you have to work tonight?”
“Nope,” he said triumphantly. “Took the whole weekend off. Billings is covering for me. It’s been a quiet week anyway.”
Liv smiled. After Finn had backed out of the undercover assignment, Billings had offered him lead on the operation. Instead of being on the ground and infiltrating the organization, he was the main contact for Jason Murray, his colleague who’d gunned for the undercover job when Finn bowed out. Finn worked from home and the local FBI field office, coordinating the operation, deciphering the information coming in from the field, and developing strategies to keep Jason safe and bring the criminals to justice. He couldn’t give her details on what he was doing, but based on his mood lately, she got the feeling they were making significant progress.
“All right, let’s get this going before I chicken out,” she said, reluctantly sliding from his arms and taking his hand.
Finn let her lead him to the other side of the gym where the bleachers had been removed and temporary white walls had been erected to hold the art pieces. People milled around, stopping in front of each display to look. Liv tried to keep her eyes forward, not wanting to see people’s reactions. Afraid of what she might find.
She’d never attempted mixed media art in any big way like this before. Photography had always been her go-to. But when she’d gathered all the photos she’d taken of the survivors over the last few months, she hadn’t been satisfied. No one shot captured what she was trying to convey about the person and their experience. If she’d learned anything, it was that being a survivor was layered and complicated and painful and beautiful.
Liv had found herself with photos spread around the pool house and no way to tell the story she wanted to tell. But then one day in late summer, Taryn had told her she’d found boxes of old newspapers and magazines in her mother’s storage units—all with stories about Long Acre that her mom had kept. The idea had hit Liv like a punch to the gut.
She’d taken the boxes off Taryn’s hands, and then she’d dug out her old yearbooks. Soon, images had started to come together in pieces. Strips of newspaper stories for someone’s hair. Pieces from the photos she’d taken mixed in with enlarged yearbook photos and splashes of paint. Snippets of follow-up stories, accomplishments, and quotes. The heartbreaks and the triumphs intertwining until they formed a portrait of the person. A riot of colors, printed words, and photographs. Real people. Messy. Layered. Perfect in their imperfection.
But she feared she’d be the only one to find the pieces beautiful. She leaned over to Finn and whispered, “I can’t look. Do people seem to like it?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Finn squeezed her hand and smiled at her, pride on his face. “Baby, look at them. Enjoy your moment.”
Liv swallowed past the constriction in her throat, her heart ready to pound out of her chest, but she forced herself to look as they walked through the crowd.
What she found had her heart picking up speed for a different reason. Emotion. There was emotion on every face. Some faces were somber, others thoughtful. Some held tears. Some had smiles. And instead of the quiet that everyone observed at the memorial outside, people were talking, pointing things out, hugging one another.
Liv’s chest filled and expanded, making everything feel lighter inside her. She’d done it. She’d done what every artist sets out to do every time they lift a camera or put brush to canvas or pen to page. Her work was making people feel something.
Finn wrapped his arm around her. “See? You’ve made something beautiful and important.”
She spotted Taryn sitting on a bench with her mother in front of the piece Liv had done on Taryn. Liv had portrayed Taryn as the strong woman she’d become, but had created her heart out of news clippings and photos of her younger sister. Because that was what drove Taryn. Every day she went to work, researching what made people commit crimes like the Long Acre shooting—all as a tribute to her sister. The piece had been one of the hardest to get through, and the canvas contained some of Liv’s tears as well. But seeing the two of them sitting there made her want to cry again. Taryn’s mom was clutching Taryn’s hand in hers and there were tears, but both women were smiling.
Liv’s voice thickened. “I’m not sure I’m going to get through this without becoming a weeping disaster.”
“Don’t do that. Documentary guy wants a quick interview after to add to the film.”
She groaned. “No more documentaries.”
Finn laughed and lifted her left hand, the engagement ring sparking like fire in the overhead lights. “Oh, I don’t know. We may owe him a few minutes of our time.”
She stared down at the ring and then looked up at the man who’d given it to her. Over a decade ago, she’d walked off this campus with a shattered life. This past summer, she’d walked into this gym alone, afraid, and lost. Tonight, she’d walk out the woman she’d always wanted to be with the man she’d always loved. A smile touched her lips. “Yeah, I think I might owe him my life.”
* * *
Finn waited in the hallway for Liv while she finished the short documentary interview and said goodbye to the people who’d come to the event. He’d loved seeing her art on display after all those months of work she’d put into it, but he’d had to take a break from the crowd. He’d gotten better at being around people again. He’d even managed to make regular visits to his family’s house. But too much socializing still wore him out. Plus, he’d felt the pull of the school. Needed to take this walk.
He hadn’t been in this part of the school since he’d had to come back with the police right after the shooting to walk them through what he’d seen and experienced. Unlike the gym, this part hadn’t been demolished, only redecorated. Seeing it now with blue lockers instead of gray, with different floors, almost let his mind trick him into thinking he was somewhere else. But when he saw the janitor’s closet, the same crooked NO STUDENTS ALLOWED sign on the front, his mind rushed back to the past. Liv in a glittery red dress, him in a tux just like tonight. He’d dragged her by the hand down this hallway, knowing she was pissed at him and wanting to fix it.
Finn stopped in front of the closet and took a bracing breath. He pulled the knob. Locked.
It hadn’t been locked that night. He’d stolen glances down the hallway and then pulled Liv inside with him. He’d wanted to tell her he was sorry. He’d wanted to tell her he loved her. He’d wanted to tell her that he didn’t care if his parents cut him off. He’d figure it out. Instead, he’d kissed her.
Then he’d left her.
He laid his hand against the worn wood of the door, trying not to think of what could’ve happened.
“You know you probably saved her,” said a quiet voice. The slow click of high-heeled footsteps sounded behind him as his visitor came closer.
He turned and found Rebecca standing there in a dark-green d
ress, purse clutched in her hand and sober look on her face.
Finn cleared his throat, his words coming out like gravel. “No. I left her here. Exposed her.”
Rebecca peered down the hallway, her gaze going distant, like she was seeing that night, too. “You have to forgive yourself for that. Trevor led the way, and Joseph opened every door in this hall. Every classroom. He would’ve opened this one whether you’d left or not.” She wet her lips. “If he had seen her with you, he would’ve shot you both. Being alone saved her. He liked her.”
Finn stared at Rebecca and blinked, the words unexpected. “He liked her?”
Her lips kicked up at the corners. “Who didn’t? Liv was the girl who was too cool to want to be cool. And she never went out with anyone, which made her mysterious. Guess we know why she wasn’t dating.”
He grimaced. “I was an asshole for keeping it secret.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but once again, maybe that saved her, too. She was under their radar. That’s my point. No use in looking back and wishing you’d handled it differently. We survived. Whatever we did got us here.”
He nodded and tucked his hands in his pockets. “So you’re not mad at me for running out and making you a target?”
She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “You saved me. That part I do know. I was on their list. Maybe at the top. And not because I was happy.” She glanced down the hallway again, her shoulders sagging. “I’d earned that spot with one of them.”
He frowned. “Bec, you—”
But she raised a palm, cutting him off. “You better get back to the gym. Liv was looking for you.”
The simple mention of Liv’s name lifted some of the cloud of gloom hovering in the hallway. He turned toward the gym. Away from the past. Toward his future. “Want to head back together?”
She rubbed a chill from her arms. “No. I think I’ll take a few minutes down here.”
He closed the distance between them and gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You sure you’re okay?”
She lifted her head and gave him her signature smirk, though melancholy lingered in her eyes. “Stop trying to save me, Finn. Your job is done here. I don’t need a hero anymore.”
He smiled and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “I don’t know, Bec. We all need saving sometimes. I know I did.”
With that, he left Rebecca to whatever demons she needed to slay in the hallway and made his way back to the gym. Liv stepped through the double doors when he was a few steps away. The smile that broke over her face at the sight of him lit up every cell in his body. He would never get tired of seeing this woman, of knowing she was his, and he, hers.
“Where’d you sneak off to?” she asked, stepping close to him and looping her arms around his waist.
“There were some doors left open that I needed to close.”
Her attention drifted past him and toward the hallway, a small line appearing between her brows before she looked up at him again, quiet awareness there. “All done?”
He smiled down at her and slid his hand beneath the dark curtain of her hair, feeling her pulse against his thumb, seeing his life stretch out before him. His life with this woman. A life with love and laughter and all the messy stuff in between. He brushed his lips over hers. “All done.”
She stepped back and held a hand out to him. “Ready to go home, Mr. Dorsey?”
Home.
“Always.”
He took her hand, and through the doors where the shooters had once walked, he stepped out with the woman he loved into the cool, starry night.
No longer aftermath.
Happy.
We win.
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in The Ones Who Got Away series
The One You Can’t Forget
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chapter
ONE
There’s a reason why romantic movies only show the beginning of people’s love stories. That’s the exciting part, the thrill, the magic. There is something undeniably enticing about the ripe sense of possibility. What will their life become now that they’ve found each other?
Well, Rebecca Lindt could tell them. They had about a one-third chance of maintaining their happily ever after, a one-third chance of staying married but being miserable about it, and a one-third likelihood they’d end up in front of someone like her, battling it out over who gets to keep the LeCreuset pot collection or the riding lawnmower even though neither of them cooks or cuts their own grass.
Today’s battle of the exes was over a crotch-sniffing poodle that somehow had made it into the office and the divorce mediation session. The wife was claiming the dog was her Official Emotional Companion (the words always spoken with utter reverence and implied capitalization by her lawyer) and therefore had to remain with her. Rebecca’s client, Anthony, was vibrating with barely leashed anger as he tried to explain through clenched teeth to the mediator that his wife had always hated the dog and that the poodle should remain with him.
Prince Hairy, the fluffy beast in question, didn’t seem to care either way. He just wanted to hunt beneath the table and give a filthy how-do-you-do with a wet nose to the private parts of every person in the meeting. Rebecca sent up a silent thank-you that she was wearing a pantsuit, but that hadn’t stopped her from feeling slightly assaulted every time the dog moved her way.
A wet tongue licked her ankle, sending a shudder through her, and she gently shooed the dog away, trying to keep her expression unhorrified and professional. But Raul, the other attorney, lifted a knowing brow at her. She had no doubt he’d be telling her later that she owed the dog a drink for all the action.
“Prince Hairy has been with us since he was a puppy,” the wife said, tone curt, like she was biting the words in half. “I named him. I take him to the groomer. He’s home with me when you’re at work. My therapist says that he’s part of my recovery. He is my Official Emotional Companion.”
“Emotional companion,” Anthony sneered, his calm breaking. “Come on, Daphne. Your emotional companion was the goddamned contractor you screwed in my bed!”
“Mr. Ames,” the mediator said, school-teacher-style warning in her voice. “You both chose mediation to avoid court, but in order for that to work, I need you to keep the accusations—”
Anthony scoffed. “Accusations? They’re not accusations if they’re true.”
Rebecca placed a staying hand on Anthony’s arm, silencing him and sending him her own warning message. I’ve got this. Calm down.
Anthony deflated beside her and Rebecca took over. “I think what Mr. Ames is trying to say is that there is no paperwork designating Prince Hairy as an emotional companion. He may, perhaps, be a comfort to Mrs. Ames, but he is not an official therapy dog.” He was just Daphne’s best bargaining chip because Anthony was ridiculously in love with the canine menace. “Therefore, that should not factor into the decision of where Prince Hairy will live. The dog was adopted under Anthony’s name. He is the one to take him for walks and to vet visits. Since Mr. Ames plans to remain in the home, he’ll have adequate space for him.”
“What?” Daphne demanded, her words ripping through the veneer of her pretend calm. “Are you effing kidding me right now? You are not getting the house.”
Effing. Rebecca smirked. They’d all agreed to no foul language during the mediation. Daphne was apparently willing to fudge on the rules like she’d fudged on her marriage vows.
The mediator sighed the sigh of someone who was questioning why she’d chosen such a career path in the first place. Fridays made one do that anyway, but this one was going for the gold medal of Fridayness. “Mrs. Ames, we all agreed to keep our voices at a reasonable level.”
But Daphne was having none of it. Her lips we
re puckered like she’d sucked a lemon and there was fire brewing in her blue eyes. A fuse ready to blow.
“I’m getting the house,” Anthony said simply.
Rebecca smiled inwardly. And, three, two, one…
Daphne stood, manicured hands pressed flat against the table and a dark lock of hair slipping out of her French knot. “You will not take my house from me, you worthless piece of shit. I just spent two years remodeling it.”
“And screwing the contractor.”
“Mr. and Mrs.—”
“It’s mine!” Her palm slapped the table, which earned a bark from Prince Hairy. “And I slept with Eric because you neglected me and were never home and you…you…” Her gaze zeroed in on him as she found her weapon. “You were bad in bed!”
Anthony bristled but Rebecca gripped his arm tighter, praying he’d weather the low blow. When well-prepped, people could deal with a lot of insults in mediation or court, but she’d learnedmen had a figurative and literal soft spot when their manhood was called into question.
“Mrs. Ames,” the mediator admonished.
“Excuse me,” Rebecca said, her tone utterly calm, which would only make Daphne look more out of order. “Can we have a minute? I’d like a private word with my client, and I think everyone could use a break.”
The mediator’s shoulders sagged and she adjusted her glasses. “Five minute break. Everyone needs to come back ready to be civil or we’re going to have to end the mediation and let this go to court.”
Daphne huffed and Raul soothed her with gentle words as he offered her a bottle of sparkling water. She took a long sip, her gaze still shooting daggers at Anthony. Raul nodded at Rebecca. “We’re going to take a little walk and bring Prince Hairy out for a bathroom break. We’ll be back in five.”
“Thanks,” Rebecca said, knowing that taking the dog with was their own version of posturing—acting like the dog was Daphne’s already—but Rebecca wasn’t worried. This was all going exactly as she’d planned.
Once the door to the conference room shut, Anthony turned to her, his perfectly styled brown hair a mess from him raking his fingers through it. “I’m not bad in bed. She’s lying.”
