by Heidi Lowe
But I stayed, rocking like an asylum patient; half out of obligation, half because I simply couldn't get up.
Only the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs made me shift weakly to my feet.
She saw me first. For a split second, the beginnings of a smile. But then her eyes fell on the cadaver. The smile never stood a chance.
"No," she said, and crashed to the floor. She scooped Clara into her arms. "Clara, honey, wake up." Wherever she could check for a pulse, she did. Because I knew she would never find one, I started weeping again.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."
Her body shook as she cradled Clara to her, shedding tears of her own. The red droplets trickled over Clara's face. If only those tears could give her life.
"I'm sorry, Jean," I said again. The words sounded empty. I felt embarrassed using them. "I didn't mean to do it. I only meant to bite her. She was stealing from your account, and I just...I just wanted to scare her."
Nothing could have prepared me for the look Jean turned on me then. I felt it scorch my soul, my flesh. So filled with hatred, as though I was her biggest enemy. Maybe, in that moment, I was.
"You did this on purpose." Her top lip was curled up at the side, like a dog's as it snarled.
"What? No, I wouldn't have done that to you on purpose." How could she think I would take a life, her daughter's life, deliberately?
"Yes you did!" she screamed. "Because you're a spiteful little bitch! You've never forgiven me for your mother, for turning you. You had to take something from me."
"No," I cried, pleading in my voice. "I didn't mean to, I swear it. I lost control."
She wasn't listening. "I never should have brought you into my life. I should have known you'd do something like this eventually."
"That's not true. I didn't plan this. I would never want to hurt you like that."
"You're a beast! That fucking dog in you, that wicked, vengeful demon. I should have tossed you out and let you rot with your kin. You sealed your own fate when you went whoring yourself off to that werebitch!"
All I could do was cry. All either of us could do was cry. Never before had I witnessed her like this. So harsh with her words, so unforgiving. This was how it looked when you pushed a patient woman over the edge.
"And to think I went to see you just now, to beg you to come back. But what were you doing? You were killing my daughter!" She screamed the last line, eyes murderous.
It wouldn't have surprised me one bit if she'd sprung for me, tried to end me once and for all. I would have taken it, too. Anything to relieve this feeling of despair. Anything to not have to see her pain. So much pain.
"I came here to tell you I love you, and that I forgive you," I said. We'd had the same idea that, sadly, had resulted in a death. If only I'd stayed at home; if only she had. What a cruel fate. "You have to believe me. I didn't want this. I just wanted you."
"You hated her, just like you've hated me this whole time. That's what I believe."
I sank to my knees, crawled to her. Maybe down there she would see how sincere I was.
"I never hated you. I love you. I'm not a murderer. Please don't look at me like that." Her stare was crushing, impossible to withstand. I looked away.
"You took my daughter from me, Lissa. How do you expect me to look at you?"
"Like you know I couldn't do this on purpose. Like you know I would never have wanted this. You know me, Jean." I choked up again, reaching a shaky hand out for her. "You know me."
Slowly, slowly, some of the venom characterizing her face dissipated. I thought it would have stayed there forever.
"Look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't do this to get back at me. Tell me you weren't trying to kill her."
"I didn't do this to hurt you. It was an accident. We got into a fight, and I lost it. I lost control. I'm sorry." Pitifully, I bowed my head and wept quietly to myself. No matter how much of an accident it was, her daughter was still dead, and all because of me.
"Please forgive me," I added, even though I had no right to. What I'd robbed her of, despite the horrible things Clara had said and done, was far too big. A child, her only child, one she'd only just reconnected with. Asking for forgiveness while she still cradled her in her arms was bold. "I couldn't go on without your forgiveness."
She was silent for the longest time. The house around us was still. I listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing. Steady, calm. That was something, at least.
Then she said, in a voice drained of life, "After you found out about what I did to your mother, I was certain you would want nothing more to do with me. I thought, how could anyone forgive something like that? But you did. I promised myself then that I would never hurt you again, or let anyone else harm you in any way. Never give you any reason to leave me, because I thought I couldn't live without you. Then I failed you a second time by turning you. And now here we are, and you're asking for my forgiveness..."
She carefully laid Clara's head on the floor then stood up, unsteadily.
"I don't know how I'm going to be able to look at you, Lissa." Her back was turned, but I could hear in her voice that she'd started crying again. "I imagine you had the same predicament in the beginning. I don't know how long it will take for me to see you the way I saw you before this. But what I do know is that you deserve my forgiveness. And I still can't live without you, even now."
I ran to her, threw my arms around her back, and closed my eyes as we cried together. Two women who had taken everything from each other, but, by God, were still madly – hopelessly – in love.
EPILOGUE
"I know you loved her. I'm sorry, babe."
Nadine's voice sounded distant to Robyn, as though she were in another room and not sitting right beside her in bed. Even her touch, as she stroked her back, held her close, she couldn't feel. She hadn't been able to feel anything in days.
"I can't believe she's gone," Robyn said, head buried in Nadine's chest. The only place that could give her comfort in that moment. "She was always supposed to be here. She was never supposed to leave me."
It didn't occur to Robyn that talking this way about another woman to her girlfriend might have been inappropriate. She was so grief-stricken that it didn't matter all that much. She loved Nadine, but she needed to mourn properly for her first love.
Nadine only held her tighter. She'd known from the start that Robyn had been in love with Jean; she'd seen it in her eyes whenever Robyn looked at her. It had almost pushed her away completely, into the arms of her ex-boyfriend. She'd come to her senses before that, however. Everyone had a past, and Jean was Robyn's. Romantically, in any case.
But all of that was over now. Romantically and work-related.
"What did the papers write about it?"
Robyn wiped the tears from her cheeks. They were so rare that they felt strange coming from her. "Three confirmed dead in murder-suicide. Mansion burns to the ground."
"Why do they suspect it was a murder-suicide?"
"Someone came forward, said they were on the phone when an argument broke out between Clara and another woman. He believes that set everything off."
Nadine shook her head, obviously unsettled. "That's horrible. Who do you think she was arguing with, Jean or Lissa?"
"Lissa," Robyn said with such certainty that it made Nadine frown. That was information Robyn couldn't have been privy to unless she'd been there herself. So she added quickly, "That would make the most sense. They didn't like each other."
"That's horrible," Nadine said again. "Lissa a killer? It boggles the mind."
"She lost control...probably."
Robyn wasn't very good at this, feigning ignorance, essentially lying to her girlfriend. Anyone else, sure, but she hated keeping this from Nadine. One day she would tell her everything. Maybe one day soon. She hated keeping secrets; secrets were what had been Jean and Lissa's undoing.
"What happens to her fortune now?"
"Her grandchildren get everything.
The whole one hundred million." She shook her head in disbelief. "Two children she's never met, didn't even know existed until a few months ago."
Of course Jean hadn't forgotten about her, the other share of Nadine's restaurant, Sandra, or Lissa's sister, April. Everything had been in place long before that fateful night. It was as if Jean had always known that she would meet her end this way.
"She would have wanted it that way, I'm sure. She was so happy to be a grandmother," Nadine said, smiling sadly, remembering how buoyant Jean had looked when she spoke about her grandchildren.
She does want it that way, Robyn thought. I tried to talk her out of it, tried to tell her to stay and fight it, that the blood wasn't on her hands. But she'd already made up her mind.
Robyn laid her head on Nadine's chest again. She wondered where they were now.
"The least you can do is tell me where you're going," she'd shouted at Jean, when she and Lissa had turned up on her doorstep, smelling of smoke and asking for her help.
"You can't know, Robyn. No one can. If anyone finds out we're still alive, you could face life in prison for helping us escape. And we...well, you already know what will happen to us if we're caught."
She did. Death by stake. Even though Lissa was the guilty party, Jean was complicit in the murder cover-up, and would have been treated as an accomplice.
Robyn had wanted to tell her to hang Lissa out to dry, but she knew it would have been no use. Jean would never leave Lissa – only her. She, Robyn, was replaceable; Lissa was not.
She'd helped them escape and fake their deaths, and would break the sad news to their loved ones. She'd given them her car, taken care of the story for the newspapers. Loyal to the last.
They'd hugged for a long time. So long, Jean had to gently push her away so that they could leave. And then she'd cried, in front of both of them. A final farewell to the woman she still loved, and would always love. She watched them drive off in her car while her heart broke. It didn't matter that Jean was still alive. For Robyn, she might as well have been dead. The result was the same: she would never see her again.
But she had Nadine, the woman she had a real future with. Someone who loved her back. In time Jean would become a distant memory. A happy one, but a memory all the same.
*****
A majestic-looking puma on the trail of a wounded young owl that had fallen from its nest prowled across the lush, green foliage, stalking its prey, with eagle eyes and hunger rumbling in its stomach. Unbeknown to the owl...
Unbeknown to the puma, however, a bigger, fiercer predator was on its trail, and snatched it up before it could catch the bird. The food chain at work.
When Lissa had drained all that she could stomach of the puma's blood, she laid it gently on the grass, waited until the life sprang back into it before she took off home. The taste of animal blood never improved, no matter how many times she drank it. But after three months subsisting on that alone, she was used to the foul taste. It didn't make her gag as much now. Deep in these South American mountains, there was plenty of variety in terms of wildlife, but the blood always tasted unpleasant, no matter which animal she fed from.
Their house was small and decrepit, much like the old farmer they'd purchased it from. It sat on three acres of woodland in the middle of nowhere, a place no one ever came to. Privacy at its finest. The internet connection was abysmal, and power outages were common. Their new lair was a cellar with no lighting.
"What did you find this time?" Jean asked, when Lissa stepped in. She was already in bed with a book – one of the many Spanish ones left by the previous owner. They had both been learning the language.
"A puma," Lissa said. She took off her clothes and climbed into bed.
She didn't like the house or the country they were in, but it was within their budget, and private. She would have chosen bigger, better, but the money would have to last. Her money, the money from the sale of the gallery. After all these years, she was now the one financing both of them.
Sex followed reading, as it usually did. Rough, impersonal sex that Lissa had come to accept as the norm. It wasn't the same as it used to be; nothing was. Jean didn't even look at her during the act.
This time she didn't climax. This time she wept instead.
"Why are you crying?" Jean asked, while she was still on top of her.
"It doesn't matter."
"Tell me."
For three months they'd been living this way, like strangers who had been thrown together by chance and had to make the best of a bad situation. Far from the tragic lovers they had once been. Lissa had wanted to accept this as her new normal, but it hurt too much.
"We don't make love anymore."
"What are we doing now?" Jean asked.
"We're just having sex. Emotionless sex. I see it in your eyes, you don't want to be here with me."
Jean was silent for a while, watching Lissa cry and stain their sheets (which one of them would have to wash by hand, seeing as there was no Sandra and no washing machine to do it for them). She'd known Lissa was hurting the whole time, but she didn't have the strength to comfort her. That would have to change.
"If I didn't want to be with you, I wouldn't be here," she said, wiping the tears from Lissa's cheeks. Then she looked at her the way she once had, and said something she hadn't said since they'd left Greenfields: "I love you."
Lissa wept harder, but her tears were different this time. "I thought I'd never hear you say that again."
How cruel she'd been for denying Lissa those words, knowing that they would make her feel better about everything. It had been Jean's way of punishing her. She wasn't proud of it.
"I'm so sorry," she cooed, kissing her face. "I never stopped loving you, I just couldn't say it. It was hard for me."
"I get it, I do," Lissa said. "I remember what it was like for me after finding out about my mom."
"Forgive me."
"Of course. I love you."
They kissed more passionately than they had in over three months.
"We're going to be happy. I promise," Jean said with a reassuring smile. "Happier than we've ever been. We're all we have now."
Lissa wanted to believe that, but so much stood in their way. "What about my condition? How can we ever be truly happy while one part of me hates you?"
"I love both sides of you, my darling. And in time, maybe both sides of you will love me, too."
Lissa kissed her fervently for saying everything she needed to hear. If cats and dogs could get along, live together, she could tame her wolf to love Jean as much as the rest of her did. She would spend a lifetime trying.
"And what will we do with our lives?"
Jean smiled again. "You'll paint, and I'll rebuild my empire under a different name. Start from scratch. The most important thing is that we're together."
Together, just the two of them. Forever.
The End
BOOKS BY HEIDI LOWE
Series:
My Mother's Best Friend
Justified Affair
The Neighbor
Set Dreams
Le Coeur Island
Novellas:
Crave: Nikki's Story
Crave: Faye's Story
Novels:
My Beautiful Sin (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 1)
Sinning Again (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 2)
Sinning Forever (Beautiful Sin Saga, Book 3)
The Queen of Miami
Strummed
Her Lesson in Love
A Scarlet Kiss
Before You Were Mine
Mega Bundles:
Girl Love: 11-Book Lesbian Romance Mega Bundle
BLURB
After paying the ultimate price for love, Lissa now has to come to terms with her new and frightening reality. Angry, confused, and feeling more alone than ever before, she lashes out at the one person capable of easing her transition into the new world. As she pushes Jean away, she finds herself spending more and more time with an unex
pected, and completely unpredictable, ally.
Guilt-ridden and unable to come clean about her part in the accident, Jean is determined not to give up on Lissa. She's ready to do whatever it takes to prevent the truth from getting out. She knows that if it does, she'll lose Lissa.
But that isn't the only secret she's keeping from her. And when everything finally does come out, it will change the course of their lives forever.
Sinning Forever is the third and final book in the Beautiful Sin Saga.
