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by Alicia Best

  As she talks, I can hear her hastily dialing a number on her phone, speaking louder to cover the quick tap of her finger on the numbers. I don’t think Spencer can hear the sound over her words.

  He shakes his head, tears glinting in his eyes. “I can’t be happy without Sarah. I can’t live like this. I don’t think I want to.”

  Carefully, I take one step forward. Spencer stiffens, and he cocks the gun again where it sits against his temple, staring at me with wary eyes.

  I lift my hands, letting him see my open, empty palms.

  “I know that you’re suffering, Spencer. I know that you’ve been suffering since we lost her. I know because I suffered too. My wheels were spinning just like yours. I wanted to change everything that happened. I wanted the world to just stop spinning for a little while. But the world doesn’t stop. It keeps moving, and it’ll leave you behind if you’re not willing to keep up.”

  “I loved her,” he whispers, his arm slackening just slightly. “I loved her, and she’s gone.”

  “But you’re still here. You can live with her in your memory. You can honor her just by doing that. She would want you to stay here as long as you can. Don’t you know that?”

  Spencer’s hand drops just a bit more, the gun held up towards the sky, his elbow drawn in close to his ribs.

  He sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes. His chin moves just a little, like he’s about to nod, when his churning eyes open madly again.

  “I’m not strong like you, Everett,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t do it like you can.”

  As his arm moves to bring the gun back to his head, I hurl my body against his, reaching quickly towards the gun.

  For a second, everything goes still, like my brain has just flickered on and off like a TV losing power for a second.

  Then, suddenly, I’m on the ground. I don’t remember falling, but my body refuses to move.

  Overhead, the sky spins, and though I know it’s cool out, my body is hot. Screams echo up and down the alley, the sound of pounding feet dashing away as Holly suddenly appears in front of me, dropping to her knees.

  She presses her palms hard to my chest, above my heart, and it’s only then that I see the red liquid gushing between her fingers.

  “Everett, listen. Stay with me, Everett,” she begs, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Please stay with me!”

  But her face is already fading into the darkness.

  Epilogue

  Holly

  “The coma lasted two weeks,” I explain, sinking down a little in the chair. “I’ve never felt anything like I did then. Waiting and hoping. Every little twitch in his hand or in his eyelids made me think he was about to wake up.”

  The lawyer gazes at me silently, his hands folded over his desk. A stack of papers rests under his clasped hands. He hasn’t said much during our meeting, barely moving—aside from pushing his wire-rimmed glasses further up the hook of his nose.

  “How long ago was that now?”

  “Almost three months have passed.” Nervously, I smooth a stray lock of hair down against my scalp, making sure the low bun where my hair is curled stays in place.

  “That must’ve been incredibly difficult,” the man says, his gaze slowly shifting to the person at my side.

  Everett smiles, reaching over and taking my hand in his. He lifts it up, pressing the back of it to his mouth in a delicate kiss.

  “It was,” he says quietly. “But some good came of it. You can always find the good if you look.”

  Everett and I exchange a knowing look, a smile spreading to my face as well. I couldn’t not smile when he did. Not when he was alive and well and at my side.

  The lawyer seems unconvinced. “If you say so. But are you sure you don’t want to press charges against Spencer Tate? It seems foolhardy to let that man walk the streets, but the police won’t arrest him unless you’re willing to charge him.”

  “It was an accident,” Everett replies firmly, his eyes narrowing a little. “And I don’t believe he’s going to harm anyone ever again. What he was going through… well, anyone would understand all that pent-up rage.”

  For the two weeks before Everett woke up after the gunshot, Spencer’s fate had been up in the air.

  That awful day in the alley, while Everett and Spencer had been heatedly going back and forth, I’d tried calling the cops on my phone, but I hadn’t been able to get a good look at the screen, and I’d dialed wrong.

  When Everett was shot, my brain just went blank. I couldn’t seem to do anything at the sight of all that blood. I forgot about my phone and the police and everything.

  Spencer took off, and though I thought he was running away, he came back not three minutes later with two cops who had been pulling up in their squad car just around the corner.

  Even though Spencer had a hand in Everett’s injury, he’d also had a hand in saving him. After Everett woke up, when he finally heard about the situation, he immediately started proclaiming that he wouldn’t have Spencer charged with any crime.

  He’d held me tightly one night, when he’d finally been moved from the intensive care unit to a regular room at the hospital. I remember crying, hysterical over the fact that Everett wasn’t as angry as I was about the shooting—accidental or not. I’d wanted revenge, I wanted Spencer in jail and the key thrown away, but Everett’s lips had softly pressed against mine, quieting my cries.

  Back then, he told me that he firmly believed that moment would be Spencer’s turning point. That by seeking vengeance, I would just be continuing the cycle of Spencer’s own pain that had brought us to the hospital in the first place. Even though I’d wanted to argue, I didn’t, and I’m glad about that now.

  All indicators point today to the veracity of Everett’s belief in Spencer.

  The man had given up his mayoral position, resigning immediately following the shooting. He’d stayed in town, waiting to be taken into custody. Once it became clear he wouldn’t be arrested, Spencer asked to meet with Everett and me.

  The now-former mayor of Shady Piers had decided to leave town, to start fresh somewhere new. Somewhere a long way away. He just had one thing he’d wanted to offer Everett first.

  “If you say so,” the lawyer repeats again, still utterly unconvinced. “But I guess that isn’t my concern anymore. We’re here to talk about… what is it again? Some lost animal or something?”

  “Stolen cat,” I interrupt with a frown. “Or should I say, a cat held hostage.”

  The lawyer rolls his eyes, opening the file on his desk and flipping through the papers. “Let’s see what we can do here. I’ve been communicating with Mr. Brock’s lawyer for the past few days. I suppose we can all thank Spencer Tate for footing the bill on this.”

  I grin, giving a satisfied little nod.

  Just a few days ago in the hospital, when the three of us sat down together, Spencer had offered to use the very last of his political influence to keep Sarah’s library open if Everett wanted to keep it so. Ultimately, however, both men decided it was best to let the building go. There was no use in holding on to the closed-down building. Instead, all the books inside were donated to my elementary school’s library. Between my school’s modern equipment and Sarah’s abundance of books, it was becoming a place where the elementary students loved to go to read and learn.

  And we all realized that Sarah would’ve been thrilled.

  Since we didn’t need Spencer’s help there, it’d been Everett’s idea to ask him for a different kind of favor, one that could finally bring my cat home to me. Spencer gave us the number of the best lawyer in town and promised to pay whatever it took to get Noodle back in my arms again.

  Spencer broke down in tears as he apologized for his behaviour about Sarah. He’d never found a friend like her and he simply couldn’t let go, even though she told him time and again they could only ever be friends. She kept him at arms length all that time, seeking solace only in his being there for her when she needed someone she could
talk to.

  He listened to her, in her time of need.

  Looking at his watch, the lawyer continues, “So then, Michael Brock’s attorney has accepted the cease and desist you finally returned. It looks to me like your cat should be back in town any minute now. The carrier left last night.”

  “Noodle’s almost here?” I shriek in startled joy, leaping to my feet so fast that I almost trip over the chair and fall over. “This is the best day ever!” I gush, turning to grab Everett’s face in my hands. I press a kiss against his mouth, savoring it for just a moment. “First you got that job as an engineer at Knight Techno, and now Noodle is coming home.”

  The lawyer almost smiles, glancing at Everett with a shake of his head. “I guess that settles the matter then. It’s been a pleasure working with you two.”

  Everett climbs to his feet, reaching over to shake the lawyer’s hand. After I do the same, the man leads us out to the stairs and watches us head down the spiraling staircase. By the time we reach the front door, an animal transport van is pulling up to the front of the building.

  “She’s in there,” I whisper, clinging to Everett. “But what if she doesn’t remember me? What if she doesn’t like me anymore?”

  He smirks and gives me a squeeze. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. How could anything not like you?”

  Before I can blush, the driver of the van gets out of the car and walks around to the back.

  “Are you Holly Burke?” he asks, holding out a form for me to sign. I nod quickly, practically bouncing in my excitement.

  The driver glances at the now-signed form, then tucks it under his arm, opening the back of his van. He reaches in, pulling out a small, black, wire cage and passing it over.

  Noodle stares at me from behind the wire, her green eyes shining out from her ebony-furred face. She’s bigger than I remembered, but her expression is exactly the same. I sink down right there on the sidewalk, cradling the carrier in my arms.

  “Noodle?” I say softly, sticking one of my fingers into the grate.

  The cat’s nostrils flare, taking in the foreign scents of this new place after her long journey.

  Then, suddenly, she smells me.

  She yowls so loudly that I jump and almost drop the cage as she throws her small, warm body up against the door, rubbing frantically against my fingers. Again and again, she rubs lovingly against my hand as I burst into tears, scratching her favorite place behind the ear.

  Everett bends down behind me, holding the back of his hand up against the wire.

  Though she hesitates at first, Noodle gives his hand a long and deliberate sniff before licking her sandpaper tongue against him approvingly.

  “She loves you!” I whisper hoarsely, squeezing the crate again like I was hugging my cat. I couldn’t wait to get her back to my apartment to let her free.

  “Just like I love you,” he whispers in my ear, faint smirk on his mouth as he turns me, taking Noodle’s cage under his own strong arm. “Always and forever, Holly. Now, let’s go home.”

  “I love you too, Everett,” I respond softly, eager to go home but unwilling to let this moment go to waste. If there was one thing that we both had learned, it was to savor these moments of love.

  I lean up onto my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing my forehead to his. We gaze into one another’s eyes, then share a gentle kiss before Noodle meows, impatient to return to her new home.

  Laughing, we separate only to link our arms together and head down the sidewalk. As we walk, our shadows dance, our figures intertwining on the pavement.

  Even though life is fragile and a mystery and strange, I couldn’t be happier to share it with the man at my side.

  More from Alicia Best

  The Shady Piers Romance Series novellas are 'clean and wholesome’ contemporary romances with Happy Ever After endings and no cliffhangers, that can be read as standalone novels, all set in Shady Piers, Maine.

  I hope you enjoy them!

  Perfect Haven - Shady Piers Clean Romance Book #1

  After a disastrous 26th birthday party, Olivia Donaldson flees her wealthy but overbearing parents and her controlling soon-to-be ex-husband and makes for Shady Piers, the former hometown of her now-deceased grandfather, in Maine.

  Desperate for even the most basic of needs she reluctantly accepts help from a local pub-owner Brent Scott, who takes her in and gives her a job.

  Even though she settles in well, Olivia's past comes back to haunt her and she needs Brent’s help once again, bringing them even closer together to a place where romance might just be in the air.

  Life Saver - Shady Piers Clean Romance Book #2

  When Charlotte Olson becomes legal guardian of her young sister, it's tough to survive, even in the friendly setting of Shady Piers. Now, after a disastrous fire, she loses everything, and Charlotte must protect her sister from a much more serious threat to the life they have built together.

  After an embarrassing introduction, firefighter Neil Mack doesn't expect to see Charlotte again, but when he's called to the fire in her apartment block, he manages to get her and her sister to safety, despite great personal danger to himself.

  What neither of them know is the deeper threat, just around the corner, that will have serious implications for Charlotte, the handsome firefighter and those around them who they love.

  Starting Again - Shady Piers Clean Romance Book #4

  After he completes an unjust jail sentence, Blake Sullivan attempts to make a fresh start, but finds that unsympathetic locals aren't so forgiving and he is made to feel a pariah.

  Delia Cain is struggling to get her dream bakery business off the ground, so she generously offers Blake some minimum wage work to help her out, whilst also giving him some faith back in himself.

  But when an incident sparks Delia to question her trust in Blake, his hopes that he might have found something real to treasure are deeply questioned, giving him but little hope for a future he dared to dream.

  And then, out of the blue. . .

  Common Ground - Shady Piers Clean Romance Book #5

  When Maddie Lee is forced to deal with a businessman she despises from the get-go, she is determined to stand her ground.

  Adrian Knight has always had a high opinion of himself, for the simple reason that in the mirror, he only sees perfection, unaware of how unattractive this makes him to all but the most superficial of women.

  But he starts to wonder if he's met his match when he comes up against Maddie, as they are thrown into a collaboration against a new threat in Shady Piers.

  Are there the beginnings of a grudging appreciating of each other, and even surprising, the rumblings of a much deeper relationship?

  Coming soon. . .

  Past Present - Shady Piers Clean Romance Book #6

  As Pearl Simon endures a deteriorating and depressing relationship, matters are made worse by a work project that pairs her with an old fiancé from her college years.

  Aaron Grant never believed he was at fault for their acrimonious parting—nor did Pearl—so the distance apart over the intervening years was a relief to both sides.

  Yet working closely together brings stirrings of that earlier time, and begins to raise important possibilities neither might ever have thought possible.

  Past Present will be published on October 15th, 2018

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  About Alicia

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  Alicia Best 2018