I'll Never Stop (Hamlet Book 4)

by Jessica Lynch

  Now that it was in her tiny, little hands, she had the power to smash it to smithereens.

  The entire time Rick was active in the Marine Corps, he never quite understood why he was fighting. He joined because it was his way out of Hamlet, and he became the best damn Marine he could because he made a promise when he enlisted. But he never knew the reason why he fought.

  He found it in a ballerina who liked to dance in the moonlight.

  This? What they had? What they could have? This was worth fighting for.

  Rick’s grip was gentle as he cupped her chin, tilting her head back so that he could look her in her eyes. She tried to move and, when she couldn’t, she closed her eyelids.

  That just about killed him.

  “Don’t hide from me, Grace,” he pleaded. He’d fucking beg if he had to. “I can only help you if you let me.”

  Her long, thick eyelashes fluttered. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes again.

  Rick thought she was going to deny him. Tell him no. Grace opened her mouth, then closed it with an audible click. Something passed across her face, a sort of resignation that he couldn’t quite explain.

  And then she nodded.

  “You’re right, Rick. I’m sorry… so, so sorry. I know that this—us—it’ll never work if I can’t be honest with you.” She trailed her hand down his chest, drawing back when she reached his navel. “I’ll show you. Just… don’t hate me, okay?”

  “I could never do that.”

  She smiled sadly. “You say that now,” she told him before heading back toward the porch swing.

  He didn’t want to let her go. There was something in her smile—and a surrender in her eyes—that he never wanted to see. Rick surged forward, deciding in an instant that he didn’t want to know. If Grace was worried about his reaction, he’d make it easy for her.

  That’s when Maria stopped him. Throwing her hand out, she blocked him from following Grace. Because it was either mow her down or wait, Rick chose to fall back.

  The gleam in Maria’s pale blue eyes—not to mention the handle of the Louisville Slugger she clutched with her other hand—told him that he made the right choice.

  Grace kept going, unaware of the power play behind her. She paused when she reached the swing, grabbing something with a hand that jerked as if she was too disgusted to pick it up.

  He couldn’t stay quiet. “Grace, you don’t have to—”

  She looked over at him. Not the piece of paper in her hand. She looked at Rick and she nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  Maria had dropped her arm by the time Grace returned to stand in front of Rick. Without a word, she offered him the paper. This close, he saw that it was a cream-colored stock, thicker than a regular sheet of paper, and it was crumpled.

  He took it from her, frowning when she turned away from him as if she didn’t want to witness his reaction when he looked at it.

  A heartbeat later, he knew why.

  The words were stamped in a thin yet elaborate script. He read it once, then again, just in case the frills and the loops had caused him to read it wrong. They didn’t and, on his third read, he was forced to accept that it said:

  the honor of your presence

  is requested

  at the marriage of

  Mr. Henry Thomas Mathers II

  to

  Ms. Grace Louise Delaney

  It was an invitation. No doubt about that. The part he couldn’t get past? It was an invitation to a wedding where Grace was to be the bride. No wonder she wanted to hide this. How do you tell your current lover that you’re getting married to another man?

  Not that he accepted anything he read. Stubborn ex? Try fucking insane.

  Because she might have been sent an invitation to her own wedding—but there wasn’t a single doubt in his mind that this farce of an invite was the first time she was hearing about it. He refused to believe it, even if he couldn’t stop staring at it; he read it again and again, growing even more incensed every time he saw the delicately scripted lines that spelled out her name in conjunction with another man’s.

  There was a date, too.

  According to this invitation, Grace was getting married in less than two weeks.

  Rick crumpled the invitation, hiding it beneath the waistband of his sweats so that it was out of Grace’s sight. Then he moved behind her and folded his big body over hers, pulling her back into his arms, needing desperately to prove to himself that she was still there.

  This Mathers guy thought he was marrying Grace?

  Over his dead body.

  20

  Rick packed Grace up, moving her out of Ophelia and into his home that same night.

  He expected more of a fight. It was one thing for Grace to spend the night with him when she chose to. It was another entirely for him to take her from the space she made her own over the last few weeks. No matter how stricken she was to receive the invitation with her name on it, he expected her to refuse to go.

  She didn’t, and Rick didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. Hell if he wanted her out of his sight, but it wasn’t like Grace to let him steamroll her like that. Then again, considering how rattled he was, she probably agreed in order to calm him down.

  Rick Hart didn’t get emotional. When he got angry, he shut down. Sad? He closed himself off. He left fear and guilt and remorse back on the battlefield. After he returned to Hamlet, Rick wondered if he’d ever truly feel again. Caitlin’s murder was a blow, no lie, and he might have mourned the what-if’s and could’ve beens even more than the woman herself.

  And then Grace arrived and things changed. He saw glimpses of the man he was before he enlisted. He could tease her, calling her by a nickname that he knew she barely tolerated and then appreciate how cute she was when it got to be too much. She made him smile, she made him laugh, she made him feel. Desire. Happiness. Contentment. And, following the arrival of the invitation, jealousy. In the six weeks since they met, Rick experienced more emotions than he had in the last ten years. And he was glad. He liked the man he was now.

  But as soon as she finally fell asleep in his bed that night? All bets were off. Steeling his resolve, Rick shook off every other feeling except for grim determination. He was back in the Marines again, a brand new mission in front of him.

  He smoothed out the invitation, glaring at the piece of card stock.

  He finally had a name. The ghost that haunted Grace since she arrived in Hamlet… Rick had a goddamn name. He had a target.

  Henry Thomas Mathers.

  That wasn’t even the worst part. After all this time—after all of the secrets he suspected she kept—he had a motive. Mathers’ fixation on Grace wasn’t as simple as Rick first thought. Whoever he was, this guy wasn’t just hung up on her. He was obsessed with her. His fixation had a purpose: the bastard actually thought he could force Grace to marry him.

  Once she recovered from most of her shock, she admitted that Mathers wasn’t just an ex—he was a powerful yet unstable ex-lover who used his brains, his money, and his associates to terrorize her into staying at his side. They dated for months until it grew so serious, she feared losing herself as he molded her into the perfect bride.

  It was hard to hear. Rick wasn’t sure how much he wanted to know about the other man. Sergeant Hart knew he needed as much intel as possible.

  The worst part about it? Mathers could do it, too. He could force her. The outsider had wealth, he had power, and he had connections that Rick couldn’t hope to compete with. While he might have Grace in his home, in his bed, Rick heard it in the resignation in her voice. If Mathers got to Grace, if he got his hands on her, he could force her to do whatever it was he wanted her to do.

  Self-defense might save her from a physical threat. Grace was strong, but this latest emotional attack had left her battered. Rick didn’t push her to explain; he told her he’d give her time, and he’d give her space. All he wanted was to be able to protect her the only way he was able.

  Mathers
might think he could use whatever passed between him and Grace in the past to steal whatever future Rick might have with her. Yeah, right. Maybe if that’s what Grace wanted.

  He thought of the way she looked so pale, how she warned him against hating her. How Natalie buzzed Sly and said Grace was about to faint. How fearful she was of leaving Hamlet. Her focus when it came to self-defense, and how determined she was to protect herself.

  Leaning over, Rick tucked the wrinkled invitation between his mattress and the box spring. He didn’t want Grace to know he held onto it, but he also knew it might come in handy later. Then, shifting in the bed, turning toward where she slept fitfully, he stroked her hair, firming his jaw when she nuzzled into his hand. Her eyes fluttered beneath the lids, but she didn’t wake. Because she trusted him. She believed in him. And, now that he knew about Mathers, she confided in him.

  She was terrified of this Mathers guy. Rick suspected that she was more terrified for his sake than her own.

  She didn’t have to be. And he only hoped he didn’t have to prove that because, with her reaction that night, Rick realized something. He would do whatever he had to to protect Grace.

  He just hoped he didn’t lose her himself when he did.

  The date on the invitation passed without an incident.

  For the first few days after Phil delivered the invitation, Grace didn’t leave Rick’s house. It was a mutual decision. Rick was afraid that Tommy might swoop in and take her, and since Grace realized that that was a distinct possibility now that he knew exactly where she was, she agreed to stay inside. Until she could be sure that he wasn’t waiting to drag her off to a church, she’d happily stay put.

  Rick went to see Phil Granger to ask about the outsider who gave him the letter. From the detailed description he gave to the deputy, she figured it was Pope. Better than Tommy doing his own dirty work, but not by much. Pope was friendlier than Boone, she remembered, and that made him more dangerous. No one took him for a real threat until it was too late.

  Whether he heard it from his deputy, his girlfriend, or any of the other Hamlet gossips, Sly knew the truth about Tommy before long. She tried so hard, for so long, taking every precaution she could so that her new friends knew as little about Tommy as possible. It was one thing to be avoiding a stubborn ex. But a relentless, obsessed stalker who had the time, the money, and the means to chase her to the ends of the earth?

  Hamlet wasn’t prepared for Tommy Mathers. Now that the cat was out of the bag, Grace tried to make them understand. Nope. Rick and Sly both insisted that she would be safe inside the village’s borders. Between the gulley and the mountains, they could protect her. The narrow strait that led into town was monitored daily. Phil was on his guard. He would recognize Pope if he approached him again, and if there was even a hint of Tommy’s Jaguar driving through the quiet Hamlet streets, either the sheriff or one of his deputies would hear about it.

  Rick asked her to stay at his home while they waited for the wedding date to pass. She agreed. The old fears came rushing back the moment she opened that envelope. This time, the only package was the bad one, and she just couldn’t shake it off. Rick cut his hours at the station house, choosing to stay with Grace when he wasn’t out on short patrols, assuring himself that no other outsiders visited Hamlet.

  Amazingly, the time they spent together actually brought them closer. Rick didn’t resent her for the way Tommy still chased her; he was adamant that he would help Grace get free of the other man, no matter what.

  He also didn’t blame her. Though Tommy’s menace hung over their heads like a storm cloud, Rick refused to dwell on it. He took the time to continue getting to know her—the real her, not the idealized ballerina Tommy was fixated on—and shared stories about himself, the man who he was and the man he wanted to be.

  Whoever that was, Grace was sure of one thing: she was head over heels for Rick Hart. And it sucked that she couldn’t admit that while Tommy was still in the picture.

  Two days after the printed date, Rick had to go back out on full-shift patrols. He apologized for it, promising that he would check in as often as he could. He offered to get her her own radio, and she told him no. She hadn’t gotten past her irrational phobia that Tommy might be able to hack into it some way. Besides, so long as she stayed inside Hamlet, she would be fine.

  Rick wasn’t so sure about that, but since he didn’t want to smother her, he let it go. Besides, he had no choice. After what happened last year, when one of the Johnson twins was abducted the day before Christmas, Sly wanted all four of his deputies on high alert. Add in the threat that Tommy posed because Grace was hiding out in the village, and she understood the need for the whole HSD to be ready.

  Christmas was coming up fast. Maria came and picked her up the week before, driving her around town so that Grace could see the way Hamlet was decorated. No snow yet, since the winter was still milder than usual, but the lights and the bows and the candy cane-striping on the lamp posts put her in the holiday spirit.

  Rick encouraged her to visit Ophelia while he was on duty. Since Maria was helping Grace work on a heartfelt present to give to Rick for Christmas, she spent most of her days at the bed and breakfast.

  Three days before Christmas, Grace was just about done with Rick’s gift. It was part collage, part sketch. Since the extent of her artistic ability was in her dancing, she was all thumbs when it came to a pencil and paper. Maria kindly offered to do the sketching based on Grace’s description.

  She asked Maria to draw Rick the way she saw him. Strong and kind and with a jawline that any man would kill for. Her favorite part was the hint of a curl peeking from behind his ear. Bold strokes captured the harsh lines of his face, his crooked nose, the heat in his eyes when he looked down at her.

  Grace contributed by filling the white space surrounding the sketch with mementos of their time together. Part of a napkin from Thirsty’s. A sugar packet from the coffeehouse. A lock of her hair that he loved so much. Grass clippings from Ophelia’s backyard for the night he caught her dancing under the moon. And, with Maria’s permission, a few of the plastic petals from the sunflowers in the Sunflower Room.

  All that was left to do was use colored pencils to highlight some of Rick’s features. Dark brown for his hair, a warmer shade for his eyes, a soft pink for his kissable lips. Grace did that part herself, grateful when it was done because, holy hell, the stress headache she’d been fighting for weeks finally arrived with a vengeance.

  She drove back with a thud pounding against her skull. Thank goodness no one else was on the road since she spent more time trying to ignore the pain than paying attention to where she was going. It was a relief when she pulled into the drive, even if Rick’s truck was still gone. She knew he was pulling a double, with a couple of hours left to his day.

  Good. Hopefully, she’d be able to kick this headache before he got home.

  She headed straight to their bedroom. In the nightstand drawer that Rick dedicated as hers, Grace found her pill caddy. It was a small one, with two flaps—one that said am, the other pm—that covered a set of separate compartments.

  With a flick of her fingernail, she opened the am side, plucking out one of the beige-colored capsules.

  Rick had to take a ride out of Hamlet earlier in the week, a favor for Sylvester. Grace wanted to go with him, but even though it had been almost a month since she received the eerie wedding invitation and there had been no other sign of Tommy, she had to agree that leaving the safety of Hamlet wasn’t the brightest idea. So she spent the afternoon with Maria, baking Christmas cookies, drinking cocoa, and working on her secret gift for him. She knew that the bed and breakfast’s locks could keep any and all threats out while Rick was gone.

  The security was the only way she could actually get him to head out to the county courthouse.

  She kind of needed him to go, too. After all this time in Hamlet, she was running low on her pills. And while Jefferson’s shop might have most everything that the local
s needed, his supplement section consisted of two bottles of Vitamin C and a multivitamin that expired more than a year ago.

  Self-medicating with supplements was a habit she picked up when she seriously started her dance career. Since her body was the only tool she had, it was imperative that she kept it in tip-top shape. That meant eating healthy, staying away from alcohol, and not using any kind of drugs. At first that even included any kinds of prescriptions or over-the-counter medications. Then she met Tommy and her anxiety got so out of control, she went to the doctors. But the prescription he gave her made her feel off, made her feel funny, and she couldn’t risk going back to get her meds regulated.

  So she contacted an herbalist, instead. For her anxiousness and sleepless nights, she took valerian root; those were kept in the pm compartment. For the persistent, nagging headaches that she couldn’t ever shake, she would pop a butterbur and feverfew blend. Even though it might not work the same way as taking an aspirin, there were no side effects. And the capsule did seem to lessen the duration and severity of her headaches if she caught them in time.

  Rick might not understand her dependency on the herbs, but considering the many nights he told her about where he drowned his own demons down at Thirsty’s, he never judged. When Grace panicked that her supply was getting low, he promised to pick some up.

  Something was off about her refill, though. She pinched the pill between two fingers and brought it up to her face. It looked… different. The shade was a little bit lighter, the pill a little bit bigger.

  Huh.

  Grace didn’t see the bottle anywhere. It had to be that Rick couldn’t find her normal blend and bought her the closest thing he could find. So long as it did the job, that was fine. Tossing the pill back, she chased it with a swig from the water bottle she kept nearby before slipping the caddy back in the top drawer.