by J. R. Ward
The beacon that, until he had met his Lizzie, had been the only light on the horizon for him.
Lane wished he believed as his momma did. And oh, God, Miss Aurora even had faith in him, faith that he would turn this all around, save the family, be the man she knew he could be.
Be the man his father was not and never had been, no matter the trappings of his wealth and success.
Jump, he could just jump. And it was over.
Was that what his father had thought? With the lies and the embezzlement being exposed, with Rosalinda's death a harbinger for the dirge of discovery, had William come here because he alone knew the true extent of what he had done and the depth of the hole that had to be dug out? Had he recognized that the game was up, his time was coming, and even with all his financial acumen, he wasn't going to be able to solve the problem he'd created?
Or had he decided to fake his own death--and failed by succeeding?
Was somewhere, out there, perhaps in an offshore account or in a bank vault in Switzerland, under his name or another's, everything that had been siphoned off?
So many questions. And the lack of answers, coupled with the stress of having to fix it all, was the kind of thing that could drive you insane.
Lane refocused on the waters. He could barely see them from this height. In fact . . . he could see nothing but blackness with the merest hint of a shimmer.
There was, he realized, a certain siren call to the coward's way out, a pull, like gravity, to an end that he could control: One hard impact and it was all over and done with, the deaths, the deceit, the debt. Everything wiped clean, the festering infection that was going to hold no longer and was about to be unleashed publicly nothing to worry about anymore.
Had there been sleepless nights for his father? Regrets? When William had stood here, had there been a to-and-fro about should he/shouldn't he fly for a few moments and be done with the terrible mess he had created? Had the man even once considered the ramifications of his actions, an over two-hundred-year-old fortune wiped out not even in a generation, but in a matter of a year or two?
Wind whistled in Lane's ears, that siren call.
Edward, his older, formerly perfect brother, was not going to clean all this up. Gin, his only sister, was incapable of thinking about anything other than herself. Maxwell, his other brother, had been MIA for three years now.
His mother was bedbound and drug-addled.
So everything was in the hands of a poker-playing, former manwhore with no financial, managerial, or relevant practical experience.
All he had, at long last, was the love of a good woman.
But in this horrible reality . . . even that wasn't going to help him.
*
Toyota trucks were not supposed to go seventy-five miles an hour. Especially when they were ten years old.
At least the driver was wide awake, even though it was four a.m.
Lizzie King had a death grip on the steering wheel, and her foot on the accelerator was actually catching floor as she headed for a rise in the highway.
She had woken up in her bed at her farmhouse alone. Ordinarily, that would have been the status quo, but not anymore, not now that Lane was back in her life. The wealthy playboy and the estate's gardener had finally gotten their act together, love bonding two unlikelies closer and stronger than the molecules of a diamond.
And she was going to stand by him, no matter what the future held.
After all, it was so much easier to give up extraordinary wealth when you had never known it, never aspired to it--and especially when you had seen behind its glittering curtain to the sad, desolate desert on the far side of the glamour and prestige.
God, the stress Lane was under.
And so out of bed she had gotten. Down the creaking stairs she had gone. And all around her little house's first floor she had wandered.
When Lizzie had looked outside, she'd discovered his car was missing, the Porsche he drove and parked beside the maple by her front porch nowhere to be seen. And as she had wondered why he had left without telling her, she had begun to worry.
Just a matter of nights since his father had killed himself, only a matter of days since William Baldwine's body had been found on the far side of the Falls of the Ohio. And ever since then Lane's face had had a faraway look, his mind churning always with the missing money, the divorce papers he had served on the rapacious Chantal, the status of the household bills, the precarious situation at the Bradford Bourbon Company, his brother Edward's terrible physical condition, Miss Aurora's illness.
But he hadn't said a thing about any of it. His insomnia had been the only sign of the pressure, and that was what scared her. Lane always made an effort to be composed around her, asking her about her work in Easterly's gardens, rubbing her bad shoulder, making her dinner, usually badly, but who cared. Ever since they had gotten the air cleared between them and had fully recommitted to their relationship, he had all but moved into her farmhouse--and as much as she loved having him with her, she had been waiting for the implosion to occur.
It would almost have been easier if he had been ranting and raving.
And now she feared that time had come--and some sixth sense made her terrified about where he had gone. Easterly, the Bradford Family Estate, was the first place she thought of. Or maybe the Old Site, where his family's bourbon was still made and stored. Or perhaps Miss Aurora's Baptist church?
Yes, Lizzie had tried him on his phone. And when the thing had rung on the table on his side of the bed, she hadn't waited any longer after that. Clothes on. Keys in hand. Out to the truck.
No one else was on I-64 as she headed for the bridge to get across the river, and she kept the gas on even as she crested the hill and hit the decline to the river's edge on the Indiana side. In response, her old truck picked up even more speed along with a death rattle that shook the wheel and the seat, but the damn Toyota was going to hold it together because she needed it to.
"Lane . . . where are you?"
God, all the times she had asked him how he was and he'd said, "Fine." All those opportunities to talk that he hadn't taken her up on. All the glances she'd shot him when he hadn't been looking her way, all the time her monitoring for signs of cracking or strain. And yet there had been little to no emotion after that one moment they'd had together in the garden, that private, sacred moment when she had sought him out under the blooms of the fruit trees and told him that she'd gotten it wrong about him, that she had misjudged him, that she was prepared to make a pledge to him with the only thing she had: the deed to her farmhouse--which was exactly the kind of asset that could be sold to help pay for the lawyers' fees as he fought to save his family.
Lane had held her, and told her he loved her--and refused her gift, explaining he was going to fix everything himself, that he was going to somehow find the stolen money, pay back the enormous debt, right the company, resurrect his family's fortunes.
And she had believed him.
She still did.
But ever since then? He had been both as warm and closed off as a space heater, physically present and completely disengaged at the same time.
Lizzie did not blame him in the slightest.
It was strangely terrifying, however.
Off in the distance, across the river, Charlemont's business district glowed and twinkled, a false, earthbound galaxy that was a lovely lie, and the bridge that connected the two shores was still lit up in spring green and bright pink for Derby, a preppy rainbow to that promised land. The good news was that there was no traffic, so as soon as Lizzie was on the other side, she could take the River Road exit off the highway, shoot north to Easterly's hill, and see if his car was parked in front of the mansion.
Then she didn't know what she was going to do.
The newly constructed bridge had three lanes going in both directions, the concrete median separating east from west tall and broad for safety purposes. There were rows of white lights down the middle, and everything w
as shiny, not just from the illumination, but a lack of exposure to the elements. Construction had only finished in March, and the first lines of traffic had made the crossing in early April, cutting rush-hour delays down--
Up ahead, parked in what was actually the "slow" lane, was a vehicle that her brain recognized before her eyes properly focused on it.
Lane's Porsche. It was Lane's--
Lizzie nailed the brake pedal harder than she'd been pounding the accelerator, and the truck made the transition from full-force forward to full-on stop with the grace of a sofa falling out a second-story window: Everything shuddered and shook, on the verge of structural disintegration, and worse, there was barely any change in velocity, as if her Toyota had worked too hard to gain the speed and wasn't going to let the momentum go without a fight--
There was a figure on the edge of the bridge. On the very farthest edge of the bridge. On the lip of the bridge over the deadly drop.
"Lane," she screamed. "Lane!"
Her truck went into a spin, pirouetting such that she had to wrench her head around to keep him in her sights. And she jumped out before the Toyota came to a full stop, leaving the gearshift in neutral, the engine running, the door open in her wake.
"Lane! No! Lane!"
Lizzie pounded across the pavement and surmounted barriers that seemed flimsy, too flimsy, given the distance down to the river.
Lane jerked his head around--
And lost one hold of the rail behind him.
As his grip slipped, shock registered on his face, a flash of surprise . . . that was immediately replaced by horror.
When he fell off into nothing but air.
Lizzie's mouth could not open wide enough to release her scream.
TWO
Poker.
As Lane found himself with nothing between his feet and the Ohio River, as his body went into a free fall, as a sickening burst of fight or flight blasted, too late, through his veins . . . his mind latched on to a poker game he'd played at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, seven years before.
Good thing his descent had gone into slow motion.
There had been ten sitting around the high-stakes table, the buy-in had been twenty-five thousand, and there had been two smokers, eight bourbon drinkers, three with sunglasses on, one with a beard, two wearing baseball caps, and a so-called preacher in an oddly proportioned white silk suit that Elvis might have worn in the eighties--if the King had put up the peanut butter and banana sandwiches and lived long enough to experience the Me Decade's punk influence.
More importantly, as it turned out, there had been a former Navy officer two seats over from Lane, and soon enough, as people had dropped out, the pair of them had ended up with nobody between them. The former solider had had no tell to speak of, likely the result of being in far more deadly situations for a living than a green felt table and a padded stool. He'd also had strange, pale green eyes and a deceptively unassuming presence.
And it was strange to think that that guy, who Lane had ended up beating with a pair of kings, ace high, would be the last person he thought of.
Well, second to last.
Lizzie. Oh, God, he hadn't expected Lizzie to come and find him out there, and the surprise had caused what was going to be a fatal mistake.
Oh, God, Lizzie--
Back to the poker player. The guy had talked about his experiences on an aircraft carrier out in the ocean. How they had been trained to jump off heights of thirty, forty, fifty feet above the water. How, if you wanted a shot at living, there was a specific arrangement you needed to get your body into before you hit the surface.
It was all about the drag coefficient. Which you wanted to get as close to zero as possible.
Feet first was a bene; ankles crossed was a necessary--with the latter being critical so that your legs couldn't get snapped open like the wishbone on a Thanksgiving turkey. After that, you wanted one arm in front of your torso, with the hand grabbing the opposite elbow. The other arm you needed running up the middle of your chest, the palm splayed out over your mouth and nose. Head had to be on a level with the top of your spine or you risked concussion or whiplash.
Go in like a knife.
Otherwise, water, when hit at a great speed, had more in common with cement than anything you could pour into a glass.
Displace as little as possible.
Like a cliff diver.
And pray that your internal organs somehow slowed down at a rate that was compatible with their anchoring holds on your skeleton. Otherwise, the Navy guy had said, your insides were going to be a pepper jack omelet before it hit the pan, rushing to fill the spaces in your rib cage.
Lane locked himself in, using every muscle he had to turn himself into thin, strong steel, like that knife blade. The wind, God, the sound of the wind in his ears was like the roar of a tornado, and there was no flapping, or at least none that he was aware of. In fact, the falling had a strange sandblasting quality to it, like he was being hit by waves of particles.
And time stood still.
He felt like he hung forever in the Neverland between the solid footing he'd had and the watery grave that was going to claim him--just as it had his father.
"I love you!"
At least, that was what he meant to say. What came out of his mouth before he hit? No clue.
The impact was something he felt in his hips, his hips and his knees, as his legs jammed into his torso. And then there was the rush of cold. As pain lit up his motherboard, everything got cold, cold, cold.
The river claimed his chest and his head like a body bag being zipped up over a corpse, the black envelope closing, locking out fresh air, light, sound.
Muffled. So muffled.
Swim, he thought. Swim.
His arms failed to obey, but as his momentum slowed, his legs kicked out, and then, yes, his hands clawed at the water, which was soft now. He opened his eyes, or maybe they hadn't been shut--but he felt a sudden stinging there, acid against his pupils.
No breathing. As much as his instincts were to release the overload of sensation with an exhale, he hoarded his precious oxygen.
Kicking. Clawing.
He fought.
For life.
So he could get back to the woman he hadn't wanted to leave the first time--and hadn't meant to leave this time.
So he could prove that he was different from his father.
And so he could change the bankrupted future that he feared was written on his family's gravestone.
*
As Lane went off the bridge, Lizzie's first thought was that she was going after him. To the point where she nearly did a pole vault over the rail and leaped for the river herself.
But she stopped because she couldn't help him that way. Hell, she would probably land on him just as he came up for air. Assuming he did--oh, God--
Fumbling. Phone. Phone, she needed her--
She barely heard the screech of tires right next to her. And the only reason she looked at whoever had stopped was because her cell popped out of her palm and went flying in that direction.
"Did he jump!" the man shouted. "Did he jump--"
"Fell--" She snatched her phone from out of thin air before it hit the asphalt. "He fell!"
"My brother's a cop--"
"Nine-one-one--"
They both dialed at the same time, and Lizzie turned away to lift up on her toes and peer over the rail. She couldn't see anything down below because of the lights all around her and the tears she was blinking away. Her heart was pounding in fits and starts, and she had some vague idea that her hands and feet were tingling. Hot, her body was hot, as if it were high noon in July, and she felt as though she were sweating buckets.
Three rings. What if no one picked up--?
As she wrenched back around, she and the guy who had rushed over from his car looked at each other--and she had the strange sense that she was going to remember this moment for the rest of her life. Maybe he would, too.
"Hell
o!" she hollered. "I'm on the bridge, the Big Five Bridge! A man has--"
"Hello!" the man said. "Yeah, we have a jumper--"
"He didn't jump! He fell--what? Who cares about my name! Send someone--not to the bridge! Down below--downstream--"
"--that just went off the new bridge. I know you're on duty--you're under the bridge? Can you get someone--"
"--to pick him up! No, I don't know if he survived!" Then Lizzie paused even in her panic, and repeated the question she'd been posed. "Who was it?"
Even in this moment of crisis, she hesitated in giving out the name. Anything involving the Bradfords was news, not just in Charlemont, but nationally, and this jump--fall, damn it--was something she was sure Lane wasn't going to want on broadcast. Assuming he survived--
Screw it. This was life and death.
"His name is Lane Bradford--he's my boyfriend. I came out because . . ."
She babbled at that point and turned back to the drop. And then she was leaning out over the rail again, praying she could see his head breach the surface of the water. God, she couldn't see anything!
Lizzie hung up after she had given her name, her number, and as much as she knew. Meanwhile, the man was off his phone as well and he was talking to her, telling her that his brother, or his cousin, or frickin' Santa Claus was coming. But Lizzie wasn't hearing it. The only thing she knew was that she had to get to Lane, had to--
She focused on her beat-to-crap truck.
And then looked at Lane's 911 Turbo convertible.
Lizzie was behind the wheel of that Porsche a split second later. Fortunately, he'd left the key in the ignition, and the engine came alive as she punched in the clutch and cranked those horses over. Flooring the accelerator was a different deal entirely from her old Toyota, tires skidding out as she doughnuted the sports car and raced off--going in the wrong direction
Fine. Let the cops arrest her. At least she'd bring them down to the water.
