Lead Me Home: A Fight for Me Stand-Alone Novel

by A. L. Jackson

  With this possessive protection that seethed from the depths of me.

  I took another powerful step forward, promising him I wasn’t playing games.

  He yanked Nikki to standing, and her gaze was on me, mine on her.

  Trust me.

  Trust me.

  It was a silent plea, praying she would feel me. That I wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to her.

  That I was there.

  I wouldn’t ever leave her again.

  I choked, stumbling to a stop when I saw the glint of the knife he had pressed to her side.

  “I’d rethink that.” His voice was all sneer as he dragged her back against his chest.

  They were teetering right at the edge of the cliff. The asshole had backed himself right into a corner, nowhere for him to run.

  “Let her go,” I demanded, trying to keep the tremble from my voice.

  I wasn’t backing down.

  Like I’d let him take her.

  “There’s nowhere for you to go. Nothing left. The police are already on their way, and they know what you did to my sister. The game is up. Let her go.”

  He cracked a demented grin. “She and I have a little time, don’t we, Nikki?” he whispered in her ear.

  She cried out.

  Disgust and revulsion rolled through me. Sickness and that hate.

  Hate. So much hate.

  For so long, I’d pinned it on myself. No more. This was all on him.

  He’d hurt my sister. Sammie. Nikki. God knew who else.

  No more.

  No more.

  My head shook, and the bitterness quivered my lips, but my hand was steady. “Wrong, asshole. Time’s up.”

  Somewhere in the distance, sirens blared, riding on the encroaching night. Coming closer and closer.

  As soon as he heard it, deranged panic lit in the sick fuck’s eyes. Like he actually thought he was going to make it out of there with Nikki.

  Saw it the second he let desperation take him over. He jerked Nikki closer and started to run to the side.

  Nikki flailed, swinging her shoulders, kicking her feet.

  She broke free, stumbling back and away from him.

  He whirled back to look at her. Stunned. Like he couldn’t believe she would fight him.

  Like he was witnessing his own kind of horror.

  That was my chance.

  I was taking it.

  I rushed that way, intent on tackling the fucker to the ground.

  His eyes met mine, and I saw the shift. When he realized he had no choice left.

  Madness filled his eyes, his vile gaze darting all over, searching for escape.

  The piece of shit started running my direction, charging me with the knife drawn.

  Thinking I was going to let him get through me.

  Disappear in to the forest.

  “Stop,” I shouted.

  He just kept coming, the knife raised above his head.

  “Stop,” I roared.

  He made a sound to match as he rushed me.

  Insane.

  Crazed.

  Unwilling to stop.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I pulled the trigger.

  The sound was deafening.

  Ricocheting on the cliffs and rocks and moving through me.

  He crumpled into a pile at my feet.

  My lungs squeezed, and I panted through the haze, everything set to slow as my mind tried to catch up.

  Ears ringing, my attention swooped across the space for Nikki.

  She teetered at the edge of the cliffs.

  Bound feet sliding out from beneath her. Hands tied behind her and setting her off-balance on the slick, wet surface.

  I was running that way as she struggled to regain balance on the slipping rocks.

  Those indigo eyes went wide as her feet gave.

  Falling backward.

  A shout of agony tore from me as I watched her tip over the side.

  My pulse thundered, and my heart screamed as loud as the screams that tore from my mouth.

  “Nikki! Nikki. God, no, Nikki!”

  I raced for the edge.

  I skidded right before I hit the crumbling ledge.

  Sucking in a staggered breath.

  Blinking as I swore I saw Sydney standing at the cliff, her flowy dress billowing around her, hair soft as it whispered across her face.

  Her voice lilted on the breeze. “You were my protector. My savior. My hero. It’s okay, Ollie. It’s okay to be hers.”

  “Forgive me,” I begged, the words so small.

  She smiled. The softest smile. “There was never anything to forgive. Just promise me one thing.”

  “Anything.” It was my own plea.

  “Never stop going after what makes your heart feel right.”

  She angled her head toward the edge and lifted her chin.

  “Fly, fly, dragonfly.”

  I blinked, and she was gone.

  And I dove over the side.

  Falling.

  I’d been all along.

  I hit the water. It split, swallowing me in a pit of darkness.

  I couldn’t see anything, and I started flailing, searching the water, my chest burning from the exertion and the loss of oxygen.

  And I felt my sister. All around. And I wondered if she’d always been.

  I pushed myself harder, a little deeper.

  My fingertips just brushed against something.

  Didn’t matter.

  I saw it.

  Could feel it.

  The flash.

  A spark.

  Energy.

  Light.

  The meaning of life.

  A half second later, I had an arm around Nikki’s waist, and I propelled us up. We broke the surface, and I was gasping for breath, frantic as I freed her of the bonds.

  But Nikki.

  She wasn’t breathing.

  And I was crying out, floating on my back as I turned her so her face was out of the water, swimming back toward the shore with one arm.

  The sound of the sirens traveled across the water, and swirling lights came into view from the shore, hitting the lake and blinking across the sky like an endless mirror.

  “Nikki,” I cried, my feet finally hitting the bottom of the lake. I gathered her in my arms and staggered up the rocky beach as officers came rushing down the incline.

  I screamed with everything I had. “Help!”

  38

  Ollie

  The monitor blipped quietly in the still of the room, the lights muted and her soft, soft breaths filling the air.

  Swore, they breathed right back into me.

  The sound of her where she slept on the hospital bed.

  Olive skin and honeyed hair and freckled cheeks.

  Sunshine.

  She still hadn’t gained consciousness, but they thought she was going to be okay.

  Her saturations and pulse ox had been good, but they would be taking her for scans to make sure her lungs were clear.

  I leaned forward, taking her hand in mine, bringing it to my lips.

  I was swept by an undercurrent of that energy. A sated fire that streamed between us. Our connection quieted but so goddamned bold.

  Overwhelming.

  I inhaled, and I swore, it felt like I was inhaling the breaking day.

  Something fresh and new.

  I stared at her, eyes tracing every unforgettable line of her face.

  She was so pretty.

  So pretty my guts clenched and my heart was drumming its song, the way it did whenever Nikki stepped into a room.

  When she took up my space.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” I whispered at her knuckles, praying she could feel my promise. That it was touching that bright, bright spirit.

  That she’d know she wasn’t alone.

  Her mom had been here.

  Her sister.

  Lillith and Rynna and Hope.

  This girl surrounded by love.
/>   Because that’s what she was.

  Love.

  The lightest tap sounded at the door, and I shifted to see Kale popping his head inside.

  Thank God for Kale.

  Kale, who’d come running when I’d sent out the distress call that we needed him. Even though he was no longer a physician at the ER, there wasn’t anyone I trusted more than him to be there, acting as Nikki’s intercessor, making sure no stone was left unturned.

  “Hey,” I said, voice so low it barely broke the air. “Is it time for her to get the scans?”

  He grimaced a little as he stepped inside. “Not quite,” he told me.

  Unease wound through my being, and I couldn’t keep the quiver of distress out of my voice. “Did the tests come back?”

  “Yeah. Everything looks good. CBC is good, and her O2 sats have been normal.”

  Relief blew out on the heaviest sigh, and I was nodding, rubbing my face as this feeling came over me. This stunning gratitude that had taken the place of the weight that had been on my shoulders.

  Was close to outweighing the amount of the love that pressed through me.

  Filling me full.

  He studied the readout on one of the monitors. “Has she opened her eyes yet?”

  “No . . . but . . . I can feel it. She’s gonna be okay. I think she’s just sleeping off the trauma.”

  It wasn’t like I was some kind of medical guru.

  It was just like I’d said.

  I could feel it.

  He came to stand beside me, looking at Nikki.

  “That’s what she needs the most. Rest.” He angled his attention to me. “And support. Someone to be there for her when she wakes up so she knows she isn’t alone.”

  I shifted in the seat, tightening my hold on her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Are you finished running, Ollie?” he asked, staring at me like he was searching for the truth of my answer. Something hard in his expression.

  My gaze traveled back to Nikki.

  Nikki. Fucking. Walters.

  The girl I’d thought the bane of my existence.

  The girl nothing but a tease and a taunt of what I couldn’t have.

  I’d just been too blind to recognize that she was my very existence.

  “Yeah, I’m done running,” I murmured, more to her than to him.

  He cracked a smile. “Good.” He gave a pat to my shoulder before he moved for the door. “Oh, and she won’t be getting those x-rays.”

  I shifted in the chair so I could see him. “Why’s that?”

  He paused to look back at me. “Because she’s pregnant.”

  39

  Nikki

  My eyes fluttered open, the sound of a constant, low beep, beep, beep filling my ears. But my sight, it was filled with Ollie.

  Beautiful Ollie who was staring over at me.

  The man who had wrecked me.

  The one who had saved me.

  He’d always been an enigma.

  The hardest jaw and the quickest smile.

  “Nikki,” he murmured as he watched me studying him, and he reached out and set a big hand on the side of my head.

  Energy flashed.

  The connection so intense that I felt my insides clutch.

  “Ollie.”

  “You’re okay. You’re okay.”

  I flinched as all the memories came flooding back.

  My sister.

  Sydney.

  The cliffs.

  “What happened?” I rasped, my throat achy and raw and my lungs too tight, but there was no stopping the panic that seized my heart. “What happened to Todd?”

  So many things moved through his expression.

  Hate.

  Worry.

  Regret.

  Relief.

  “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “Oh.” It was a breath. A strike of realization. The sound of a gunshot ricocheting in my mind.

  Ollie brushed his thumb over my cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.”

  My lips pursed, and I fought the tears that worked in my eyes. “You saved me.”

  “I told you I would never let anyone hurt you again. Protecting you is my duty.”

  I could feel the twist of my brow. The sorrow on my heart, and it hurt so much to say the words.

  But it was time.

  I couldn’t do this anymore.

  Not after everything.

  “I don’t want to be your duty, Ollie. I can’t be a sin you’re trying to make amends for.”

  Regret streaked across Ollie’s handsome face.

  Sapphire eyes flashed with intensity as he sat forward, his hold on the side of my head tightening.

  Hand spread out as if he wanted to touch me everywhere.

  “I’ve spent my life living in the past, Nikki.”

  His voice was gruff. Strained as he seemed to struggle with the words. “I spent years searching for something that wasn’t there. It’d felt like hope. But I know now I was trying to pay a debt. That I thought I didn’t deserve to live because Sydney hadn’t.”

  Grief billowed from him.

  “My mom . . .” His voice broke, and my heart fisted because never in all these years had he mentioned her.

  Their relationship severed.

  I’d never been privy to the details.

  “She blamed me,” he whispered as if it hurt too much to say it aloud. He gave a harsh shake of his head. “I’ll never forget when the police left after taking my statement, she . . . lost it.”

  He gulped. “She just . . . started hammering on my chest. I’d barely been able to hear what she was saying, she was crying so hard. But I did, Nikki. She was saying that she’d trusted me . . . that it was my fault . . . that I’d promised I would take care of her. She said I failed her. Failed Sydney.”

  Sympathy stretched so tight I couldn’t breathe.

  “Oh, God. Ollie. I didn’t know.”

  He looked at me. Laid bare. “In some way, I did fail, Nikki. We all did. We made mistakes, but none of us meant to hurt her.”

  He blinked through the dim lights of the room. “I thought . . . I thought for all these years that I couldn’t be trusted. That I didn’t deserve to be.”

  He gathered up my arm and pressed the underside of my wrist to his lips.

  A sound hitched in his throat. A guttural cry that I felt move all the way through the center of me.

  “I’m always gonna miss her, Nikki. I will miss her every day of my life. I thought that made me a lost soul. That I had no home. But you . . .”

  He eased off the chair and moved so he was completely hovering over me, taking both sides of my face in his hands.

  He squeezed me tightly. As if he were begging me to hear.

  “You, Nikki . . . you are my home. You’ve been leading me there all along, calling me there, and I was too blind to see that was where I belonged. Too afraid to accept it. Too afraid to believe in it. Too afraid to trust in myself.”

  His throat bobbed when he swallowed, and he edged back to standing. He set one of those tattooed hands over his heart.

  “I’m a simple, man, Nikki. If I were Kale, I’d have planned some big thing. Wooed you. Impressed the hell out of you,” he said, mouth tweaking into something that resembled a grin before it fell flat again.

  “But I’m not . . . I’m just here . . . this lost soul who finally found his home, begging her to open the door and let him in.”

  Tears rushed to my eyes, and a ball of emotion rolled through my chest.

  Pressing and pulling and pleading.

  “The door has always been open, Ollie. Always. You just had to make the choice to walk in.”

  “Only if you let me stay forever.”

  I hated the reservations that scrambled to be heard. That wall that wanted to rise up and protect my heart that he’d broken again and again. But they shouted at me not to be a fool.

  “What about Sydney, Ollie? The fact that you can’t look at m
e without seeing her? Without thinking of her? I don’t want to be the girl standing in her shadow.”

  He was back to hovering over my hospital bed, this time his nose so close to brushing mine. “How could you stand in the shadows when you are the brightest thing in the room?”

  His lips brushed against mine in the softest kiss.

  “Sunshine,” he murmured like praise. “You are light and life. My life. My everything. Let me be yours.”

  Tears streaked free, and I lifted my chin, our mouths meeting as I whispered, “I’ve always been yours.”

  Our foreheads met, and we shared our breaths.

  That energy rippled and danced.

  Climbing into the atmosphere.

  Colors and light.

  Chemistry.

  He kissed me again as one of his hands slid down my face, cupping my jaw, my chin, gliding to my heart. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  Nerves tumbled. “What’s that?”

  His hand kept moving, slipping over my hip until he moved it over my stomach. His hand resting between us. “We’re gonna have a baby.”

  40

  Ollie

  “Ollie, I’m not crippled.” She swatted at my shoulder.

  Playfully.

  I had her swept up in my arms, holding her as the elevator clanged for the third floor of my building.

  I nuzzled my nose along her jaw, inhaling deep, my lips a soft brush against her cheek. “How about you just let me hold you for a while, yeah?”

  Her arms were looped around my neck, and she buried her face in my beard. “If you insist, big boy.”

  I squeezed her as the elevator jostled to a stop at the top floor, cages sliding open to the hall. “Plan on holding you forever, sweet girl.”

  She giggled.

  God.

  Was it possible I got this? Her giggles and her smiles and all her days?

  I wanted them. Fuck, I wanted them so bad that I held her a little tighter against me as I carried her down the hall.

  “That might get awkward, you know?”

  “What, you don’t think people would approve of me carrying you to work?”

  She was chewing on her bottom lip as she looked up at me, a flush on her cheeks that screamed of so much life. “People might get weird ideas about us.”