“I was hiding from the paparazzi, not you. Have you even seen the news?”
He nodded. “Last night they were discussing who’s going to play you in the movie.” I rolled my eyes. “Lana, can you tell me what really happened at Point Bonitas? I think there’s more to that story than they’ve been reporting.”
I shrugged. “Yes, there is. But I don’t want to give you nightmares.”
He slowed to a stop at a red light. “You saw her fall?” I nodded. “Cressida saw it, too?”
“Yeah.”
He let out a deep breath. “And I wasn’t there to help you.”
I put my hand on his thigh. “You saved my life a few times. It was my turn to save yours.”
“Sounds like you saved yourself, though.”
That was true. Of course, I couldn’t have done it without Georgette. I’d tell him about her later.
“And somehow it’s all over. Our crazy adventure, I mean.”
He pulled off his bow tie and dropped it in the center console. “Or, it’s just begun. Your new life, that is.” My new life. The lights of the valley below looked like a blanket of diamonds. “Aren’t you supposed to be starting college this month?”
“I’m taking a gap year.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “When you didn’t hear from me, why didn’t you try to find me?”
“Your dad made it pretty clear I was not allowed to go near you.”
“You fought off a Russian hit man. You’re afraid of a fifty-nine-year-old golfer with a bad back?”
“Hey, I’m eighteen! Other people’s parents make me nervous. You could have contacted me, you know.”
“My parents told me you had begged me not to! But I did try—didn’t your dad tell you I talked to him?”
“What!”
“I got in touch with him, but he seemed super paranoid about where you were. Kept telling me to wait until the time was right. Then his number was disconnected.”
“My dad is bad at anything involving people, sorry. Turn right up there—my house is at the end of the road.” My dad and Alexander’s parents had done what they thought was best.
And failed miserably.
He parked in front of the cottage next to my Ferrari, which looked shabby and cheap by comparison. He turned off the engine and a heavy silence filled the air. My skin tingled. The silk over my chest fluttered as my heart banged against my ribs. I collected my purse and he followed me up the steps to the front door.
“I mean, they sort of had a point,” I said, as I fumbled for the keys. “Our trip was a little too exciting.”
“It was the best time of my life, Lana. Except for the getting stabbed part.”
“Exactly! Why would you still want to be my friend after that?”
The corner of his mouth twisted up and his dimples appeared.
“You’re right. I don’t want to be your friend.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled something out—a small black box. I stared at it in shock.
He laughed. “Relax. It’s not what you think. Open it.” Inside, the pink tourmaline earrings he’d given me in New Orleans sparkled. “They were able to salvage some stuff from the destroyed Vanquish. These survived. I thought you’d want them back, and I thought there was a tiny chance you’d show up at the wedding. And look.” He showed me his wrists. He was wearing the moon cufflinks I’d given him.
I stared up at him.
“You’re supposed to invite me in now, Lana.”
#
His presence filled my cozy little living room. He tossed his jacket onto the couch and looked around. “You've been living here all alone this whole time?”
I nodded. Six weeks of intense, aching loneliness. The tension of the last two hours—and the drive over the hills to Sonoma—made every nerve in my body feel like a violin string wound too tight. One touch and my moorings would start to snap. I bent down and lifted each foot off the floor, pulling one shoe off at a time, my eyes never leaving his.
“You trying to flirt with me?” There was an edge in his voice.
“Maybe.”
He unbuttoned the top buttons on his shirt. “We’re sort of way past the flirting stage.”
I sauntered over to him and looked up at him. I put my hands on his arms and ran them up to his neck. “Show me how far.” His eyes burned into mine.
“All right.”
He reached behind my neck and tugged the silk ribbon holding the top of my dress up. The bow loosened and the bodice slid to my waist, leaving me in my strapless lace bra. He bent his head to my neck and slid warm hands up my bare back. As he kissed me I unbuttoned the rest of his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, exposing his muscular chest and flawless, tan skin. Except for the red scar on his side below his ribs. He stopped and watched me run my finger over it.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
He shook his head and ran his fingers across the scar that marred my left shoulder. “Does this?” His hazel eyes glowed. I ran my hand up to the nape of his neck.
“Nothing can hurt me anymore,” I said.
“Only pleasure from here,” he said. “Is that the rule?” My breath caught in my throat. He pressed his warm lips to my shoulder and my knees almost buckled. I untied the ribbon on the back of my gown and let it slide to the floor. I carefully draped it over the back of the couch and then took his hand. He followed me to the little bedroom. “Lana,” he whispered.
“Yes?”
His eyes were full of questions in the dark. “Did you know I started falling in love with you the day we met? When you were asleep in my car at your dad’s shop?” I shook my head. My chest heaved as I absorbed the revelation. “I’ve never known anyone like you. And you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
It was time to let him in on my secret. I shivered as he stood in front of me. “The last six weeks almost killed me. So much that I couldn’t stand to see you get hurt because of me. I’m so sorry!” My brain flooded with a thousand emotions and I started to cry.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said in a low voice. He wrapped his arms around me and sighed. “I am totally and as far as the eye can see in love with you.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. And I’m here, we’re together, and tomorrow is a new day.” I ran my hands up his chest and dragged him onto the bed. He deftly unhooked my bra and it fell away.
He ran his hands up over my stomach and breasts. “I’d crawl across broken glass to touch you.” My breathing changed. “So responsive.”
“Alexander,” I said breathlessly. “Please.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. I nodded. He kissed me over and over again. My heart was racing a thousand miles an hour. Blood pounded in my ears. He didn’t move—he just watched me silently in the room lit only by the stars and the sliver of moon shining outside the window.
“What’s wrong?”
“I . . . don’t want to hurt you.” He sounded suddenly unsure of himself.
“You can’t hurt me.” I cupped his cheek in my hand. “You’ll never hurt me.” His eyes were dark and deep. “I love you.”
There was no drug on earth as addictive as he was.
If I could have bottled and sold his magnetic power, I’d enslave millions.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and urged his face down to mine and the next word that repeated in my head was finally.
Finally.
Finally.
The next few perfect hours existed in a slice of time carved out and set apart from the continuum of normal life. Later, we lay together, our hair still damp, skin still warm, his hand pushing stray bangs out of my eyes, our legs tangled gorgeously, sunrise glowing over the wooded hills behind the cottage.
Beyond stretched our future, and it was gloriously infinite.
Chapter 31
Lacus Autumni ~ Lake of Autumn
One Year Later
Cheryl beckoned me through the beaded curtains. “Señora told me this morning you wer
e coming—she sensed it!”
“Oh, really? I did call last week to make the appointment.”
Cheryl smiled. “She never checks her calendar, but she still knew. The Señora always knows.” She called into the dark back room. “Señora, Miss Lana is here.”
Señora Isadora was dozing on the worn red velvet sofa with her head leaning back and her mouth open, breathing heavily. She raised one eyelid. “Ah, Lana. Sit, sit!”
She lifted her legs off the ratty ottoman in front of the couch and motioned for me to sit on it. Cheryl slipped away through the beaded curtains. They fell back into place with a jangling rustle.
“What is it today, pretty one?”
“I need to talk to Georgette. My godmother. The—the one who spoke through you. Remember last year? The one who spoke French.”
The Señora’s ample chest rose and fell as she sucked an enormous breath in through her nose. “Ah. Well, I’ve already tried. She’s gone.”
“Can you try again?”
The Señora sighed, then she nodded. Her thick, calloused hand shot out and gripped both of my hands. She squeezed her eyes shut and hummed a low, vibrating sound. “Georgette! Lana wants to talk to you! Madame Georgette! Will you speak to her?”
The room was still and quiet, but I didn’t experience the strange electricity and warmth I’d felt the last time. I only felt a sudden emptiness.
“I think you’re right,” I said.
She opened her eyes. “Yes, she is gone. But Lana, be happy! It means she is no longer trapped here, between life and death. It means she’s gone on. She’s finally at peace—and with your mother.”
Maybe she’d achieved her mission here on Earth—to atone for Liam’s drowning and avenge Tanith’s murder and saved Tanith’s other child.
I didn’t know the rules of being someone’s ghost godmother, but I’d say Georgette Ambrose had done her best.
“Goodbye, Georgette,” I whispered. “Merci pour tout.”
The Señora smiled and nodded, and then she flipped one of my hands over to inspect my palm. “Hm . . . yes, I think all will be well for you, Lana. I see a long, happy future for you, Niña. And—there is a boy!”
I blushed. “My boyfriend?”
“For now. You will marry him! His name is . . . Alan. Yes, Alan!”
Outside, “Alan” waited patiently in the silver-blue Aston Martin. The trunk just fit our weekend bags.
“Let’s go, gorgeous.”
Before we left town, we stopped to visit my mother’s grave, and the fresh one beside it. It had taken months and many thousands of dollars, but I’d had my brother Liam’s tiny casket moved from New York and buried next to his mother. I couldn’t stand the idea that they were apart. Alexander left a bouquet of fresh wildflowers at the base of her headstone.
The drive out to the desert brought memories flooding back. It was late afternoon when we made it out to the Valley of Fire. Our suite at the Amangiri was just a few hours away. I opened the window and felt the heat of the late summer on my bare arms. The enormous square pink diamond on my left hand sent confetti of tiny rainbows across the dashboard.
I wiggled my fingers and the light danced across Alexander.
“You like it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I do, too.”
The End
About the Author
Bronwyn Archer was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where she graduated from her private all-girls school with an impressive collection of fake IDs. Her first piece of writing of note was a short story about an alien whom her kindergarten class mistakes as a potted plant.
Valley of Fire is the second and final book in the Valley of the Moon series.
She wants to hear from you! Say hi on Twitter @bronarchbooks or email her at [email protected].
* * *
Acknowledgements
Finishing this book was a labor of love to myself—and to the small group of wonderful friends, writers, and readers who inspired me every day to keep going. In the three years since I published the first book, VALLEY OF THE MOON, various life events conspired to erase my writing time.
We fondly refer to this as “having a fifth baby.”
So thank you, thank you, for pressing me onwards—through the dread darkness of drafting, right over the rocky shoals of revision, and past the promised land of polishing.
If just one of you reads this and enjoys it, it was all worth it.
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Valley of Fire (Valley of the Moon Book 2) Page 31
