by RJ Scott
Rafe cracked his eyes a little. Anna was there, and in her arms, Chloe. He opened his eyes the whole way.
“Hey,” he said.
Her face was a bruised mess, and he wasn’t sure how many days it had been since everything had happened. Five, maybe? He’d lost time in this place; he just knew that the TV stations had moved on from the serial killing to something in politics as the big news item. How long did the murders of so many people deserve to be front-page news? Hell if he knew.
“Thank you,” Anna said, and shifted her hold on Chloe.
“I didn’t do anything.”
She shook her head. “Deacon told me, you left your jacket with that tracker in.” She leaned forward. “I won’t tell anyone else, I promise. But without that, I’m not sure who would have found us. And my baby…” She trailed away and pressed a kiss to Chloe’s head. “Thank you,” she said again.
“There’s nothing to—”
“Thank you.”
Seemed he wasn’t going to be allowed to explain that without what he’d done, she and Chloe wouldn’t even have been touched. Seemed that no one would let him take any blame. From Kayden, who’d told him to “cut the fucking crap”, to Mac, who’d explained that “none of it was your fault; Felix was always a murderer, just like his father before him”. Only Deacon let him take the blame, staying deathly quiet when he’d lost control yesterday and told Deacon in no uncertain terms that everything was his fault.
He’d lived, and others had died, and without him poking the hornet’s nest, Deacon could have got into the family and taken them down, stopping the killing.
Deacon had shaken his head and left the room, having said nothing at all.
So Rafe knew exactly what Deacon felt. He clearly agreed that this was all on Rafe, and that there was no alternative reasoning.
He talked to Anna for a bit, and tried to hold Chloe, but it was difficult because he couldn’t lie back without support for his bandaged back, and his left wrist was broken, yet another limb in plaster. The only bright side was that they’d taken the cast off his leg, and the weirdest thought crossed his mind. If he hadn’t had the cast on his leg, would he have been able to kick Felix harder? Would he have gotten away? If he hadn’t been so weak, would he have been able to fight back?
The problem was that these thoughts chased into his dreams, and he didn’t want them there.
When Anna left, the peace was welcome; at least when the room was empty he didn’t have to see pitying looks, or hear reasons why everything was going to be okay.
Sam was one of his regular visitors, armed with grapes and music and a bag of clothes.
“For when you get out,” he explained. “We’re about the same size, so I grabbed you some of my sweats, and Deacon donated a tee, and the fleece is from Mac, although you realize it will swamp you. Still, it will keep you warm.”
That was how Sam’s visits went. He talked with great authority on all the news for a good ten minutes, and then he seemed to calm down, and that was the moment when he and Rafe talked the best. Sam was becoming a friend, and they had something in common – they both loved men who couldn’t ever sit still.
“So, I was talking to Deacon, and he’s worried about you.”
“There’s no need for him to worry. I’m feeling better every day.”
Sue him if he was lying. His back ached, his wrist hurt, his head was filled with scratchy, messy thoughts that he couldn’t corral. Sam didn’t need to know all that.
“He said he’s making things worse, but I managed to calm him down. After he finished punching a wall.”
“He punched a wall.”
“Went right through the drywall. Fractured a finger, the moron.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Why do Deacon or Mac do any of the shit they do.” Sam shook his head. “Anyway, I want to tell you about something that… I’m not sure it’s the right time…but I have to tell you.”
“What? Is Deacon okay?”
“This is nothing to do with Deacon and everything to do with us, because I completely understand survivor’s guilt and feeling as if everything that has happened is entirely your fault.”
Rafe huffed. “Yeah, right, it just happens that a psycho kidnapped you, tortured you, and killed your parents, not to mention dozens of others as well?” Rafe deadpanned. He was trying for joking, but Sam didn’t smile, he shook his head.
“No.”
“Then no disrespect, Sam, you’re a good guy, but you don’t know how I feel.”
“When I said no, I meant my story was different. My sister and I were kidnapped when I was a kid, and I was…” He paused, like he was searching for the right word. He even checked behind himself, looking at the shut door. “Tortured, raped, I don’t know what you’d call it as a whole.”
“Sam. No.”
Sam hurried on before Rafe could say anything else. “I don’t share the story. It’s classified, and there’s something about heroes, you know; Mac saved me then, and he kept me alive when we met up again. I had counseling, a lot of it, spent hours in the chair being convinced that I wasn’t to blame for what had happened to me. But see… people were telling me it wasn’t my fault all that time, and I think if they’d only let me come to that conclusion by myself instead of trying to tell me what to think, then I might have got my head around things a lot quicker.”
Sam stopped talking and tilted his head. For a while there was silence, then Rafe felt too uncomfortable with Sam watching him.
“I get that,” he said finally, and the admission was one that was easy to make. “Everyone tells me Felix was a killer.”
“He was.”
“That his dad was as well, my uncle. That it’s a family thing.”
“You think you’re part of it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Just because your uncle and cousin were… Look, I can’t speak for what’s in your genetic code or isn’t. That’s not why I’m here.”
“You’re here to tell me that I have to come to terms with everything myself. Blah blah.”
Sam looked hurt, but then he brightened. “Yeah. That.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“It’s cool.”
They sat in silence a little longer. Sam was a million miles away, staring out of the window at the trees.
“Deacon left,” Rafe said quietly. “I chased him away.”
Sam leaned forward, as though he wanted to share a secret. “He’s in the hallway. He hasn’t moved since you were brought here other than to talk to everyone about you. You couldn’t chase him away if you were armed with a machine gun and a machete.”
Rafe looked past Sam at the closed door. Deacon hadn’t given up on him?
“You think you could get him to come in?”
Sam stood up and patted Rafe on the head. “Absolutely.”
He left and closed the door behind him, and Rafe realized he should have said something about how sorry he felt for what had happened to Sam; he thought maybe their conversation wasn’t entirely done.
But. Deacon.
The man himself was in the room within seconds; he’d clearly been waiting for someone to tell him it was okay for him to go in.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, and hovered by the closed door.
“I’m okay,” Rafe lied.
“I know you’re lying,” Deacon said, and stood behind the chair next to the bed. “May I?” he said, and gestured at the hard plastic seat.
Rafe nodded, but Deacon didn’t sit in it in the intended way, he did his usual thing of turning it and straddling it. Rafe couldn’t help himself – Deacon doing things like that, sexy things, was enough for him to forget the pain in his wrist.
“What happens now?” Rafe said, vocalizing the mess in his head.
Deacon bit his lip, looking as if he was nervous. “What do you want to happen now?”
“Don’t do that,” Rafe snapped.
“What?”
/>
“The same thing everyone else is doing; tiptoeing around me as if I’m a live grenade and they want to run. I need someone to tell me what the hell happens now.”
“You’re free to go wherever you want, Rafe. You want to go back to Miami? Because you can. No one is left to hurt you.”
“Miami?”
“It’s where you lived with your dad. Don’t you have a place there?”
“No, we rented. I don’t have anywhere.”
Except Cambridge Falls and the school. Except anywhere Deacon is.
“Oh, well, I don’t know…” He looked fazed, as if he hadn’t expected that answer.
Did Deacon want him to move away from here, or just away from him, or…hell, where did Deacon even live? Part of him wanted to shut his eyes and lie back on his bed and pretend Deacon wasn’t there, but if he did that, then he would never know.
“What would you do if I went to Miami, or stayed in Cambridge Falls, or…I don’t know, anywhere?”
“Me?” Deacon looked confused for a second, then the confusion cleared. “That’s easy, I’d follow you to wherever you go.”
Rafe hadn’t been expecting that. “What?”
“I can work from anywhere, really, although there may be times I’m away for stretches, and that would be shit. But that’s what a man does. When you love someone, you want them to be where they’re happy and you want to be with them.”
Okay, so that was intense. Rafe thought about what was in his head that matched his heart right at that moment in time.
“What if I wanted to stay in town, teaching? Do you think they’d have me still?”
“Why wouldn’t they? Craig Jenkins has a job for life, I think.”
“Yeah, Craig.”
“Does it worry you that they won’t know you as Rafe? Because you could tell them, everyone.”
“Maybe. One day.”
“You’ll know when it’s right.”
“And what about you?”
“Me?” Deacon shrugged. “I’d move there with you and buy you your coffee and Danish every morning.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It can be. Not everything is unattainable.”
“What will you do?”
“I haven’t thought it through. Depends on where I end up, and whether you want me there with you.” He stopped and stood, then sat on the side of the bed, perched right on the edge. “Maybe some security work, consulting, possibly even work with Mac. I’ll know when it happens. I think I’d like some time just to get my head straight and just be…” he looked out of the window, his expression pensive. “Just be Rafe’s partner,” he turned back and dimpled a smile. “Or Craig’s. I’m easy.”
God, yes, he made it sound easy, but Rafe had more obstacles he wanted to put in the way. One of them must trip Deacon up.
“I’d like to stay teaching, as Craig, if they’ll have me. I don’t want to be connected to what was left of my family; I want time to get my head straight as well.”
Deacon held out a hand, which Rafe held tight. “Rafe died,” he murmured, then he leaned over and kissed him. “I killed him.”
“And Craig?”
“Hell, that’s an easy one. I love Craig.”
Epilogue
Four years later
Chloe decided right at the start of the Halloween party that she was trick-or-treating with Rafe. He and Deacon had become sort of honorary uncles to the little girl, and friends with Anna. Dressed as a cowboy, Deacon was at the back of the small group of kids, all of whom were in Rafe’s class this semester. Chloe was dressed as a ballerina, and that was her entire focus since she’d joined the dance school a town over. Rafe took her and Michael, and interestingly enough Billy, who refused to let his family stop him from dancing. Rafe thought Billy was the kind of kid who would live through anything thrown at him and always come out on top. Turned out he’d been right about him and Michael being best friends. Inseparable friends, actually.
He drove them, along with a few other kids from the school. All belted in on the school minibus, which had been a donation from an anonymous benefactor.
Rafe had decided it was Deacon, but his partner, lover and friend had never actually admitted it.
“You don’t look much like anything,” Chloe informed Rafe when he picked her up.
“I’m a zombie,” he said, and threw his hands wide. He hadn’t had time to do what he’d really wanted to, because Deacon, the bastard, had been dressed as a cowboy when Rafe had got home and they’d lost track of time in bed; too late to pick up his outfit.
So Rafe was not Jack Sparrow this year, but, with the addition of quick white face paint, he’d become a zombie teacher. Looked as if it wasn’t that convincing, though, because little Chloe just frowned at him.
“Uncle Craig?”
Rafe crouched down to talk to her, his mouth already tilted in a smile. “Wassup, Nina ballerina?”
“I decided I’m gonna marry someone,” she said, “like you and Deacon.”
Awkward. He and Deacon weren’t officially married, although they could be, but they’d never thought much past the whole “my name isn’t Craig even though I have all kinds of documentation” thing. They still lived in the apartment over the bakery, had adopted two cats and one three-legged dog. They had Danish for breakfast, so much coffee they kept the shop open single-handed, and loved each other every day. That was enough.
Deacon was happy in his career; he worked freelance with Mac, and was at home more than he was away. The last four years had been a blur, and only when the news had some update on the serial killer case did the memories stir from where Rafe had hidden them away. He still had scars on his back, and his wrist had never quite healed, but he was used to both of those things.
They were nothing compared to being alive.
“That’s a really good idea,” he said. “Can I come to your wedding?”
“Uh-huh.” She leaned in close. “I’m going to marry Billy, or Michael – I haven’t decided yet.”
Michael must have heard, and from his lofty nearly-ten-year-old height, he looked aghast at the thought. He nudged Billy and whispered something, but Billy didn’t look as aghast. He ruffled Chloe’s hair, then the two boys ran on to the next house, Chloe flying after them.
The rest of the kids ran to catch up, and Rafe stopped at the beginning of the path to the house, Deacon walking into him, gripping him at the last minute so they didn’t both end up on the ground.
“You okay there, hoss?” he asked, drawling the words like some kind of John Wayne; all he was missing was his horse and a six-shooter.
“I love you,” Rafe said, clearly but softly.
Deacon’s wry smile gave way to a full grin. “I love you too.”
“I’d like a Christmas wedding,” Rafe murmured, leaning close so this marvelous new plan of his wasn’t one he was sharing with the whole town, because what if Deacon stepped back horrified, then maybe laughed at him?
Deacon did neither of those things. He gathered Rafe in and held him close. “A Christmas wedding sounds good.”
“Here, in town.”
“Yep.”
“With Mac and Sam, and everyone here, and the guys you work with at Sanctuary, and the teachers.”
“Everyone.”
As simply as that, Rafe and Deacon were getting married.
Everyone knew him as Craig in town. No one knew who he really was, only that he was the lucky one who’d escaped a murderer. But that had been a long time ago now.
When the town gathered for the wedding, it was the biggest celebration since last year’s Christmas lights switch-on. Sam stood up for Rafe, and Mac was there for Deacon. Chloe got to wear a bridesmaid’s dress, and that year’s Apple class, along with plenty of other students who had been taught their ABCs by Mr. Jenkins, wore variations on the colors of the rainbow.
The weather was warm, and Rafe was blown away by the love from this town, this place that had been his place to hide out
. The wedding was beautiful, the cake delicious, the vows solemn, and the kisses heated.
Rafe knew one thing as Deacon dipped him on the dance floor, laughing like an idiot, with Mac encouraging him from the sidelines.
Craig Jenkins and Deacon Shepherd were going to live happily ever after.
THE END
RJ Scott
RJ's goal is to write stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, that hint of a happily ever after.
RJ Scott is the bestselling author of over one hundred romance books. She writes emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn't with family either reading or writing.
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn't like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
Website: www.rjscott.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/author.rjscott
Twitter: Rjscott_author
Pinterest: pinterest.com/rjscottauthor
Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/3432558.R_J_Scott
Table of Contents
All Rights Reserved
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
RJ Scott
