Falling Again (19 page)

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I just can’t…”

“Yes, you can.”

“How do you know what I was going to say?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is you think you can’t do, I know you—we—can. What we have is strong enough to get us past this.”

She looked at him, her eyes swelling again with tears. “Why won’t you just get on with your life and leave all this—leave me—behind?”

“Because I love you.”

She’d wondered what it would feel like to hear those words from him. Now she knew. She thought she might be scared by it and maybe she was, a little. But then she could feel her heart beating faster and a feeling of sheer and utter happiness welling up to catch in her throat. Until ‘scared’ reared its head again.

“How can you? How can you love someone who would put the person she loves in harm’s way?”

His smile was broad and the hopeful look had returned to his face. “The person you love?”

“Nick…”

“Okay, we’ll get back to how you feel about me in a minute. Beautiful, sending people to war is putting them in harm’s way. Didn’t whatever Ken Burns documentary you got the phrase from teach you that? You didn’t come close.” He put out his hand to her and she sat back down next to him, lacing her fingers through his.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why, what?” He seemed genuinely puzzled at her question.

“Why do you love me?”

His smile was even broader now. “Because I’d never met a woman like you. You don’t just accept the surface of anything. You’re like Dorothy outing the Wizard, you need to know what’s behind the curtain. I love your passion for finding out, your curiosity, your intelligence.”

“After what my curiosity did to you?”

“I’ve apparently failed to say convincingly what I came here to say—what happened to me wasn’t your fault. So, I guess I’ll call Sam. Maybe he can explain it better.”

“Please don’t.”

“If you won’t talk to Sam, at least call my sister. She’s been worried sick about you. I thought she was your friend.”

“She is. I know I should have called her a long time ago. But I did, today, when I got back from Tacoma. She was in the middle of something and is calling me back.”

“Thank God. She’s been frantic.” He cocked his head and frowned. “Tacoma? You went home to your parents?”

“Yeah. I needed to sort some things out.”

“Like?”

“Like returning a robe. And figuring out how to get over being in love with someone I don’t deserve.”

Nick was quiet for a moment. “Were those two things connected?”

“No. Two different situations. I discovered I didn’t really need to hold on to the robe. It was over a long time ago. I’ve been working on the latter.”

“I had a lot of time on the damn cruise ship to think, too. I came back here determined to put the last three weeks behind us.” He drew her slowly into his arms. “I want to make this right.”

She sighed and rested her head against his chest as he held her. “I feel like I’m in this deep hole. I don’t know if it’s possible to make it right or get out of it.”

“I know we can.” He pushed her gently back so he could see her face. “And you had help digging the hole. Sam, me.”

“You? What did you do?”

“I should have come here weeks ago. Not coming to your front door is almost worse than failing to rescue you from those thugs.”

“Oh, God, Nick. You’re so far from being to blame…”

“Neither of us had it right. But we don’t have to stay here, stuck in this hole. We can find our way out. Look at me, Fee.” He tipped up her chin so she was looking straight into his eyes. He kissed her forehead. “I love you. And you love me. Right now, that’s where we start.”

Her arms went around his neck almost of their own accord; he lowered his head and their mouths met. It was the sweet, sensuous kiss she’d been able to block out of her waking hours but unable to ban from her dreams. There was tenderness in the kiss and a little regret, passion, and a bit of pain. But most of all there was love.

When it ended he pressed his cheek against her hair, hugged her, then said, “Know what I missed? The smell of your hair. I love the smell of your hair.”

“I missed you, too. You’re why I rearranged the furniture. I couldn’t stand to be here seeing you everywhere. That’s part of the reason I stayed in Tacoma so long.”

He stroked her face. “I have a slide show on my computer of some of the photos I took of you. Some days I’d look at them over and over. Other days, I couldn’t even turn the damn thing on for fear I’d see you.”

She touched his face. “I’ve looked and looked but I can’t see a scar anyplace on your face. When you left the mountain, it looked like you were bleeding from everywhere.”

“Mostly from a broken nose, apparently, and a couple of cuts. I guess the blood splattered everyplace else. The docs straightened my broken nose so it doesn’t show, although I did have an amazing pair of black eyes for a while.” He took her hand and ran her forefinger along the bridge of his nose so she could feel the small bump, the only residual of the break.

“No broken ribs? No internal injuries?”

“Fortunately, contrary to my stereotype of skinheads, they didn’t wear hobnail boots. Their athletic shoes didn’t do more than give me bruises.”

“Really?”

“Really. I never got in a schoolyard fight when I was a kid but now, thanks to those guys, I can cross it off my bucket list.”

“It’s not funny, Nick.”

“It wasn’t then. It is now.”

“I thought Amanda was being kind when she left those messages saying you weren’t really hurt. I thought she was just trying to get me to go see you.”

“And you didn’t because…?”

“I was humiliated by the scene we’d created, angry at Sam yelling at me, angry at myself because I was convinced Sam was right, sure you’d never love me because of it.”

“And my multiple phone calls, texts, and emails didn’t convince you I did?”

“I told you, I haven’t been too happy living with the idea I was getting my story by having the man I loved beat up.”

“Would you feel better about it if we rewrote what happened? How about—I was your champion going up against the evil knights?”

She laughed for the first time since she’d found him on her doorstep. “I’d have to send that story back for rewrites. ‘Champion?’ ‘Evil knights?’ Pretty cliché, don’t you think?”

“Ouch. You’re not a kind editor, are you?” He kissed her lightly and she ran her finger over his lips. “Speaking of my mouth…”

“What about it?”

“A while ago, you started to say something about my mouth. What was it?” He was smiling at her, knowing, she was sure, exactly what it was about. So she put her hand on the back of his neck and brought his mouth back to hers in another kiss.

“I’m not sure I get it,” he said.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to keep doing this,” she kissed him lightly, “until you do.”

“Have I ever told you what a slow learner I am?”

Nick and Fiona’s story is the last in the six-book Second Chances series. It’s not easy for me to say good-bye to characters—
people
—I’ve lived with for four years, but they want to get on with their lives now that they found Happily-Ever-After. In case there’s some curiosity about what happened to the six couples after I wrote “The End” to each of their love stories, here’s what I know about how they made out.

Liz and Collins (
Beginning Again
) haven’t gotten around to getting married. There is some doubt they ever will. But they share a home in SW Portland, overlooking the Willamette River where they entertain on a regular basis, throwing dinner parties everyone wants to be invited to. Liz’s gallery is one of the top five in the city and Collins has more demand for his sculptures than he has time to create them. He’s moving his studio from the Wallowa Mountains to the Willamette Valley so he doesn’t have to be away from Liz two weeks out of every month. Liz gave up her motto “I never do anything twice” when she ran out of things to add to Collins’s to-do list.

Not much has changed for Sam and Amanda (
Loving Again
) They still live in the house in Alameda. Sam’s still a Portland homicide detective. Amanda’s still one of the most highly regarded glass artists in the region. Only the kids have changed. Sam’s older son is looking forward to college in a couple years, which, Sam was stunned to discover, Amanda’s trust will pay for. Even though she’s still in grade school, Sam and Amanda’s daughter, Kat, is a very fine horsewoman. They’re all going to Italy this summer where Amanda will be visiting faculty at a prestigious glass conference. She’s nervous. Everyone else is counting the days.

For Tony and Margo (
Together Again
) it’s been nothing but change. Tony got his wish—their first-born, who arrived nine months after their much-delayed honeymoon in Hawaii, is named Joseph Salvatore Alessandro. Two years later, baby Grace joined the family. Before either baby arrived, the couple moved off the river to a house in the Hollywood area of Portland with a yard and a good school close by. Tony is now Sam’s partner. Margo’s being groomed to run for DA when Jeff Wyatt retires, which will be just about the time both kids are in school. She still misses Kiki, who went to California to go to law school and has never come home.

A year after Cynthia and Marius (
Trusting Again
) had their daughter, Rose, they planned one more baby. But they got surprised a second time and had twin boys they named Lucas and Martin. With Marius’s beautiful home now overflowing with kids, they went house hunting. The first house they were shown had an existing artist’s studio on the property, perfect for Cynthia. They snapped it up. She’s represented by a dozen high-end galleries on the West Coast. Thanks to Marius’s family in Florida, her work’s in resort shops there, too. The coffee business continues to thrive for Marius. He still doesn’t buy for Starbucks, but he’s the broker for just about everyone else.

Danny and Jake (
Believing Again
) joined the parenthood club with a daughter, Rachel, and a son, Aaron. To her surprise, Danny discovered she wanted to be home with her kids when they were little so she left the Police Bureau. Jake’s PTSD is under better control than ever and his thoracic surgery practice is thriving. Both he and Danny volunteer at the Veterans’ Medical Services Clinic. Since Danny has been there, the number of women vets coming in for help has tripled. She’s taking classes at Portland State so she can be a better counselor and may just end up with her master’s in social work.

Nick was partly right about Fiona (
Falling Again
). She was a finalist for a Pulitzer for her White Knight stories, although she didn’t win. She took the job in Seattle where she and Nick bought a great condo in Belltown.
Trending Stories
, the website she works for, is one of the top news sources on the web, thanks partly to her reporting. Now the proud owner of a passport, Fiona goes with Nick on some of his assignments, the ones where there’s no danger of being shot at. He has a book featuring his work coming out in the next year as well as a second joint exhibit with Amanda. One of these days, they’ll get around to having a kid.

Portland Police Detective Danny Hartmann didn’t try to hide her surprise at what she was seeing under the east end of the Hawthorne Bridge, one of the eight that span the Willamette River, linking the two sides of Portland, Oregon. It wasn’t the dead body that startled her. If the dead man hadn’t been there, she’d still be at home, asleep. What she didn’t expect was what else was there — a small, well-hidden city of makeshift shelters and camping tents, inhabited by a population of men sleeping in the cold fall rain that was practically a daily event.

“I thought all the people from these homeless camps had been moved indoors.” She looked around and tried to make a quick count. “There must be, maybe, a dozen and half people living here.”

“Seventeen, to be precise,” Doctor Jake Abrams responded. “And, yes, some people were moved indoors a couple weeks ago when your colleagues came through and shut down the camps after some ass-hat business owner complained. But the number of people who need a place to stay is always bigger than the number of spaces available.”

Abrams had made the 911 call that brought the uniformed cops, crime scene techs, and two homicide detectives to the transient camp. “The camps reappear under another bridge as soon as the cops leave,” he said. “The current iteration has been in existence for about ten days. I’m surprised you haven’t had a complaint about it already.”

“Sorry,” Danny said. Other than as a reaction to the anger in the doctor’s voice, she wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. “I wasn’t aware the Portland Police Bureau was responsible for creating this.” She waved her arms to take in the whole transient city.

“Okay, Doc, let’s go take a look.” Danny’s partner, Detective Sam Richardson, ambled over after talking to the two uniforms who’d responded to the emergency call.

Thank God, Danny thought. Someone to change the subject and shut this jerk up. She hoped her disgust wasn’t too evident.

“He’s … The body’s over there,” Abrams said, pointing to a shelter set apart from the rest of the camp. “I found him about six A.M., when I came to make rounds.” Leading the two detectives toward what looked like an old plastic drop cloth over some sort of cardboard frame, he continued, “At first, when he didn’t respond, I thought he was sleeping off a night of drinking. But then I saw this.” They’d reached the structure surrounded by yellow crime scene tape, and he pointed to a series of holes low to the ground on one side that Danny immediately knew were bullet holes. “And when I looked inside, I saw he’d been hit several times in the head and neck and bled out.”

“So you knew the man?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, his name is … was … Jim Branson. He’s an Army vet. Served almost twelve years. Couple tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. Returned stateside about eight or nine months ago after he was wounded and discharged. I met him a couple months after that. Patched him up after a brawl. He had PTSD — post traumatic stress disorder — and … ”