Murder in the City: Blue Lights (20 page)
Read Murder in the City: Blue Lights Online
Authors: Clare Tatum
He looked down into her eyes. “Everything about you draws me in. We need to get to know each other more. But, my gut instinct, the instinct about people that I inherited from my dad tells me that you’re the one. You’re the woman I’m supposed to spend the next forty or fifty years loving.”
She gasped at the word
loving
. Such a big word, representing a sentiment that could cause so much pain and disappointment in life. But, that also, could bring the most wonderful emotions—feelings that could illuminate every day with joy.
She leaned into his chest, hearing his heart beating beneath his shirt. It was the biggest heart she’d ever known.
Suddenly, she knew she couldn’t hold back anything from him. She might lose him one day as she’d lost her parents.
She realized now that fear was why she’d pulled back from romance any time anyone had shown too much of an interest in her in the last four years. She hadn’t held back from getting heavily involved with someone because of her job or even because of her responsibility for Julie. As she’d told herself.
She’d held back because she could. Until now, when Detective Mark Brice had come along with this powerful pull toward the precipice of falling in love. She’d never imagine this overwhelming irresistible need. It was a draw that went beyond logic, beyond something she could explain in words.
She wanted to go toward the edge of the cliff, to fall with Detective Mark Brice into a lifetime of love.
Her parents had lived a life filled with so much love. If she didn’t embrace the love she’d found with Brice, she would have lived a life very much diminished in comparison with the one her parents had lived.
“I love you, Lainey.”
She gasped, feeling the air leaving her lungs, as if sucked toward the force of nature that was Detective Mark Brice. She pulled back to look into his eyes. “You love me?”
He nodded. “I tried to fight it because I didn’t want to risk feeling the emotions I felt when I lost Maddie and Jennifer. But love like this is worth the risk of getting the hell kicked out of your heart.”
Tears of happiness flooded her eyes. She smiled softly through the haze of tears.
“Love like this is what living’s all about,” he murmured close to her face.
She nodded just before his mouth closed on hers in a compact of love. In a defiant push back against all the bad things that could happen in life, they chose to embrace all the possibility for goodness.
They chose love.
The End
Murder in the City
Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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