The Wreck (39 page)

“Are we really married or was yesterday a
dream?”

“Married, pregnant, the whole nine
yards.”

She reached for his hand to study his
new—plain white gold—ring. “It’s a dream come true.”

“Even the vomiting?” he asked with a
chuckle.

Running her fingers gently over the
bandage on his wrist, she said, “I’d rather be sick for ninety straight days
than spend one more minute of my life wishing for all the things I have now.”

He brushed his lips over her curls.

“I meant to tell you,” she said. “It was
nice of you to apologize to Luke and invite him to the wedding.”

Brian shrugged. “When I’m wrong, I say
so. He was a good friend to you when I wasn’t here.”

“Yes, he was.”

The TV in the gate area was tuned to one
of the network news programs, which had run nonstop coverage of the events in
Granville over the last week. Carly and Brian watched, transfixed, as a
broken-looking Matt Collins was led into his arraignment wearing an orange
jumpsuit, a bulletproof vest, leg chains, and handcuffs.

Eventually, they would have to testify
against him. But the trial was months away, and they had agreed not to spend
their time thinking about him or the realization that the only reason he had
told them everything he did was because he’d planned to kill them and skip
town.

“I look at him, even all these days
later, and I still can’t believe it,” Brian said, his eyes fixed on the
television. “That my brother is dead because of him.”

“I wonder if your dad will ever be able
to get past it.”

“He was telling me how Matt went out of
his way during the investigation to ‘discover’ things about the perp that made
them all sick—like his need for respect from his victims, for one thing. With
hindsight, Dad can see he was showing off—he wanted them to know why he killed
some of them and let the others live. He wanted to be sure they knew he did
that carjacking, too.”

Carly shuddered. She had trembled for
three full days after the encounter with Matt. When she thought about what
those other poor girls had withstood at his hands… Well, it was better not to
think about it, because when she did, the trembling returned.

“It’s a bitter pill for Dad to swallow,
that’s for sure. All those years he spent working with and confiding in a
psychopath. Oh, look, there he is now.”

Michael appeared on the courthouse steps,
still wearing a sling over his left arm.

The reporters chased him down, and he
stopped to answer a few of their questions.

Carly winced when she saw the chief’s
face pinched with pain that she knew was both physical and emotional. “I still
can’t believe I didn’t do something with Matt’s gun when I had the chance,” she
said.

“Are you
serious
? You were like
freaking Wonder Woman in there. Don’t obsess about the gun, honey. He got off a
lucky shot, considering he was still blinded by the pepper spray and fired
erratically. We’re lucky he didn’t take Dad’s head off.”

“I just keep seeing it over and over
again, the blood on your dad’s back…” She shook her head to clear her mind of
yet another image that would haunt her forever. “All I could think about in
that moment was what am I going to do if we got through this nightmare only to
lose him?”

“Fortunately, we don’t have to think
about any of it for a while. We can focus on each other, our baby, our new
house, my new job.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Carly smiled with
contentment. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned recently that Carly Westbury loves
Brian Westbury.”

“And you said it wouldn’t roll off the
tongue as easily as the earlier version. I have to say I disagree.”

She laughed, and when she looked up, an
older heavyset woman sitting across from them smiled at her. The woman wore a
bright red Hawaiian shirt.

“You two are so cute,” she said. “You
have
to be newlyweds.”

Carly cringed as she lifted her head off
Brian’s shoulder. “Are we that obvious?”

The woman clapped her hands with delight.
“I knew it! Tell me everything. How did you meet?”

“We, um, we went to high school
together,” Brian said.

“Oh, that’s so wonderful, and now here
you are, back together and married.” She nudged her husband, who pretended to
be bored by the whole thing. “Isn’t that something, Lou?”

He grunted in agreement.

“Let me guess: You met up again at a
reunion, and all the old sparks were still there. Am I right?”

Carly smiled as she looked up at her
handsome husband. “Yes,” she said. “That’s exactly how it happened.”

About the
Author

Marie Force
is the author of FATAL
AFFAIR (June 2010) and FATAL JUSTICE (Jan. 2011), Books 1 and 2 in her new
Fatal Series from Harlequin’s Carina Press. Book 3, FATAL CONSEQUENCES, is coming
July 28, 2011, FATAL DESTINY, the Fatal Wedding Novella, is free to readers on
September 5, 2011 and Book 4, FATAL FLAW, is out in February 2012. “This novel
is ‘The O.C. does D.C.,’ and you just can’t get enough.” (
RT Book Reviews
,
4.5 stars for FATAL AFFAIR). In its July 2010 issue,
RT Book Reviews
named Marie a “Future Star of Romantic Suspense.”

Marie is the
author EVERYONE LOVES A HERO (Feb. 2011),
LINE OF
SCRIMMAGE
(Sept. 2008) and
LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT (July 2009)
. Of
LINE OF SCRIMMAGE
, Booklist said, “With its humor and endearing characters,
Force’s charming novel will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers, reaching far
beyond sports fans.” Wild on Books said, “
LOVE AT
FIRST FLIGHT
by Marie Force is most definitely a keeper. It is an astounding book. I loved
every single word!” Marie is also the author of TRUE NORTH, THE FALL and THE
WRECK, available as e-books via Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and
Smashwords.com.

Since 1996, Marie has been
the communications director for a national organization similar to RWA. She is
a member of RWA’s New England, From the Heart and Published Author Special
Interest Chapters.

While her husband was in the
Navy, Marie lived in Spain, Maryland and Florida, and she is now settled in her
home state of Rhode Island. She is the mother of two kids and a feisty dog
named Brandy.

Find
her at
www.mariesullivanforce.com
,
on her blog at
http://mariesullivanforce.blogspot.com
,
where she runs the popular weekly Romance & Oreos Book Club, on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/pages/Marie-Force/248130827909
,
and on Twitter at twitter.com/MarieForce. Marie loves to hear from readers.
Contact her at
[email protected]
.