And I knew.

I knew.

I knew. I knew. I knew.

“Hang on! ” I shrieked then I was up, arms tight around me, one at my chest, one at my bel y and I struggled against the hold as they lifted Preston lifeless body onto a gurney.

“Hang on! ” I screeched.

They strapped him in.

“Hang on! ” I screamed.

They pul ed the gurney up to its ful height and wasted not a second in rushing it in a rol across the lawn, the drive and into the ambulance.

“Please hang on,” I whispered, the fight left me, oozing out and my body went slack in the arms surrounding me.

When it did, those arms turned me. I looked up at Wil ie Moses just as his hand curled around the back of my head and he shoved my face in his throat.

I again burst into tears, my legs col apsing from under me as the weight of knowing a man might have lost his life to save mine settled on me, the weight heavy, crushing and Wil ie’s arms got tighter.

“Find Mace,” I felt as wel as heard Wil ie order. “Now.” Then, into the top of my hair, he whispered, “Hang on, honey.”

I felt Juno’s body press against the side of my legs and somehow found the strength to lift up my hands, curl them in Wil ie’s shirt and hang on.

* * * * *

Mace

Mace slid the dark, heavy hair off Stel a’s neck, eyes locked to her sleeping profile.

Then he pul ed in breath.

Then his hand moved from his woman to her dog, he slid his fingers through the fur on Juno’s head and he whispered, “Stay with her.”

Juno blinked up at him then shuffled on her bel y closer to Stel a.

Mace straightened from sitting on the side of the bed in one of Daisy’s guest rooms; he switched out the light and walked out the door.

He was nearly to the stairs when Daisy made it up them.

She stopped as did he.

Her blue eyes captured his, her head tipped to the side then her hand came up. She rested it gently on his jaw and pressed lightly as her eyes held his and she let them and her hand communicate for her.

Her hand and her eyes had a lot to say, they didn’t waste time and al of it was beautiful.

She dropped her hand and whispered, “Your Momma and Chloe are in the great room.”

Then without waiting for a response, she skirted him and walked down the hal without looking back.

Mace watched her while he thought, not for the first time, that Daisy Sloan was a good woman.

Then he walked down to Daisy and Marcus’s great room where Chloe was sitting on a sofa staring vacantly into the dark, unlit fireplace and his Mom was standing at a window staring vacantly into the dark night. They were in their own thoughts, not pleasant ones, as they wouldn’t be. An attraction, a bad decision, giving their heart to the wrong man and then no end to heartache.

And now closure but not the right kind.

The instant he entered, Chloe’s neck twisted, her eyes shot to him and she asked, “How is she?”

His Mom turned from the window as Mace answered,

“Out.”

“She take the pil s?” Lana asked.

Mace nodded, stopped and sat on the armrest of the couch.

He was wiped, f**king shattered. He felt like he could sleep for a goddamned week. He not only felt like it, he wanted to do it.

But he wanted to do it somewhere where there was a beach right outside his room, Stel a in his bed and no one around for miles.

Lana moved toward him saying, “She’l be okay, sweetie.”

He knew that. He knew it.

He knew it because, if Stel a didn’t wake up that way, he’d make her that way even if it took a lifetime.

Lana stopped two feet in front of him and looked down at him.

Then, softly, she asked, “Okay, now, are you okay?”

“He died for her,” Mace replied bluntly and Lana drew in breath through her nose as he felt Chloe tense down the couch from him.

“Why the f**k would he throw himself in front of a bul et to save Stel a and he wouldn’t –

?” Mace started and Lana moved.

Closing the distance between him, her palm came to his cheek, fingers curled around his jaw forcing his face to look up at hers.

Jesus, he missed her touch.

Jesus.

He should have f**king remembered his Mom could soothe a hurt just with her touch.

He didn’t remember.

Jesus.

“You’l never find answers to your questions, Kai,” she said softly and it hit him, not for the first time in the last few days, how f**king much he also missed her voice. She could soothe with that too. Effortlessly. “So please, sweetie, please, right now, with me and Chloe, let them go. He did what he did and it’s done. Your beautiful girl is upstairs sleeping. You caught that Carter man and even if he wasn’t going down before, you caught him with his rifle so he’l go down for what he did to your father. It’s done. Your father is gone but his death is avenged. Life goes on. Live it. Enjoy every minute of it and let this go.”

The minute his father shouted “sniper”, Mace knew just how desperate Carter was, not for freedom, for vengeance.

Sidney Carter was a trained sniper. The first Iraq war. It wasn’t something they didn’t know, he’d just stopped doing his own dirty work a decade before.

But instead of going down like a man, he decided to do his own dirty work, the stupid, sick, demented f**king f**k.

But what his mother said was true. Carter was already going down but now there was no way Carter wouldn’t stay down.

down.

Mace thought his thoughts, drew in breath and stared into his mother’s eyes and, not for the first time in the last few days or in the last seven years, he realized how much he missed them and as he did this, he felt his hand taken in Chloe’s.

Lana’s hand dropped to his shoulder as he looked to Chloe.

“We love her,” Chloe whispered, changing the subject and changing it to Stel a. “She’s perfect for you.” She was not wrong.

“Total y,” Lana muttered and Mace looked back up at his Mom.

“She’s beautiful, she’s talented,” Chloe went on and Mace turned his gaze to her to see her face soft. “And she looks at you like you turn on the sun in the morning and switch it off at night.”

“Total y,” Lana repeated on another mutter and Mace felt his lips twitch.

“Tiny would absolutely adore her,” Chloe went on, Mace’s lips stopped twitching and Mace saw her turn to Lana. “Wouldn’t she, honey?”

“Oh yeah, heck yeah,” Lana answered and Mace’s eyes went back to his Mom just in time to watch her say, “Tiny thought you turned on the sun in the morning and switched it off at night too. She’d definitely adore Stel a. Two peas in a pod, the way they love you. Two peas in a pod.” Mace sucked in breath. He did this to fight the burn that threatened to consume his chest.