Until You (The Redemption, #1)(85)

And of course, I’m missing Crew and the girls. Their laughter. His quiet presence beside me. The waking up and going to bed, knowing he’s near.

But I’ll take the suffering so long as they’re safe.

I’ll own the guilt knowing how badly I’ve hurt them because by hurting them, their decision to head back to Chicago was easier. Back to their old life, back to before me.

The pang never dulls.

But this is for the best.

I have to keep telling myself that so I can put one foot in front of the other instead of running back to be with them.

And part of that keeping one foot in front of the other is moving every few days to a new place to explore, a new place to fall in love with.

New Hamish is the town of choice today with its farmers market that runs almost a mile long through its historical district.

The brochures didn’t disappoint. The bright flowers and savory scent of food are enough to dull my loneliness for now.

When I go back to my hotel later tonight, that’s a different story.

I turn from a stall of oversized sunflowers when a stranger bumps firmly into my shoulder.

“Hey,” I yelp in reaction, spinning around to glare at the jerk.

I’m met with a pair of eyes I know on a face that’s changed some. The hair is a bit lighter, the nose cosmetically altered, and there’s a goatee when there never used to be one.

But it doesn’t matter.

I’d know that face anywhere because he’s the man who saved me.

The man I thought was dead beneath a sheet on a stretcher.

We stand in the middle of the walkway with people passing all around us, but I can’t take my eyes off him. Off Agent Tom Halston. He gives me the subtlest of nods and the slightest of smiles as one would a stranger. And before I can speak or act or even process who I’m seeing, Agent Halston turns on his heel and disappears back into the crowd he must have come from.

I want to run after him. To shout questions to answers he can’t probably give. To tell him how glad I am he’s alive.

But I don’t.

Can’t.

And when I get to my car minutes later and go to reach for my keys, I find an envelope there when there wasn’t one before. My fingers can’t open it fast enough.



TIt was time for my demise. You can only push your luck for so long, and I feared mine was running out. Yes, we publicly blamed it on him just as your death was blamed on me. All loose ends were tied up.

Please know you’re still safe. You always have been. K never doubted your fate once. He trusted that I took care of it, and that trust never wavered.

Have a nice life.

You deserve it so very much.

-R



Tears blur my vision as I read and reread the note. As every part of me sinks into the knowledge of something I never thought I would feel again.

I’m safe.

How did he know that’s what I needed to hear?

Maybe because just like he knew how to take care of me before, he’s still taking care of me now.

One day you’ll wake up and suddenly realize that you really are Tennyson West.

Is this that day Peter told me would happen? That I’d finally feel more like Tennyson than Tessa?

I want that future, that reality, and I can finally feel that it’s a possibility.

I’m ready to be Tennyson West. To let go of the fear that has ruled me and to step into this new life of mine wholeheartedly.

It’s time to go home.





CHAPTER FIFTY


Tennyson




I slow the Jeep to a stop as I come to the drive.

The driveway that used to be dirt but that is now paved in fresh asphalt.

“What the . . .”

I drove all night to get back home. The plan was to get here, to drop off Hani with the pet sitter, and then to beg and grovel with Crew over the phone until he agrees to let me fly out to Chicago and make it up to him.

To figure out how we can make this work.

Because that’s all I want right now is to make it work.

But the driveway is paved.

I turn onto it and drive super slow as if I’m going to damage the fresh asphalt. But instead of pulling into the cottage, curiosity has me driving past it.

Each foot feels like a mile.

To the big oak tree.

I’m almost afraid to look. Almost hopeful what this paved road might mean.

I startle when a truck turns the bend in the drive, right in front of me. But it’s not Crew’s truck. It’s not his tattooed arm resting on the open window.

It’s not Crew.

My heart sinks into my stomach.

He’s gone.

The house was sold.

Crew’s back in Chicago. The girls are back—

“Ma’am,” the man says out of his rolled-down window as he pulls up to a stop beside me. If he had a hat on, I swear he’d tip it at me. But I don’t want to see him here on Crew’s driveway. I don’t want to talk to him in a truck that Crew should be in. I don’t want to see his arm hanging out of his window with a hint of tattoos beneath his shirt because it reminds me too much of my first glimpses of a man I ran away from.

“Are you the new owner?”

He chuckles, and its deep tenor rumbles louder than the engine of his truck. “Owner? No. I work here. Name’s Rhys. Rhys Palmer.”