Page 82 of The Lovely and the Lost

Most people did—especially those with devil-may-care grins, who liked winning and taking risks and lived in a dangerous world.

“What scar?”

My heart jarred my rib cage with every beat. Gabriel was nearly behind Ness now. I couldn’t let her turn around. I couldn’t let her take her eyes off of me. So I thought back—to the picture in Cady’s old room, to the one Ness had left in the envelope when she’d taken Jude.

I pictured John Ashby in my mind. I pictured his face.

“Here,” I said, raising my hand and sliding it down my jaw and across my chin. “The man I saw in the woods—the man who saved me—he had a scarhere.”

Ness’s body seemed to give out beneath her. The gun dipped, and Gabriel lunged, grabbing the barrel with both hands. An instant before Ness collapsed to the ground, Cady lost her hold on Saskia.

I heard my girl go for Ness. I saw it in slow motion—and then I saw Bales. Had he been waiting outside? Had he just found us? He threw himself in front of Ness, and Saskia’s teeth sank intohisarm.

“Bales.” Ness choked out his name. Cady called for her father. I threw myself forward, getting a hold on Saskia the way Bales Bennett had held me in the sheriff’s office. I whispered to her.

“I’m here. I’m okay. Saskia. You’re Saskia. I’m Kira. I’m here.”

As Saskia turned toward me, her whole body shaking as she attempted to burrow into mine, Bales sank to the ground, where Ness was still saying his name, over and over again.

“FBI is incoming.” Bales kept his tone gentle enough that I could barely push air in and out of my chest. “Ness,” he said softly. “Nessie.”

The glassy look in Ness’s eyes disappeared as she turned toward Bales. “I wouldn’t have hurt them.”

I didn’t believe that. Maybe Bales did. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, he let his arms curve around her. “I know.”

Ness Ashby turned herself in to the FBI. I expected Cady to have us packed and on the road the moment we’d finished giving our statements, but this time, she didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. Pandora’s box had been opened inside that ancient sequoia, and not even one of the most stubborn women I knew could close it.

“Which tie says ‘Congratulations, it’s a boy, I have completely accepted the fact that my father is not, in fact, an astronaut’?” Jude held up two nearly identical bow ties for my inspection. He was preparing to spend the day with Mac—clearly a bow tie occasion.

“The one on the left,” I deadpanned.

Jude smiled beatifically. For someone who’d been kidnapped less than twenty-four hours earlier, he’d bounced back quickly.

“So,” I said. “You and Mac.”

“I clearly inherited his manly physique.”

“Jude.” I gave him a look.

“I don’t know what to say, Kira mine. The man is responsible for half my DNA. He seems like a good guy. Broad shoulders, steady in a crisis, likes dogs…”

“He would have been there,” I said quietly. “If Cady had let him, if she’d told him about you—”

“Mom loves us.” Jude stopped messing with the tie. “More than anything, Kira. She would have taken a bullet for me yesterday. Given your newfound proclivity for bluffing gun-toting little old women, I can only conclude that she might still end up taking one for you someday.”

Jude wasn’t the type to get bogged down inifs. He loved me. He loved Cady. Cady and I loved each other. For Jude, it really was that simple.

I swallowed. “I’m sorry.” Those weren’t words I’d ever really understood. They weren’t words I’d had much—if any—practice saying. “About yesterday. The things I said to you. The way I said them.”

“You’re allowed to have feelings, Kira. In fact”—Jude tweaked the end of my ponytail—“I think it’s a good thing. Before you know it, you’ll be holding a boom box overyourhead, professing your love for—”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Changing the subject now!” Jude declared. “Is it me, or does surviving a kidnapping really bring out my cheekbones?”

* * *

I spent the afternoon with Free, out at the tree where I’d buried Silver. She made me tell her about finding Silver, about wrapping her body in the sheet, about digging the grave. We cried, both of us—ugly-cried, with a side of hating the world and loving the ones still with us even harder.