Lover's Leap (28 page)

EPILOGUE

“It’s not that cold, Sarah,” Cam said. “Really.”

“That’s a bald-faced lie,” Sarah fired back, eyeing the sapphire surface of the lake with trepidation. “I fell in at the Fourth of July picnic, remember? And that was near shore, where the water was shallow and warmer.”

She lifted a pleading look toward Cam. “Can’t this wait until we’re in Tahiti, where the water is warm?”

“Nope.” The blasted man’s grin was amused and merciless. “We’re doing this certification by the book. If you want to dive the Great Barrier Reef with me, sugar, then you need to hit the water.”

Sarah scowled at him. “You’re just making me do this because I’ve cut you off until after the wedding.”

“I’ll admit I find the cold water helpful, under the circumstances.”

She stared at the water, aware like never before of just how deep eighty-five feet actually was. She filled her cheeks with air, then blew out a puff of breath and admitted, “I’m a little scared.”

He gently cupped her cheek and turned her face toward him. He studied her intently for a long moment, then spoke with quiet sincerity: “No, you’re not scared, Sarah. Nervous, maybe, but not afraid.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, Ms. Reese, you are fearless. You have more heart than any person I have ever met. I am in awe of your strength and courage and determination. I am so proud of the woman you’ve become. I love you. I can’t wait to leap into the future with you at my side.”

Then he smiled at her, his green mountain eyes warm with love, and held out his hand. “Ready?”

A warm wave of love rolled through Sarah, chasing away the lingering chill of two decades of loneliness. When he looked at her like that, she’d follow him anywhere. “More than ready.”

“Me, too.”

After positioning their masks and mouthpieces, Sarah and Cam leapt like lunatics into icy Hummingbird Lake and a future filled with boundless love and spine-tingling adventure—both in bed and out.

Dear Reader,

   I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to Eternity Springs with Sarah and Cam, and that their story touched your heart!

Writers are told to write what they know, and since family and friends are so important to me, they are invariably central to the themes in my books. In
Lover’s Leap
, Sarah’s struggle with her mother’s Alzheimer’s disease is especially personal to me due to my own mother’s illness. While the story is fictional, I want readers to know that the nonprofit showcased at Eternity Springs’s summer quilt festival is quite real.

The Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) is a national charity devoted to raising awareness and funding research through art. It turns small-format art quilts donated by its supporters into research dollars through online auctions and sales. The AAQI also sponsors a nationally touring exhibition of quilts,
Alzheimer’s Illustrated: From Heartbreak to Hope
. The all-volunteer effort has raised more than $550,000 for Alzheimer’s research since it was founded in 2006, and all profits fund Alzheimer’s research. Visit their website at
www.AlzQuilts.org
.

Next up is Jack Davenport’s story,
Nightingale’s Way
, coming this fall. I invite you to sign up for my email newsletter at
www.emilymarch.com
for news, contests, and other fun stuff. You can also find me on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/emilymarchbooks
and follow me on Twitter
@emilymarchbooks
.

Finally, I want to thank you, readers, for your enthusiastic response to my Eternity Springs series. It’s truly been rewarding. Knowing that you love Eternity Springs as much as I do makes sitting down to write each day a joy.

Happy reading,
Emily             

F
OR
N
IC
B
URNHAM
.

Thanks for everything.
I am blessed to have
you as a friend.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My most sincere thanks to the entire team at Ballantine for the tremendous job they’ve done in support of the Eternity Springs series. Libby McGuire, Gina Wachtel, Scott Shannon, Linda Marrow, Lynn Andreozzi and the art department, Janet Wygal and the production department, and my fabulous editor, Kate Collins, and her assistant, Junessa Viloria—you guys rock.

Thanks also to my creative team—my friends and fellow writers Mary Dickerson, Christina Dodd, Lisa Kleypas, Nic Burnham, Susan Sizemore, Connie Brockway, Teresa Medeiros—for their help with brainstorming, plotting, editing, hand-holding, cheering, and support. I am forever in your debt.

Finally, thanks and love to my family—my sister, Mary Lou, for stepping up and doing her share and mine at the Wellington when I have to work; my niece, Molly, my talented marketing assistant; Steven, Amanda, John, and Caitlin for their love and support. And, as always, my love and thanks to Steve, for giving me the gift of love and family that gives me the ability to “write what I know.”

A
LSO BY
E
MILY
M
ARCH

Angel’s Rest
Hummingbird Lake
Heartache Falls

Read on for a preview of
Emily March’s next novel
in her Eternity Springs series:

Nightingale Way

“She calls that security?” Jack Davenport muttered with disgust, watching as the idiot wearing a shoulder holster flashed Cat Blackburn a smarmy grin.

Jack sat in a car three houses down from Cat’s in a quiet suburban neighborhood where a stranger sitting in an unfamiliar vehicle should send up all kinds of alarms. The pretty-boy bodyguard hadn’t noticed him. He wasn’t watching the street or surveying the surroundings. Jack had followed Cat and her escort from her home to the grocery store, then to the dog groomer, and back home again. The fool never looked at him twice. He was too busy checking out Cat’s chest and ogling her ass.

Jack wanted to shoot him on principle. He seriously considered breaking bones—a leg would be good—in order to demonstrate to the incompetent imbecile that a career move was in order. Doing so would be a public service.

The sound of Cat’s laughter drifted to Jack’s ears and he set his teeth. She wore a flirty yellow sundress, strappy heeled sandals, and sunglasses with rhinestones on the frame. She carried a designer dog tote filled with a puffball of four-legged fur. Cat’s wavy red hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she looked more like a co-ed than a woman in her mid-thirties who paid no more attention to her surroundings than did her sorry excuse for security.

He had thought the woman had more sense than this, but maybe not, since she’d managed to stir up a hornets’ nest of trouble with her exposé about dog fighters. Some jack-wagon had left a pipe bomb on her porch the day before yesterday. Her response was to hire protection who was more bodybuilder than bodyguard.

As much as he wanted to teach the guy a lesson, Jack knew he had to restrain the urge. The operation needed to be slick and quick. Better he stick to his original plan.

When the security guy reached up and playfully tugged Cat’s ponytail, Jack reconsidered. Maybe one well-placed kick wouldn’t hurt anything.

He checked the rearview mirror, then the side views. Clear. He started his car and pulled away from the curb. He realized with a touch of chagrin that his pulse pounded in a way that it rarely had on missions. Honesty made him admit that he worried more about dealing with Cat than he ever did about dying on a job.

He was less than two car lengths away before Bodyguard Ken pulled his gaze away from Ponytail Barbie and spared him half a glance. No, make that a quarter glance. The little Cooper Jack was driving didn’t threaten the man at all. “Idiot,” he muttered as he braked and steered the car toward the curb.

It took only seconds. In a smooth, practiced, lightning-quick motion, he put down the pretty boy and pulled Cat and her pet carrier into his car. He had the dog stored safely in the backseat and Cat secured and silenced with duct tape in the front before she emerged enough from shock to resist.

“Don’t be afraid,” he told her as he pulled away from the curb. “I’m here to help you, not hurt you.”

At the sound of his voice, she froze.

Though he concentrated on driving, Jack remained intensely aware of the woman seated next to him. She no longer looked like Co-ed Barbie. This Cat was mature, a sleek, wary mountain cat on alert and assessing danger. Damn, she was beautiful.

He took a corner a bit too sharply and she fell against him. Jack felt the heat of her like a brand. The car was too small, his memories too big. She lurched away from him and Jack didn’t try to hide the bite in his voice as he said, “We’ll change cars in the mall parking garage. We want the cameras to see us. I’ll take off the duct tape after that.”

Thankfully, the garage in question was less than a mile from the spot of the snatch. He felt like he was driving with his knees up around his ears in the cramped car. But the Cooper had been necessary, part of the on-the-fly disguise he’d developed. This particular grab was all about misdirection, hence the bright orange Baltimore Orioles jersey and ball cap, the wraparound sunglasses, and the ridiculous hoop earring designed to catch any observer’s attention and keep them from looking closely at his face.

He sensed Cat’s attention on the earring now. He glanced her way. She’d gone white as a sheet, and Jack felt a twinge of guilt. He’d told her she need not be afraid. Why wouldn’t she ever listen to him? “Believe it or not, I’m still one of the good guys, Catherine.”

This time, anyway
.

In response, she shut her eyes and slumped back into her seat. He said nothing more until he’d parked the Cooper in the garage next to a sedate black sedan. “Someone will check the security tapes, so I’ll be playing for the cameras. Hang in there. This part will be over shortly.”

He moved her dog from one car to the other. Walking to the passenger side of the Cooper, he opened the door and said, “Feel free to struggle.”

Had this been a true abduction, he’d have carried her to the sedan. In fact, that had been his original intention today. But now that the time had come to hold her close, he found he didn’t want to do it. He wasn’t ready for the intimacy, and that particular fact annoyed him. He yanked his knife from his pocket, then slashed the duct tape binding her ankles.

He dragged her from the car a little more roughly than was probably necessary, then excused himself because, after all, this needed to look real.

She made it look real, all right. As he tugged her around the back of the Cooper toward the sedan, the woman twisted in his grip, as slippery as an eel. Her eyes flashed. She made a growling noise in her throat.

Then she kneed him in the junk. Hard. Pain radiated through him and only the force of will kept him from dropping to his knees.

His grip on her arm loosened, and she yanked herself away and took off running. Once he could breathe again, Jack cursed. Once he could move again, he hobbled off after her.

With her long, lovely legs, Cat was fast. Were she not wearing those heeled sandals, she might have gotten away from him. Those shoes were something else Security Guard Ken should have cautioned her against.

He’d almost reached her when he heard an echoing clang at the far end of this level of the parking garage.
Great. Just great
. They had company. This half-minute delay she’d caused could turn costly. It needed to end now.

He gritted his teeth and caught up with her. He scooped her up, threw her over his shoulder, and toted her back in a fireman’s carry to the sedan, where he tossed her inside with a curt, “Stay!”

The duct tape muffled her screech, but the furious glare in her eyes spoke loud and clear.

Jack slammed the passenger door and stalked around to the driver’s side just as a pair of men walked into view. They were both dressed in suits. One toted a briefcase. They carried on a conversation and paid little attention to their surroundings. Jack doubted they’d seen anything, but for safety’s sake when he took his seat, he pulled Cat down out of sight. Her head rested in his lap. Good thing her mouth was still taped because she might have bitten him otherwise. The very thought made his nuts draw up.

He started the car and drove out of the garage slowly and safely. After turning onto the street, he released his hold on her. She yanked herself up and shot him an angry glare.

He glared right back. “Hey, don’t give me that. I said feel free to struggle, not attack. I couldn’t treat you nice after you went ninja on me.”

She narrowed her eyes, her look disdainful and condemning, until she lifted her chin and jerked her head around. She stared out the window and he altered his plan slightly. He’d leave her arms bound and her mouth taped for the time being. Conversation could wait until after they were in the air. He had his plane standing by.

Twenty minutes later, he escorted her and her dog aboard his Citation. Once the door was shut, he braced himself for the explosion promised by the look in her eyes, drew his knife, and sliced the tape that bound her hands. He’d let her remove the tape from her mouth herself. “I sit up front during takeoff. After that, we’ll talk. There’s water there”—he pointed toward a cabinet—“and the head is in back if you’d like to use it before takeoff. Be in your seat, buckled in, in five.”

He was halfway to the cockpit door when her voice stopped him cold. “Who
are
you?”

Jack’s spine snapped straight and he stiffened. Of all the things he’d thought she might say to him, this wasn’t one of them.
Who am I? Who am I! I think about her every damned day of my life and she doesn’t damn well remember me?

Coldly furious, he tossed over his shoulder, “You know, Cat, I don’t recall your being such a bitch when we were married.”

He slammed the cockpit door behind him with a bang.

   Jack Davenport was back.

Cat sat buckled into her seat, a bottle of water clenched tightly in her fist as the plane climbed. She couldn’t believe this was happening. And to think that she’d thought the day before yesterday had been crazy. Having a bomb explode on her front porch should have been the insane moment of the month, but oh no. That was just the beginning.

Now Jack Davenport was back.

She didn’t want to believe it. She never thought she’d see him again. She’d never wanted to see him again.

A little voice whispered in her head,
Liar
.

Okay. Well. Maybe this man wasn’t Jack Davenport. Maybe she hadn’t recognized his voice, recognized the scent of him. Maybe this was all part of a nefarious plot against her and this guy was an imposter, an employee of the powerful senator she’d ruined with her story. After all, this man was bigger than Jack. He outweighed Jack by ten or fifteen pounds. Ten or fifteen pounds of muscle. Jack’s shoulders weren’t that broad. He’d never been fat, but he hadn’t had a six-pack like this guy did, something she couldn’t help but notice when he changed out of that baseball jersey and into a T-shirt on the airport tarmac. Jack certainly hadn’t had scars like she’d seen on this fellow’s chest, either.

Yeah, right. Since when did you start writing fiction? This man is Jack
.

“He can’t be Jack.” She chugged a gulp of water as if it were whiskey. Jack had walked out on her four years ago and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. For all she knew, the real Jack Davenport could be dead. This could be his doppelgänger. Hey, stranger things had happened.

Yeah, like a pipe bomb exploding on your porch two days before your ex kidnaps you off a public street
.

Which only supported her argument. Jack could be living in Timbuktu for all she knew. She’d never tried to find him. She might be an investigator by profession, but Jack Davenport was one individual she had left alone. Been there, done that, got the broken heart.

He’s Jack
.

But this man had hidden his eyes from her, Cat argued with herself. He had replaced the wraparounds with Oakleys and worn them even after they’d boarded the plane. Maybe he did that because he’d known she would recognize the real Jack’s striking blue eyes.

Just like you know Jack’s walk. Just like you know his scent. Just like you know his voice and his thick black hair and his strong jaw and tiny little crook in his blade of a nose where he got hit with an elbow during a basketball game at your parents’ house
.

Stubborn, she gave it one last try.
Jack doesn’t have a jagged inch-long scar on his left cheek
.

How do you know? You haven’t seen him in four years. This man is Jack. Jack Davenport is back
.

“No,” she said, and it came out in a little moan. As the cockpit door opened, she softly murmured, “Oh, heaven help me.”

“Sure, Celeste, put me down for a thousand,” her ex-husband said into a cellphone as he stepped into the main cabin. “It is a good cause.”

No matter how much she’d like to pretend otherwise, he
was
Jack Davenport. No one else on earth had eyes like his, the crisp blue like a gas flame that, once upon a time, had burned with passion for her. Now when they settled on her, they were cold as ice.

“Sure,” he said into the phone. “I will. Absolutely. All right. Good-bye, Celeste.”

When he ended the call, Cat decided that going on offense was her best defense. “What is this all about, Jack? I don’t hear a word from you in more than four years, and then you show up out of the blue one day and abduct me? Why in the world would you do this?”

He looked hard. He looked formidable. He looked dangerous. She wasn’t afraid of him physically, but emotionally, he scared her to death.

One side of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Your mother asked me to.”

Had she not been sitting down already, she would have fallen down. “My mother! You’ve talked to my mother?”

He nodded sharply.

“When?”

Now he shrugged. “I call her from time to time.”

What?
“Since when?”

“You were with a guy named Alan the first time.”

Cat sucked in a sharp breath. She’d dated Alan three years ago. Jack had been talking to Mom for three years? And she’d never bothered to mention that little detail to Cat? “You took my cellphone out of Fifi’s carrier. I need it back, please.”

“Why?”

“I need to call my mother.”

“Why?”

“She never said a word to me about your calls!”

“I asked her not to.”

“So? She’s
my
mother. She should have told me!”

“I’m not giving you your phone.”

“Why not?”

For the first time in forever, she saw a smile flash across his face. “You’ve been kidnapped. Kidnap victims don’t get to call their mommies.”

Oh, how I’ve missed that smile
. Dismissing that disturbing thought, Cat lifted her chin. “Sure they do. I watch TV. It’s proof of life for the ransom.”

“But I’m not asking for ransom. Besides, your mother already has proof of life—me. I’m your proof of life, Catherine. I’m going to keep you alive—in spite of yourself.”

She winced with chagrin. “I didn’t—”

“Sure you did,” he interrupted. “You ruined the career of two politicians, three sports stars, and a freaking
American Idol
winner with your little exposé.”