More Than Cookies (The Maple Leaf Series) (30 page)

At that information, Adriana’s jaw twitched and her gaze flitted around the immediate area. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Where are the police then?”

Great fucking question.

“I’m sure they’re close by. Let’s walk back up to the cars and we can sort this out. There has to be a solution that’s good for everyone.” There had to be a solution that didn’t leave him dead on the forest floor. He had a lot of living still to do. He had a lot to live
for
now too. He wasn’t about to let himself get shortchanged. 

Adriana shook her head. “No. The time for sorting out is over. Even if I let you live, you’ve filed for a modification to the custody agreement. If you win, I lose Myah and making partner. I need to make partner, Orion. I can’t stay in Vermont a minute longer. I don’t belong here. I have no career here. I have no friends here. I hate it here.”

The look in her eyes made Orion realize something. She wasn’t a lunatic. She was depressed. She was so unhappy with her life in Vermont, the life he’d pulled her into. She needed more and she was right. She didn’t belong in Vermont. Not everyone did.

But killing him wasn’t the answer.

“Can’t you talk to your father?” he suggested. “Can’t you get him to reconsider his terms? You’re a good lawyer, Adriana. No one knows that better than me. You succeeded in getting sole custody of Myah though there weren’t any real reasons she shouldn’t be with me too. You were convincing. You got it done. Surely your father has to see your skills.”

“He does,” she said, “and he wants me in his firm, but not without Myah too. I’ve tried to negotiate with him. He doesn’t want to budge. I was about to finalize plans to move out of Vermont and into New York when I got the call from your lawyer about the custody modification. You ruined everything with that.”

Again, she straightened her arms and prepared to shoot him.

Out of words, out of stall tactics, out of luck, Orion squeezed his eyes shut, pictured Myah, his father, and Sage, and hoped they would forgive him. He also hoped this wouldn’t hurt like hell.

“Put the gun down!” a voice shouted from behind him.

“We have you surrounded,” another voice said from his left.

“Mrs. Whitfield-Finley, put the gun down now,” a third voice said from his right.

Police emerged from behind trees and closed in around them. Orion’s heart thudded in his chest like an angry drummer as Adriana kept the gun trained on him.

“Easy, ma’am. Just lower the gun, nice and easy,” the closest officer said.

Orion took his eyes off the gun and saw that the officer was Sencotte. Landis was just to her partner’s right, her gun on Adriana. He never thought he’d be so happy to see these two, but they were quite possibly his saviors.

Movement behind Adriana caught Orion’s attention next. Detective Henrison crept through the low brush. He holstered his gun and in one swift move threw his arms around Adriana. They wrestled for a moment then Adriana’s rifle fired. Something hot zipped across Orion’s right arm and he fell to his knees, clamping his hand over the pain. A warm wetness slipped between his fingers and when he pulled his hand away, blood dripped to the ground.

Loud crashing over sticks and leaves filled Orion’s ears as Sencotte ran to him, but then Adriana slipped free of Detective Henrison’s grip. She lunged for Orion, her hands getting enough of his leg to send him slamming to the ground. She was on top of him before he could even turn himself over, the barrel of the rifle resting at the back of his neck.

I love you, Myah…

Orion squeezed his eyes shut as what had to be the final seconds of his life ticked by in slow motion. When the shot rang out, a heavy weight suddenly collapsed onto him. Moments later strong arms were helping him to his feet.  

“Come on, buddy,” Sencotte said. “Let’s get you out of here.” He navigated them both up the embankment to the main path. “Need that ambulance team down here.”

Orion’s vision was spotty and his arm throbbed, but he glanced back to see Adriana on the ground, Detective Henrison fitting handcuffs to her wrists. She didn’t fight back, and Orion noticed the growing spot of red on the shoulder of her white shirt.

They’d shot her. To save him.

 A wave of nausea undulated inside him.
I just got grazed. I’m okay. She didn’t kill me. I’m alive.

But his hands shook, because he’d almost
not
been alive. He glanced to his upper arm and the blood dribbling down to pool in the bend at his elbow. Adriana had caused him too many injuries. A hole in his right thigh, a brain-shaking bang to the back of the head in his barn, a slice in the right arm, not to mention the heart she’d broken years ago and the child she’d stolen from him. Good God, she’d kicked the shit out of him.

But is she dead?

He looked back again, but this time Adriana was on her feet and stumbling along in front of the detective. She was alive and, unless she somehow talked her way out of it, headed to jail.

“Is he okay?”

Man, he’d gotten his ass so kicked, he was imagining hearing Sage’s voice.

“Son!”

And his father’s.

“Daddy!”

And Myah’s.

When his arms became full of his daughter and his father, and someone cuddled up behind him, he knew he wasn’t imagining anything. They were here. They were really here.

“Careful,” Sage said, releasing her hold from behind him. “He’s hurt.” She tugged Myah and Ian back a bit. “Let’s make room for the EMTs to help him.” She stood a few feet away with a firm grip on Ian’s and Myah’s hands. They leaned into her, and Orion wanted to do the same. God, it was all he wanted.

“Let’s have a look at that, Mr. Finley,” one EMT said.

He held his arm out for inspection, wincing slightly as both EMTs got to work on cleaning, stitching, and bandaging the slice in his arm. If he thought he had a headache before, it was nothing compared to the jackhammering going on in his skull now.

While the EMTs tended to him, Sage, Myah, and Ian inched closer. His own pull toward them was magnetic too. He wanted them in his arms. All of them.

“You’re all set, Mr. Finley,” the EMT said after a few moments. “Follow up with your doctor, okay?”

He nodded, not able to take his eyes off Sage and his family. As soon as the EMTs cleared away, he motioned for them to come to him. Myah instantly clamped onto his leg.

“Daddy.” She squeezed him so tightly.

He reached down and picked her up with one arm, and she pressed her face to his neck like she used to do when she was a baby. “It’s okay, honey. We’re all okay.” He looked at his father, searching for signs of an episode, but all he saw was love in Ian’s eyes.

His father put his arms around both Orion and Myah. “We’re all okay,” he repeated then he peeled Myah off Orion and stepped off to the side.  

Sage walked slowly toward Orion. “Didn’t I tell you take a nap?” She was teasing, but her voice had cracked on the word
nap
.

“I couldn’t sleep without you.” Orion grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him until their bodies were touching from chest to knees. “I don’t want to do anything without you.”

“Deal.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, and Orion knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that was where her lips belonged.

Chapter Twenty-three

Orion sat on the open tailgate of his truck as Scott questioned him about the events with Adriana by Moosewood Falls. Sage stood a short distance away to keep an eye on Myah who had been allowed to climb into the ambulance with the EMTs. The girl had fired off a million questions, and a vision of Myah in a crisp, white doctor’s coat flashed into Sage’s head.

Dr. Myah Finley.
It had a nice ring to it and made Sage smile. Why she was daydreaming about the prosperous future career of a child that wasn’t hers was a mystery, but somehow she welcomed the thought. In just a short time, she’d come to consider Myah hers. Ian too. He was talking to Sencotte and Landis, the two police officers making him laugh about something after they’d apologized for being tough on Orion during the search for Adriana.

And Orion? Well, she quite possibly had considered him hers the moment she’d found him unconscious on her couch in her new house. The question was, did he consider her his? He’d said he didn’t want to do anything without her. Did that mean what she thought it did? Did that mean forever?

“I’m all done with him.” Scott was suddenly standing beside her and gesturing over his shoulder to Orion. “We have enough on Mrs. Whitfield-Finley to prosecute. She’ll get that wound checked and then move into a nice comfy jail cell.”

“Which means she’ll lose custody of Myah, right?” Sage asked.

“Oh, yeah. Being a criminal, especially one who attempted murder—multiple times—is definitely grounds for losing custody of a child. So you can get your fancy lawyer to draw up the necessary documents. There isn’t a judge in all the land who wouldn’t willingly give custody to Mr. Finley now.”

Sage clapped her hands together then hugged Scott. It’d been a rash move, a caught-up-in-the-moment-of-glee move, and he sank into the hug a little. Sage tried to back out of it, but he held her tight for a moment.

“Any chance you’d dump him for me?” he whispered into her ear. “I’m not such a bad guy.” He released her and took a step back.

“You’re not such a bad guy, Scott. Maybe a little—”

“Sexy?”

“Persistent,” she finished. “But you didn’t let anything get in the way of doing your job and because of that, Orion is okay and Adriana has been found. I can’t thank you enough for calling me when you knew Orion was meeting Adriana here. We needed to be here and you made that happen.” She leaned forward and dropped a light kiss on his cheek.

“But, you still want him, right?”

“I do, but are you against a double date sometime? My friend, Danielle, who sold me my house and works with your aunt, might be a good match for you. Do you like brunettes?”

He tugged on the end of her hair. “Not as much as blondes, but I can be open-minded. Does Danielle like getting flowers?”

“I believe she does.”

“Okay, then. You have my number.” He angled his head back toward Orion who was still sitting on the tailgate. “I wish you both the best.” He walked over to Landis and Sencotte. “Let’s go, you two. We’ve got work to do.”

With good-byes to Ian, three of St. Jamesbury’s finest checked on Adriana in a second ambulance then piled into a black car and followed that ambulance to the exit. A few seconds later, an EMT helped Myah down from the first ambulance. She wore a pair of blue latex gloves and a smile as if she’d just been to Disney World. With a single siren whoop that ambulance drove off too, luckily with no one riding in the back.

Driving off seemed like a great idea to Sage.

“Okay,” she said walking to Orion where Myah and Ian already stood. “All Finleys in the Pumpkinmobile, pronto.”

“What about my truck?” Orion patted the tailgate.

“I’ll get someone to come back for it. You shouldn’t drive. Into my car. Now.” She pointed to her Subaru.

“Yes, ma’am.” Orion saluted her and slid off the tailgate.

Sage noted how he took a minute to make sure he was steady on his feet before following Myah and Ian to her car. She closed the tailgate, locked his truck, and scooted herself under his left arm, her own arm wrapping around his waist.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

He squeezed her shoulder. “Right now, I’m doing wonderfully.” He kissed her temple and breathed her in, the move making Sage feel a little like a batch of cookies someone was sniffing. “How about you?”

“Let’s see. You’re not dead. Witchy Ex-wife is going to jail. You’ll get to keep Myah. Scott agreed to quit trying to date me. I’d say I’m wonderful too.”

“Great. Come to my house and we’ll all be wonderful together.”

“That’s the plan, baby. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” She opened the passenger side door. “Your chariot, sir.”

He cupped her cheek with a rough palm and she closed her eyes for a minute, enjoying the feel of his skin against her own. When she opened them, Orion looked as if he were going to say something, but he shook his head slightly and eased into the passenger seat instead.

Sage closed the door and jogged to the driver’s side. Myah and Ian were settled in the backseat, both grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey, cheer up back there,” Sage said as she peered at them in her rearview mirror. That got them giggling. Even Orion laughed beside her.

“I get to stay with you now, don’t I, Daddy?” Myah leaned forward as far as the seatbelt would allow.

“You sure do.” Orion reached his arm back and squeezed her kneecap.

“Yay!” Myah and Ian yelled together, and Sage had the urge to hurray too though she was technically the outsider here. She wanted membership though.

Badly.

Shaking that thought from her head, she drove to her house to grab Ranger and the cookies they’d made earlier then headed to Orion’s. As they made their way up the driveway, Orion let out a groan at the sight of the blackened hole in his barn roof.

“At least you’re alive to see that hole,” Sage said, resting her hand on his thigh. “That we can fix. That we
will
fix. If something had happened to you…” She closed her eyes and cleared her throat. “That we couldn’t fix.”

“There’s no replacing me, huh?” The smile he gave her made her lower regions quiver. Now that the initial stress of wondering if he was okay had faded—Scott’s phone call had scared her senseless—her body shifted right back into arousal mode around Orion. Would that wear off?

He ran his shortened pinkie finger along the knuckles on her hand, and it was as if he’d stroked her deepest parts.

Nope. That would never wear off.

They piled out of the car, and as they made their way up the porch steps, Adam’s truck skidded to a stop in the driveway. Gravel spit up around his tires, and he’d barely shut the engine off before he and Wendie jumped out and ran toward them.

“Are you okay?” Wendie asked.