“Yeah, that’s why you’re lying here bleeding. Where’s that goddamn ambulance!”
“But I’m not dead. Which…is where I’d be if it weren’t for you. You can go home a hero now.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he whispered close to her ear. “Hailey, do you hear me? I
said I’m not leaving you, and I’m not.”
She took a long breath. Let it out slowly. Voices echoed around her. She felt hands on her body.
Heard someone with a thick Jamaican accent tell Shane to move out of the way so they could treat
her, but she didn’t open her eyes. Couldn’t.
“Blood pressure’s dropping…”
“We need to move her…”
“Get that stretcher over here!”
“I’ll be right here when you wake up,” Shane whispered in her other ear, even after she thought
he’d gone. “Don’t you dare give up on me. Do you hear me, Roarke? Don’t you dare give up…”
C HAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Shane.”
Shane’s eyes popped open at the sound of his name. He was sitting in a small corner room at Port
Antonio General Hospital, where he’d been holding vigil the last twenty-four hours.
“Shit, man, you don’t look much better than her.”
Tony.
Shane pushed out of the chair by the side of Hailey’s bed and looked toward the door where his
partner was standing with a scowl on his face. He didn’t have to ask to know what Tony was seeing:
three days’ worth of stubble, hair that was probably sticking out all over, matted and wrinkled
clothes.
He was groggy as hell, stiff and sore, but he met Tony halfway across the room with a fierce handshake. “I didn’t expect you to get here so soon.”
“O’Conner wants this wrapped up.” He nodded toward the bed. “She gonna be okay?”
Shane’s gaze followed, and just like it had every time he’d looked at Hailey in that bed, his stomach
clenched. “Yeah. It was touch and go for a while. Bullet did some damage inside. But it looks like
she’s gonna pull through just fine.”
Tony nodded, looked around the run-down room. Shane knew what else his partner was thinking.
The place was clean, and the level of medical care here so far seemed pretty good. But it was Jamaica. Shane couldn’t wait to get Hailey back to a facility in the States. “How’d you get her a private room?”
“Stella Adams set it up.” Shane scrubbed a hand through his hair. “She’s got some clout with the
people down here.”
Tony nodded again. “Still can’t believe that’s her mother.”
“Yeah, you and me both,” Shane said quietly.
“We reran Bryan Roarke’s tox screen based on the info you gave me. Came up positive for cardiac
glycosides. Chemical found in plants like digitalis, lily of the valley and—”
“Oleander,” Shane finished, rubbing his shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”
“Not a common method of murder if you want to do it on the sly, because you have to know the
dosages, but it’s effective.” He looked toward Shane. “Madeline Roarke turned herself in. She’s
pleading out. Saying Eleanor told her what to do. Apparently, good ol’ Bryan found out about
Eleanor’s involvement with Andrew Adams’s death. Not sure if Graham Roarke told him or what,
but either way, Bryan was blackmailing her for control of the company. To get back at him, she told
Madeline about his affair with Lucy and suggested a way to teach him a lesson. Madeline’s claiming she thought the poison would just make him sick, not really kill him.”
Shane huffed, stuffed his hands into his pockets. “You believe her?”
“No. But she’s also been pretty adamant that she didn’t cut him.”
Shane shook his head. Any way you sliced it, Madeline Roarke was looking at doing some serious
time.
“One thing’s for certain,” Tony said. “She didn’t set Hailey up. Lucy Walthers is also talking. She’s
the one who planted the dagger to frame Hailey. Wounds came after Bryan had already died. DA’s
pretty convinced she did the cutting.”
God, these people were sick.
“What about what happened to Hailey at her uncle’s place? Who mixed the poison with the tea?”
“We’re not quite sure. But when we went through McIntosh’s apartment we found Graham’s
bronze. You said he was the one who ran you off the road at Graham’s property, right?”
“Yeah. Hailey recognized his voice.”
Tony nodded. “There were two different factions at work here. Eleanor and what she was trying to
do to keep her secrets from coming out, and McIntosh and his quest for control of Roarke Resorts.
As for that poison in Graham’s tea—”
“Yeah?”
“Graham Roarke was taking digoxin for his heart condition. We found the medication in his
kitchen. Wouldn’t have been hard to mix some of that in a fresh batch of tea if you popped in to
commit a theft. And if you happen to kill off a Roarke or two in the process? Makes it a lot easier to
get control of the company you want so bad.”
“Jesus.” Shane ran a hand over his hair. “So it wasn’t mixed for Hailey. But for Graham.”
“Looks that way. McIntosh and Lucy Walthers won’t see freedom for a long time, don’t worry.”
“And Hailey’s father? You think it really was suicide?”
“It’s looking that way.” Tony let out a breath. “That woman…Eleanor? Man, sounds like she was a
real piece of work. Real puppet-master pulling all the strings. I have a sinking suspicion neither of
us would be right in the head after living with her for five years, let alone thirty plus.”
Shane only nodded.
“Speaking of that dagger,” Tony said. “Funniest thing. Still hasn’t turned up in evidence. Doubt it’ll
ever show up. What do you think?”
Shane glanced at his partner. There was a good chance they were never going to figure out what
Lucy had used to cut Bryan, but Tony was making sure Shane’s ass was in the clear no matter what.
“I owe you, man.”
“Yeah, you do. Again,” Tony said with a half grin. “Which is why I don’t feel guilty about dragging
your ass back to Chicago when I’m done questioning everyone here. The sooner we get this cleared
up with O’Conner, the better it’ll be for you. And her.”
Shane nodded and looked back at Hailey. And realized in that moment he hadn’t had a single Tic
Tac in the last two days. “I’ll go back with you. But I’m not staying.”
Tony stared at him a beat, then said, “You’ve got a little over ten years until your pension kicks in.
What are you—”
Shane turned his eyes on his friend. Maybe his only true friend, because he knew every one of
Shane’s darkest secrets. “Tony, you and I both know I won’t make it to retirement. Not the way I’m
going now. I’ll be lucky to last another three years without getting myself killed, or worse, getting
you killed. You’re always telling me to get a life. Well…” He looked back at the bed. “Maybe it’s
about time I listened.”
In the silence, he knew Tony was considering whether he was serious. “What are you gonna do?”
Shane shrugged. “I don’t know. Jack’s always trying to get me to switch over to PI work. I’ve got a
few possibilities.”
“You gotta have people skills for that, wife.”
Shane chuckled. “I’ve got people skills, Goldilocks.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tony said, rolling his eyes. “You rank right up there with Commander O’Conner.” He
nodded toward Hailey’s bed. “What about her?”
Shane’s chest tingled. What about her? That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
“I don’t know,” he said. “But this isn’t about her. It’s about me. And finally letting go of things I
should have let go of a long time ago.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d see the day.”
Shane frowned, because this conversation was suddenly way more real than he needed right now.
“Don’t get all excited. I’m not there yet. I said maybe.”
A slow smile inched across Tony’s face. And his light eyes sparkled when he nudged Shane in the
shoulder. “It’s a start. Hot damn, but it’s a start, wife. I’m gonna go do those interviews so we can
make tracks. Something tells me you won’t be staying long in Chicago.”
When he was alone, Shane sat in the chair by Hailey’s bed and took her hand in both of his. Her fingers were long, her skin soft, her nails—he hadn’t noticed them before—neat and trimmed, perfect.
Just like her. There was so much about her he hadn’t noticed, like the faint freckles across the
bridge of her nose or the way her hair formed a swirl, right at her temple.
One thing he had noticed, though, was how calm she’d been in that scene with Eleanor. And how
she’d trusted him to be there for her. Even after admitting to Eleanor that she loved him. That hadn’t
been an act. And every time he thought of it, he felt this sharp stab right beneath his breastbone.
Her head moved slightly on the pillow. Her fingers tightened against his. He tensed when he saw
her eyelids flutter and finally open to stare up at him. She blinked several times before she rasped,
“You don’t look like Prince Charming.”
The relief at hearing her voice was swift and consuming. “I’m not. But now that I know you’re
okay, a razor and a shower should take care of the ugly old troll look.”
She didn’t laugh at his stupid joke, but he cut her some slack, seeing as how she’d just come to after
surgery.
“What are you doing here, Maxwell?”
Not Shane. But he’d cut her some slack on that as well. He squeezed her hand. “I told you I wasn’t
leaving until I knew you were okay.”
She rolled her head to look up at the ceiling. “Well…now you know I’m fine, so you can go.”
She was giving him an out. All he had to do was take it. He’d told himself from the start this was
where it ended. Not with her in this bed, but with her alive and safe, the person who was setting her
up in custody or dead. There wasn’t any logical reason for him to stay, and yet, he wasn’t moving.
She loved him.
“I do actually have to leave,” he said cautiously, because something strange was happening in his
chest. Something that felt a lot like all that regret he’d heaped on himself being slowly replaced
with warmth. “Ah, Tony’s here. O’Conner needs me to go back to Chicago to clear up a few
things.”
“Then you should go.”
Her words were cold. Her attention anywhere but on him. The hurt in her voice stabbed at him, but
he dealt with the pain because somehow he knew he was going to make this and everything else up
to her. He just wasn’t sure how yet. “I…I have a few things I need to take care of in Chicago, but I
want you to know I’ll be back.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I will. That’s a promise, Hailey.”
She rolled away from him, and he knew the movement had to cause excruciating pain, but she
didn’t make a sound.
He rubbed a hand over that ache in his chest. “Stella’s been waiting to see you. I’ll send her in on
my way out.”
When even that didn’t garner a response, he rose slowly and headed for the door. And in the silence,
knew exactly what he needed to do. Maybe knew, for the first time in his life.
Florida
Four weeks later
“Man, that’s a big crowd.” Nicole’s voice echoed through the room as the office door snapped shut
behind her. “The place is packed.”
The coffeepot bobbled in Hailey’s hand, and she took a deep breath to settle the nerves bouncing
around in her stomach. Slowly, as conversation picked up behind her, she lowered the carafe so no
one would see her hand shake, reached for a packet of sugar and winced at the dull throb in her
shoulder.
She was still working through physical therapy, but her doctor had assured her the bullet hadn’t
done any lasting damage. At least not to her shoulder. The fallout from the scene in Jamaica,
though, was another matter entirely.
“Jeez,” Nicole said, brushing past Hailey to reach for a bottle of water on the counter. “I’ve never
seen you this nervous. I didn’t realize public speaking freaked you out so much.”
“It doesn’t,” Billy piped up from his spot on the couch, where he’d been munching on trail mix
from a bowl at his elbow. “At least it never did before.” He grasped Nicole’s hand when she got
close and tugged her onto his lap. Nicole giggled as Billy planted a kiss near her ear. “So what
gives, H?”
“This is a big day,” Stella interjected before Hailey had to answer. “The press isn’t nearly as interested by the changes you both have planned for Roarke Resorts as they are in getting info about
what happened with Eleanor.”
Hailey glanced at her mother—her real mother—standing near the big oak desk in the middle of the
room. It’d taken a couple of weeks, but that’s how she was starting to think of Stella. Like the mother she’d wished she’d always had. Stella was a lot like Teresa Sullivan—strong, opinionated, but
with a heart as big as Hailey had ever known. And for that reason, it hadn’t seemed strange at all
when Stella had introduced Hailey to her husband—Mark Walker—a rancher from Texas Stella had
met at a gallery opening in Dallas eight years before.
The woman had every reason to despise everything Roarke related after what had been done to her
and her father, but here she was, welcoming Hailey and Nicole into her family, taking a break from
her own work so she and Hailey could get to know each other better, supporting Hailey and her decision to stay on as CEO of RR even though it had to stir painful memories inside her.
Painful memories had to swell in Nicole, too, but you’d never know it by looking at her with Billy
now. Hailey glanced at her sister and the silly smile on her face. For all the years they’d spent being
resentful of each other, it was odd to have Nicole here now, though Hailey was thankful for her