Page 36 of A Rhapsody of Ravens and Revenge

“God, Evie,” Cal said, stripping out of his jacket and wrapping it around her. “You’re a mess.” And then he pulled her in his arms and she buried her face in his neck. He was real. And she was real. And she was alive.

“Eden,” Nate yelled. “Where is she?”

“The rocks at the top of the lagoon,” Evie said. “She needs help. She’s been shot. I’ll take you there.” She pulled back from Cal and then started the climb again, ignoring Taber’s body. And then she led them to the place where she left Eden, finding her still slumped between the rocks.

“She took one in the shoulder and lost some blood,” she told Nate.

Nate climbed the rocks with ease and was next to Eden in moments, feeling for the pulse in her neck.

“She told me to tell you that she’s going to be fine,” Evie said.

Nate nodded and checked beneath the makeshift bandage, looking at the wound. “She’s been trained to withstand trauma to her body. But it’s not a practice that should get too much use in a person’s lifetime.”

“Do you need help getting her down?” Cal asked.

“I’ll carry her down and hand her off to you at the bottom, and then I’m going to get her to the hospital. The bleeding has turned sluggish and her pulse is strong, but she’s going to need a couple pints. And the bullet is still in there from what I can tell. I didn’t find an exit wound.”

Nate lifted Eden and climbed down as best he could with her tucked under one arm, and when he reached the lowest ledge he handed her gently down to Cal. They got her loaded in the SUV, Nate saluted them goodbye, and then they sped away.

There were lights everywhere around the house, and flashing lights and cars seemed to be coming in from all directions.

“She’ll be okay?” Evie asked as they made their way back toward the house and the chaos ensuing there. She couldn’t wait to get out of the rain. In fact, she would be okay if she never saw rain again.

“She’ll be fine,” Cal said. “Eden’s tough. She’s been through worse than this.”

Her legs were shaking uncontrollably by the time they waded through wet sand to the long, bricked walkway back toward the house. When they reached the pool she sat down hard on one of the loungers under a cabana, so she could at least get out of the rain.

Cal sat next to her and pulled her into his lap.

“Sorry,” she said. “I just needed to sit down a second. I’m not sure I can put one foot in front of the other.”

“EMTs are on the way to check you out,” he said. “Some of those scratches look deep. You might need some stitches.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Nothing a hot shower and a couple of Band-Aids won’t fix.”

“You scared the hell out of me,” Cal said. “The closer we got, all I could hear was gunfire. It sounded like a war zone.”

“It felt like one.” She laid her head against his shoulder and he held her while her body processed the adrenaline and her shaking subsided. “I need to tell you something.”

“I need to tell you something too,” he said.

“I need to go first.”

“Okay.”

“I grew up loving you,” she said. “From the time I was eight years old I could never see myself loving anyone but you. I couldn’t even dream of myself growing old with anyone but you. And then for a time I told myself I hated you. I told myself you were rejecting the real me, who I was meant to be. So I told myself I would never love a man who couldn’t accept the real me. I told myself I hated you.”

“Evie,” he said, and she could hear the anguish in his voice.

“But I know that you were protecting me. And telling myself I hated you and actually hating you are two different things. It’s hard to destroy that childhood love. I think it must be the strongest thing in the world. I thought my heart would shatter the day I found out you got married. In every girlish fantasy I’d ever had, it was always me standing next to you in white.”

“It should have been,” Cal said softly. “We’ve both made mistakes. It’s what we do going forward that matters.”

“I know,” she said. “Which is why I need you to know that I forgive you. And I never stopped loving you.”

“Thank God,” he said. “Because I was prepared to do whatever I needed to convince you. I love you. Everything about you. Including that twenty-year-old girl who was starved for attention. If I’d been another kind of man I would have taken you with me and we’d have wreaked havoc on the whole world.”

“But you’re not another kind of man,” she said. “You’re a good man. One of the best. And I love you more because of it.”

---