Page 117 of The Keeper and I

The memory hit Laci like a freight train. She recalled seeing the letter slip under her bedroom door. She felt her trembling hands as she read it, felt her heart break at the thought of losing the love of her life, and realized what she had to do. She had to stop the duel.

Without bothering to dress, she called for her maid to bring her traveling cloak, boots, and gloves. Then she instructed her maid to alert a trusted footman to bring her horse. There was only one place they could be having the duel, the clearing at the north edge of the property.

The moment she was on her horse, she urged him forward until she was at a full gallop, flying over the hills with only one thing on her mind. Save Samuel.

She burst through the hedge into the clearing as the sound of a gun firing erupted around her. Her horse reared back and threw her.

“Caroline, no!” someone shouted, but she hardly registered it as she hit the ground. Her chest burned. The fiery feeling spread through her blood. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe.

“Caroline!”

Blearily, she looked up at Samuel. His eyes brimmed with tears, and his handcupped her face. It was warm. How could her skin feel so cold when she was blazing on the inside?

“S-Samuel,” she choked out.

“Shh, don’t talk, my love, the doctor’s coming,” he replied, and he looked up.

Someone must have been standing there. She couldn’t see them. She kept her eyes trained on Samuel.

“It w-was the house-housekeeper,” she said. “She s-saw us.”

He wasn’t listening. His pleading gaze was on the man standing over them, but she couldn’t hear what he said. It sounded far away.

“Samuel,” she tried again, and finally his eyes locked on hers. “Hold me, p-please.”

Her vision was darkening, but she felt his arms around her shoulders.

“Please don’t leave me, love,” he said softly. “Please don’t go.”

“We-we’ll get away,” she said, struggling to make her mouth form words.

“We can. We will. Stay with me.”

He barked something at the other man, but she didn’t hear it. She wanted to hold on, to tell him all would be well, and they had a lifetime ahead of them. But she could feel herself slipping away. It broke her heart to leave him.

Her body lurched, and Samuel held her fast to him. She tried to curl her fingers around his lapel, but she didn’t have the strength.

“I l-love you,” she stammered. “Forever, Samuel.”

His anguished eyes found hers again. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. A tear slid down his face. He pulled her into his chest and held her there, rocking her. She closed her eyes, resting against him one last time.

Everything faded to black.

A bruising kiss brought Laci back to the cellar in the present day. Jordan had her pressed against him, his lips on hers and then they were everywhere else—her cheeks, her jaw, her forehead. She forced her mind to focus so she could hear what he was saying.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Fucking hell, I’m so sorry, Laci.”

She gripped his arms to steady herself. “You saw it too?”

He nodded. She got a good look at his face. There were tears flowing down his cheeks like Samuel’s. She blinked, stunned. The man who had not cried in fifteen years was weeping. For her.

“Jordan, you’re…you’re crying,” she said with a gasp. His quivering hands pulled her into him again. “And shaking.”

“I love you,” he said, and he kissed her again, messy and frenzied and raw. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on. “I love you, Laci.”

Emotion bloomed inside her chest and then she, too, was blinking back tears. She didn’t fight them for long. He’d dropped his armor at last, so she would make herself vulnerable too. When he raised that shield again, it would be around them both.

“I’ll never lose you again,” he whispered, engulfing her in his embrace. “Fuck, I love you so much.”

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