Page 137 of One Last Promise

“No. Superman.”

She looked back at Hazel, the nickname rooting her.

Moose.

“Right place, right time.”

She looked up, and there he stood, as if he’demerged from the smoke and haze exactly like Superman to stand there, magnificent and strong, smiling down at her, so much in his beautiful gray-green eyes that . . .

“I didn’t mean it.” She pushed to her feet. “I didn’t mean it—I mean, I wanted to mean it—my brain said I should mean it, but . . . Ididn’tmean it.”

He stepped up to her, cupped her face with his hand. “That’s okay. I didn’t really believe you anyway.” He frowned, then, “You’re hurt.”

She kissed him—hard, her arms around his neck, pulling him against her, kissing him because he was her hero but also her friend, and the man who kept his promises.Moose.

He put his arms around her, held her, kissed her back—not as urgently, but that was good and safe and right in front of all these people and her daughter.

Her daughter.In her heart, for sure, and maybe, after all this was sorted, legally too.

And maybe she’d never know who Hazel’s father was, but really, it didn’t matter.

Especially when Moose lifted his head and met her eyes. “I love you, Tillie. And I don’t care what you say or what you do or how angry you get at me, I’m not leaving you.”

“Promise?”

He laughed. “Nope. You’ll just have to trust me.”

CHAPTER 14

Too much smoke.

Moose coughed as he pushed through the front gates, the smoke billowing out of the house. Shouts, and the clutter of people, and flames—his eyes burned.

“She went in the back!” London’s voice. It rose through him, galvanized him, and he took off around to the back of the house.

His heart thundered, and in the back of his mind, he knew—he’d get there. It had already happened, but the memory still played out, almost in slow motion, in his dream. Cops coming from the canal, one of them coming for him.

Then Colt somehow in the fray even as Moose kept running.

Smoke clogging the air, turning it hazy, and then a scream and Tillie’s voice. He stood on the pool deck, looked up. Barely made out a body hanging over the edge of the balcony.

Then it dropped.

Reflexes, adrenaline, instincts?—

He missed. Hemissed!

Hazel lay broken on the sidewalk, her headcracked, bleeding, and he went to his knees. A keening sound emerged from him, high pitched, ripping through him?—

No. . . no . . .

A siren blared, piercing, cutting through his nightmare, and Moose opened his eyes, shaking, sweaty, and sat up.

Blinked.

The morning rays cast through the gauzy curtains of the main-story windows of the beach home, puddled along the wooden floor, over the creamy white sheets of the queen-sized bed.

Oaken’s beach home—or at least, the one he’d given to his mother.

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