Page 82 of Penny for Your Saints

Steadying myself, I do my best to absorb his words. Not only have they proclaimed me dead, but they've made me a martyr for their cause, and now they want to use Dennis as their flamingsword to go forth and scorch the earth in the name of my memory—though I am very much alive and very much in danger.

“Right now, I'm supposed to be on mandatory bereavement leave.” Dennis shakes his head. “I haven't been tailed. I made sure of it.”

“We were going to try making our way to you,” I begin, but Dennis cuts me off.

“No, absolutely not. Nowhere near Quantico, nowhere near DC.”

“There's always the island.” I gesture around us. “I don't think the Saints had planned to go through so many safehouses so quickly, but this should hold us for a while as long as we don't get nicked getting supplies.”

“No. It's only a matter of time before they figure out you made your way back here. I'm not saying that Uncle Martin would sell you out intentionally, but all it takes is one mention of his little brother’s crazy cottage by the sea to the wrong person.” Dennis grabs me by the arms, squeezing so tightly that I have to tell him to let go because he's hurting me.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles under his breath.

“So you just came out here on a feeling?” I scoff, incredulous.

“It was more than just a feeling, Lou, it was instinct. I knew you were out here. I knew I had to come to warn you—just as surely as I know I need to breathe, that the sun will rise and the stars will shine.”

And then, before I can argue, before I can say anything else, Dennis pulls off his baseball cap and leans down, pressing his lips against mine.

I let my body soften against his, my arms coiling around his neck, holding him tightly against me.

When he finally breaks the kiss, I refuse to let him go—our foreheads pressed together as tears stream down my face.

“I don’t know how we're going to get out of this one,” he admits, his own voice cracking. “I can't stay long. Even though I'm accounted for on bereavement leave, I'll be expected back in the offices in less than 12 hours. If I wanna make it back in time, I gotta get on the road soon.”

“So what, you're going to go back? Become their tool? Be their dog? For what!? So that you can pretend to chase me and the rest of the Saints until they force you to kill us all? Dennis, there are things at play here that you don't understand—that even I am still trying to untangle.”

“I have to go back. If I don't, they'll put somebody else in my place. At least this way I can buy you some time. I will never allow them to truly turn me against you. I'll die before that happens.” Dennis cups my cheek with one of his hands.

“You can leave now. You can run with us,” I urge him.

At the word ‘us,’ Dennis seems to wake from a trance, pushing back from me.

“No, I can't. I may love you, Louise Penny—our partnership was written in the stars long before we could finally admit it; but I can't just turn my back on my old life. Even if I were really ready to believe that I've been had, that I've been playing for the bad guys this whole time without knowing it—if I believed that there's not a single person on my side who isn’t corrupt, there's still my family to think about. My parents. My sisters and their husbands; my nieces and nephews. What happens to them If I step out of line?”

He has a point there, one I cannot argue with.

“What about a compromise?” I beg, desperate. “If things start to look bad, if it looks like they're going to make an example of you or to force your hand to harm me or the Saints. Would you run then?”

Dennis gives me a sad smile and presses another kiss to my forehead.

“I don't want to lie to you, but I don't want to hurt you, either.” He pulls something from his pocket: a small square of white cotton; his initials, DM, embroidered neatly in one corner.

“I understand,” I weep softly, dabbing at my eyes and nose with the soft cloth before pushing away from him.

“How long do we have?” I sniffle, wiping my eyes with my sleeves.

“I'd leave as soon as you can.” He deflates, resigned to our fate.

“You better get going too, then. Somebody's bound to see your boat soon, and if you've got to be in the office tomorrow, you wanna leave as soon as possible, especially with the traffic.”

We fling ourselves into one another's arms once more. Our mouths crushing together in one last kiss before Dennis turns and makes his way to the boat without so much as a backward glance.

The rest of us Saints are only beginning to rouse from our sleep when Louise blows through the front door like a hysterical wind—her voice high and sharp.

“We need to get off the island now!” she shrills—already flying around the small cottage, pulling her things together.

I find myself in motion at her words, even though I don't quite know what's going on.

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