Page 87 of Seal My Fate

I go to her and smother her with a hug. “Wait! My tea!” she laughs, trying to keep it from spilling. I draw back and settle beside her on the couch.

“Did you sleep OK?” I ask, searching her delicate features.

Wren nods. “Straight through the night. No nightmares, nothing.” She smiles. “I feel like a whole new woman. No, scratch that. I feel more like myself again.”

“Good.” A knot of emotion wells in my throat, I’m so relieved to see her smiling again. “Have you eaten? Do you need anything? Do you have any bruises, or—”

“Woah, easy there,Mom,” Wren says with a smirk. “I’m good. Your boyfriend has been fussing over me enough this morning. You picked a good one, there,” she adds, with a grin. “Makes a mean bacon sandwich, and he’ll take a bullet for you. I say, keep him.”

“I’m planning on it,” I smile back, as the man himself joins us. He folds his tall frame onto the couch beside me, immediately stroking my back, like he’s reassuring himself I’m really here.

Clearly, I’m not the only one who wants to hold on tightly and never let go.

“So, what now?” I ask, looking between them. “Time to deliver a message to Ashford Pharma, and Lionel Ambrose?”

“And Cyrus Lancaster, and Max,” Saint ticks them off on his fingers. “And whoever else they recruited into their evil conspiracy.”

“Just a few of Britain’s elite,” I joke lightly. “No big deal.”

Saint chuckles, but Wren sips her tea, eyes down. I feel a wave of compassion for her, forced to confront the very stuff of her nightmares. She’s been through so much, and all because she stumbled on their secrets—and gave up her old life to protect me.

“How would you feel about going home?” I ask her softly.

Wren’s head snaps up. Her eyes shine with emotion. “Can I?” she asks us eagerly. “I mean, would that even be possible?”

“I don’t see why not,” Saint replies. “You’re safe now. Ashford Pharma, and anyone connected to this is going down, and in a few hours, they’ll know it, too. You’re not the threat to them anymore. Nothing’s going to stop us exposing them now.”

Wren exhales a sigh of pure longing. “I can’t wait to see Mom and Dad again,” she says, smiling at me. “But…”

She pauses, a shadow flitting across her face.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I don’t know if I can be Wren Peterson anymore,” she answers slowly. “Go back to my old identity, I mean. There’ll be so many questions,” she adds. “Everyone knows I died, and if I have to keep explaining what happened…” Wren shakes her head. “I don’t want that. I don’t think I could take it. I want a clean slate, to leave all of this behind me, and just move on.”

“We can make that happen,” Saint speaks up.

We both turn to him, hopeful. “How?” I ask.

“The usual ways,” he replies with a wry smile. “Money, power, connections… We might as well use them for good, before the St. Clair name is ruined beyond all redemption.”

“I wouldn’t need much,” Wren says eagerly. “Just a new identity, to start over. I could tell Mom and Dad the truth, and then… Pick a new town, by the ocean. Maybe somewhere I could teach or do my research. I’d love to keep working on the Alzheimer’s problem,” she adds. “Even if Dr. DeJonge’s theories didn’t work, I know we’re just a few years from finding a cure for the people who need it the most.”

My tears well in my eyes again. That’s my sister, always thinking about everybody else.

Saint squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll make it happen,” he vows. “You deserve your life back, after everything you’ve had to sacrifice. You know what? I bet that hacker, Charlie, will have some connections for building a new identity,” he says, rising to his feet. “I’ll call her, right away.”

We spend the rest of the morning planning Wren’s fresh start, while Saint contacts his parents, and sets up a meeting for us all. The details of her new life come together quickly, and I love seeing her face lit up with excitement, musing over possible cities and places to go.

“North Carolina has some great research universities,” she says, as we eat lunch in the kitchen. “But I’ve always wanted to live on the West Coast, near the ocean…”

“Are you going to take up surfing?” I tease. “Start preaching to me about the flow of the earth, and letting go?”

She giggles and tosses a potato chip at me. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll quit medicine altogether and open a bookstore-slash-tea shop on the coast somewhere, and spend my days baking scones.”

“And flirting with hunky fishermen,” I add.

She grins. “Sounds good to me. I can do anything,” she adds in wonder, and I can tell that she’s still taking in the options, wide open to her after a year of fear and hiding, when every door seemed shut.

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