My Cruel Salvation (Fallen Saint # 3) - J. Kenner Page 0,49
I say as we’re bouncing our way down the dirt road toward the paved highway to take us to Garfield, Idaho, where we’ll stay the night in a motel before getting back in the air tomorrow morning. The crew’s already checked in and Marci, Devlin’s favorite pilot, texted earlier that she has our keys and we can swing by her room when we get there. She says the motel is nice, but at this point, I don’t even care.
“Why on earth is Giatti in Idaho? He sounds like he’s from New Jersey, and he lived in Nevada with you.”
“Maria,” he said. “That little house and the land have been in her family forever. And they always used to say they’d go back one day and live a quiet, easy life. I don’t know if he ever had any of that life with her there. I hope he did.”
“Me, too,” I say. “I like him. And he really likes you.”
“He’s cranky and brusque, and he was always a bit of an asshole,” Devlin says. “But he does. And I like him, too.”
“Thanks for bringing me along. It makes me happy to have these peeks into your past. Seeing hints that it wasn’t all bad. I’ve always hated thinking about your childhood. I’m not saying that now I think it was full of hugs and puppies, but at least I know that there were a few rays of sun peeking through the gloom.”
“There were,” he says, reaching for my hand. “And then I met you and the sun really came out.”
“Until the clouds came back,” I add, then immediately regret it. It’s a nice moment. Why remind him of the drama that surrounded him leaving me, or those years where I hated him so deeply I could feel it down to my toes?
“We got a second chance,” I whisper. “Not everyone does.”
“We’re lucky,” he says. “But it’s more than that. Luck brought us back together. But we’ve worked to get here, where we are.”
“In the middle of a field in Idaho?”
He taps the brakes, bringing us to a halt on this lonely dirt road. “I’m serious,” he says. “There were a hundred reasons we should have stayed apart. Hell, all I had to do was keep my distance and you would have never suspected who Devlin Saint really was. And then once we truly saw each other, it still wasn’t a picnic. My secrets. The knapsack of guilt you haul with you everywhere. So many things that could have kept us from truly becoming us.”
I almost comment on the guilt, but he’s right. I’ve carried survivor’s guilt with me for so long, I don’t even notice the weight. Lately, though, the burden has been lighter.
“We fought and we talked and we fought and we made love and then we fought some more. We’re together now because we’ve worked for it. Fought for it. And I’ll keep fighting to keep you forever. Only now you’re fighting alongside me, both of us against anyone who wants to rip us apart.”
My throat is so thick with emotion that I can barely get the words out. “I’ll always fight for us,” I say.
Our eyes lock. “Baby, I know.”
For a moment, he simply looks at me. We stay lost that way, I’m not sure for how long. The truck is filled with emotion, and finally, when it feels as if my heart may burst with the love I feel for this man, he gives me one final smile and turns his attention back to the wheel.
Ronan is at the hotel when we get there. Not literally, although that’s what I’d expected when Marci said that Ronan was set up in our room. Instead, he’s waiting impatiently in California for Devlin to login to a video call.
“What’s up?” Devlin says once we’re in the virtual room.
“Couldn’t get you on your phone,” Ronan says. As usual, he looks like a mythological god. Or maybe a Marvel hero. But today, there’s a wild energy about him. Something’s happened, and he’s eager to tell. “Next time you travel with the goddamn sat phone like you’re supposed to.”
“What’s happened?”
“Blackstone’s our man. We have confirmation.”
“Our man,” Devlin repeats. The words are careful. Measured. As if he’s holding in strong emotion. Which, of course, he is. “He’s the leak? Or he killed Tracy?”
“Confirmed on Tracy. Confidence is high on the leak.”
Devlin leans back in his chair, his hand automatically finding mine, and our fingers twine together.