Page 171 of Like A Moth To A Flame

As I cradled our baby, a surge of overwhelming love enveloped me. It was like I had known her all my life, and the moment she touched my skin, I recognized her like a long-lost love. I couldn’t believe that this tiny being was ours and that she was coming home with us. I whispered sweet words to her, promising to protect her the same way her father had protected me—with all the ferocity of a wild animal.

“Olivia,” I said, turning to Tommy. “I want to name her Olivia.”

Sheriff Banner sighed happily as he stepped up beside me.

“After your mom,” he said, and I nodded. “She would be so proud.”

“I know,” I said, fighting the roiling ball of tears that stuck in my throat. “I still feel her in that house.”

We stayed that way for a long while, enjoying the love in the room as Rebecca bustled back and forth, gathering supplies and typing on the computer. It wasn’t until she left the room and returned with a window marker and began to write that tears leaked from my eyes.

When she’d finished, ‘Olivia’ written in pink bubble letters across the glass door, I released a wavering sigh of relief. That was it then. It was official.

“She’s beautiful,” Sheriff Banner said, looking down at us.

“Do you wanna hold her?” Tommy asked. “After all, you saved her life.”

“No, no thank you, I really can’t stay long, and she’s so tiny,” he shook his head. “There will be time for that when she’s got a bit of weight on her. I just came to give you some news.”

There was a small pause before he continued.

“Barrett Foster died of his injuries,” he said, looking down at the baby, and then up toward her father. “But seeing as how it was self-defense, Tommy, I got you off clean and dry. It’s over now. You two can enjoy that baby in peace.”

I should have felt relief. I should have felt a weight lifting off of me knowing that he could never hurt me again, but I didn’t.

All I felt was pain, regret, and mourning.

Even if I knew, somewhere deep inside me, that he was never my best friend, it still felt like he had been.

44

How dare she be so perfect? What did I do to deserve this?

Firefly

6 months later

The sun was cruel and unforgiving, and it burned across the back of my neck as I stepped down off the porch. Coming down the long gravel driveway, long filled in to save Olivia and Vanessa the pain of the potholes, a large, cherry red Ford pickup barreled towards us.

Us—meaning Duke and myself. He lay across the front porch, his tail flopping lazily as I walked by, stooping to pet him before stepping down into the grass.

Vanessa was at the clinic, putting her last-minute finishing touches on it before the grand opening tomorrow. It had been about a year and a half since she bought it, and a lot of work had gone into it, but she and Amelia were finally ready to live their dream, and I couldn’t be happier for them.

I’d given her the family she’d always wanted, and she’d given me the understanding I craved. She had closure in this town and had begun to love it again. Now there was only one small piece of the puzzle left before I could, with all good conscience, call our little family complete.

That small piece of the puzzle was grunting and pawing inside the trailer hitched to the back of the truck as it slid to a smooth stop in front of me. As I approached the pickup, Duke fell into step beside me, his tongue falling out the side of his mouth as he came up to greet the newcomer.

Inside the trunk, the single occupant tipped his hat at me and threw the door open as I stepped around to the driver’s side door to greet him.

He was a tall man, towering over me by a good three inches or more. He was a little rounder in the midsection than I was, with a red handlebar mustache and beady blue eyes framed in crow’s feet that crinkled as he smiled at me. The smell of tobacco and hay wafted off of him when he reached out to shake my hand.

“Tom Eades?” he asked, and I nodded. “I’m Rodney. We spoke on the phone.”

“Yup, that’d be me.”

“Come around to the back here, and I’ll show you what I’ve got for ya.”

His voice had a pleasant, if not tired, ring to it.

---