Page 105 of The Two Last Moments

Lark Swanson. I tuck her hair behind her ear. Simple name, but it fits her.

“I didn’t trust anyone, but I trustedyou.” Lark doesn’t sound skeptical. More like she’s struggling to understand.

He laughs gently. “We’re alike, and I think you saw that in me, too. Weird as it seems. Some people just fit. We were both running from our mistakes, our pasts, even though our situations were completely different. When we were together, neither of us felt so alone.”

I don’t know what to think of this bond between Lark and my uncle. If he was her friend when she needed one that badly, why couldn’t he have done the same for me, his own nephew? Yet it’s hard to keep up the anger when he helped Lark. Both then, by being her friend when she needed one, and now, by telling her the truth she needs to hear.

Lark shifts around on the couch cushion. “What happened next?”

“Well, you got fired from volunteering at the clinic about two months ago. Not long after, you showed up at my door with all your belongings. Bruises on you and hellfire in your eyes. You were furious, damn neardejected, and you wouldn’t tell me what was really going on. But you kept mentioning my family. My mom. You insisted again that I get in touch and try to mend things.” His gaze meets mine before darting away. “But I just…couldn’t do it.”

“The emails,” Lark mutters.

“Second time you guys have mentioned emails. What’s that about?”

“Someone sent emails about you to Nina. It was probably me. But the emails started months ago. Not weeks.”

Travis sighs. “You must’ve been trying to help us reconnect since I didn’t have the courage to do it on my own. I bet you tracked down her email address online. You’re good with computers. Good at just about anything you set your mind to.”

“But I did that without telling you? And then I came all the way here to West Oaks to Nina’s house? Why?”

He shrugs. “All I knew is that you disappeared. I thought you might’ve gone back to Cam. Or worst case, to Zander. I tried calling your phone but never got any response. I was freaking the heck out, honestly. Worrying over you.”

But he didn’t go to the police because he’d run from that DUI in Vegas a decade ago, and he was afraid of getting caught. He doesn’t need to explain it for us to connect the dots.

And there’s that fucking anger again, burning the underside of my skin.

“Plenty of reason to worry,” I spit out. “Zander followed her here and tried to kill her. He was trying to stop Lark from getting to us.” Though I still can’t understand that part. Was it just Zander being cruel? Trying to get revenge on her for leaving him?

No, I realize. Zander was concerned about whether she had her memories. He told Lark that was why he hired Kathy Sullivan—not just to lure Lark away from us, but to find out what she remembered.

There was something Lark knew that he wanted to keep secret. Something worth killing her over.

“I’m sorry,” Travis says. “I really am.”

I can’t tell if he’s talking to Lark or to me.

Sighing, I turn to the woman I love and slide my fingers into the hair at the back of her neck. “At least we know that just about everything Zander told you was bullshit. You weren’t trying to trick Nina or steal from her.”

“But we still don’t know exactly why I came to West Oaks.”

“You were trying to help.”

She opens her mouth, brows drawn down in thought. Finally, she nods. I kiss her temple.

My girl. My beautiful, sweet girl. I told her that nothing Travis said would change how I felt about her, and it hasn’t. All he’s done is confirm how good a person she is. And it doesn’t surprise me. I know the woman I love. That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time.

“Thanks for telling me all of this.” She looks over at Travis. “From the moment I met Danny, when he saved my life, I felt like I knew him. I trusted him without knowing why. It was because of you. I think some part of me remembered you.”

Travis’s face crumples, and he tries to cover it. “Shit. Maybe I did something right, then? I hope.”

“You must have.” Lark smiles at me. “I fell in love with Danny because of the man he is, all on his own. But that first feeling that I was safe with him came from a good place. Sounds like you two have a lot in common.”

She stands up and gives Travis a hug, which he gratefully returns. They’re both wiping their eyes. Then she gives me another kiss. “Talk to him,” she whispers, before heading down the hallway.

Her footsteps echo, and then fade.

Guess I can’t delay this anymore.

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