Had anybody ever had a heart attack from pure joy? I had to wonder as I hugged him again, chewing on the last part about his ma.
“I'll pay more money to have the dates chiseled off.” I nodded at the big angel standing over Oki's grave, where Finn and Lizzie's ashes had supposedly been added about a decade ago.
“Nobody ever signed off on the death certificates,” Finn said.
When I whipped my head around, he was grinning. “What?”
“Ma always said you were way too paranoid. She used some of the money you sent to brush off the guy who came up here to change our whole identities. Dude was pretty fucking happy to get paid double for doing nothing except these fake grave markers.”
“Goddamn it,” I growled, shaking my head. “She always was a Firecracker. Figures she'd fuck me over like that.”
If only I'd been able to talk to her then, remind them what kind of danger they were in. Whoever or whatever had watched over them, knowing they hadn't switched names, deserved my thanks.
“Don't tell me,” my son said, slapping a big hand on my shoulder, turning me around. “Say it to her.”
My knees almost dropped the fuck out when I saw the trim, beautiful forty-something woman heading toward us.
Rosy red hair. Bright green eyes. Curves just the way I remembered, calling my old hard-on to attention like a soldier shaking off a hangover.
Finn leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I'll be in my car, old man. Looks like you've got a lot of catching up to do.”
The kid was smart – shit, of course he was, I'd made him – but he didn't know the half of it.
VI: To Eternity (Lizzie)
I'd fucked him. Worn his brand.
Married him. Loved him.
Lost him. Hated him.
Today, I forgave him. I came out to the cemetery where Finn said he'd be, wearing the leather jacket I hadn't worn since the day I was shot. PROPERTY OF BLACKJACK was sewn on the back, the blood long since bleached out.
For the first time in years, I meant it, too.
Sam aged so well. The long black hair I used to run my fingers through had gone gray, and he walked with the faintest hint of a limp, but I recognized the man I'd married the instant I saw him.
Beautiful gray stubble. Eyes so dark and sharp they reminded me of all the nights we'd spent together. Those flush lips beneath the scar on his cheek were the same ones that kissed me, commanded me, told me he loved me, and killed me the day he walked out.
He took big, eager strides toward me. I think I ran faster, feeling my heart do a dozen loops at once.
It was all coming down before we embraced, years of bitterness and silence just crashing apart. I'd planned to get the first words in, but the sobs ripping at my throat wouldn't let me once his arms were around me.
They'd lost none of their strength with time. He held me, pressed me to his chest, reminding me how amazing, how right, how delicious it felt to be here, snug against his muscular wall.
“Never stopped loving you, babe,” he said, stopping to smother my neck with kisses. “Not once. I'm too damned old to quit now, so I'm gonna keep on doing it. Don't care if you like it. Don't care if you want it. It's all I'll give you, all I've got 'til the day I die.”
Smooth talker. Too smooth.
I never imagined how much hard it would really hit me to hear his voice, the dark, savage cadence rumbling in his chest. Nuzzling deeper against him, I didn't resist when he reached for my chin, tilted my face up to his.
Did he brace himself for our first kiss in twenty hellish years? Did I?
I'd never be able to tell. Because once our lips locked together, everything went fiery and white, tearing the rest of the sadness and pain from my heart.
“God! I love you too, Sam. I forgive you.” I wept when the words finally came out. “Life's too short for this. I want you in my life again, even if you can't let go of the club. You said it's safe. You invited me in. So, here I am.”
“Fuck yeah, you are. And you're never leaving me again, Lizzie. I'm not going anywhere this time. You're all I thought about the last twenty years, and you're gonna be the last thing on my whacked out brain in twenty more.”
“Blackjack...Sam...” My tongue fell all over itself, hungry for his taste, twisted into knots by raw emotion.
In the distance, somewhere behind us, I could feel our son watching and smiling. We were just feet from daddy's grave, a family reunion I'd dreamed about forever. But it wasn't supposed to turn me into a mess, so full and warm I could barely talk.
“God damn it, why did we waste so much time apart?” I said, shaking my head.
Blackjack took me by the temples, held my face steady, and planted his lips on mine. We kissed harder than before, and I sank into him, happier than I'd been since the morning before I took a bullet so long ago.