Those were the words that broke through my confusion. Those were the ones I’d both needed to hear and to say. I didn’t remember moving, but I found myself throwing my arms around Mrs. Bailey’s neck, embracing her like I didn’t know the meaning of holding back. With a surprised sob, she pulled me close, hugging me until we were both crying. I’d needed to cry for so long, it seemed like I’d damned up a pond’s worth of tears.
“I’m sorry,” I got out when I was finally able to speak. “It’s me who’s sorry. I’m the one responsible for your husband dying.”
Mrs. Bailey’s head shook against my shoulder. “No, honey, that’s not true. The man who pulled the trigger is responsible for my husband’s death. The man who gave the order is responsible for his death.”
When I leaned back, I saw just as many tears staining her face as I guessed were staining mine. “But they killed him because you wouldn’t kill me.”
She grabbed my face, her thumbs wiping away a few tears. “Just because you lived doesn’t mean you’re responsible for him dying.” She worked up a small smile. “You have to learn to make peace with it. Promise me you’ll try.”
When Rylan stepped up beside us, I knew it was his subtle way of saying we need to get out of here. “I’ll try,” I agreed, wiping my nose. “But what are you going to do now that your only student has run away?”
Her gaze dropped behind me. “You mean what am I going to do now that my only student has died in a tragic accident?” She and Rylan exchanged a look while I waited. “I think I’ll hit the road for a while. See all the places I always wanted to but never have. I’ll act like I’m twenty and let the road take me where it wants to.”
“Alone?”
Mrs. Bailey patted my face before stepping aside. “I’m used to it. I’m a pro at having a conversation with myself, so don’t worry, I’ll keep myself company.”
My heart ached when I thought of this woman with so much kindness and selflessness having no one to share it with. “Maybe you could visit us sometime? I don’t know where we’re going, but Rylan does. Stop by and stay with us for a while once you’ve seen your sights.”
Mrs. Bailey’s head shook even before Rylan’s did. “No one can know where you two go. No one but the two of you. That’s the only way you’ll be safe.”
I knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. “How will we ever see each other again then?”
Mrs. Bailey’s smile turned sad. Grasping my hand, she gave it a squeeze. “We won’t. This is good-bye. The final kind, honey.”
Tears pricked back to the surface when I accepted that I wasn’t just saying good-bye to the bad things in my life. True, the bad outweighed the good ten to one, but I’d never considered saying the forever kind of good-bye to those few good things that had made eighteen years not so hopeless . . . Mrs. Bailey, Serena, Luca, the tiramisu cake my mom made every year for my birthday, my favorite bathrobe I’d worn down to threads. None of it could come with me. I could never come back to any of it.
That was when Rylan’s hand slipped into mine before his lips pressed against my temple. I was saying good-bye to masses of evil, a mound of good, and a dismal future as Mrs. Constantine Lombarti, but I had him in exchange. And my freedom.
The price was high, but the cost was worth it.
“You said you’d sacrifice anything for your one great love,” I said. That day in the library, right before I met Rylan, seemed so long ago. “But that wasn’t true. You didn’t kill me, your student.”
Mrs. Bailey shook her head, one tear trickling down her cheek. “I’ve always considered you more an adopted daughter than a student, Josette. How could I possibly kill my daughter?”
A lump formed in my throat. Why was this so hard? “I’ll miss you,” I choked out.
Mrs. Bailey handed the car keys to Rylan. “I’ll miss you more. But I’ll be thinking about you, and as long as we have our thoughts of our loved ones, they’re never really lost to us.” Leaning in, she kissed my cheeks. “Good-bye, Josette. Live a long and happy life.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the word, so I forced a smile. “I will.”
She wrapped her arms around Rylan for a quick hug. “Take care of her. Or else I will track you two down and straighten you out.”
Rylan chuckled. “I promise I will.” He circled the keys around his finger. “And thank you again for the car. We’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done.”
Mrs. Bailey’s gaze drifted to the coppery Buick that looked almost as old as she was. A smile appeared as she patted the hood. “I know it’s an ugly old thing and you’ll curse it when it comes time to visit the gas pump, but it’s reliable and will get you wherever you’re going. The bag you left with me is in the trunk.”
“It’s perfect,” Rylan replied, escorting me to the passenger side.
“When my husband brought that home, I hated it from the first time I laid eyes on it. But now . . .” Her eyes went to the steering wheel, like her husband was sitting behind it, and her smile spread. “It’s kind of grown on me.”
With one last wave, Mrs. Bailey turned and headed into the shadows. She was lost in them before Rylan slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.
“Why do you think she’d risk her life—again—to help us?” I asked myself, but it was Rylan who answered.
“Because she saw that we were the first, and quite possibly the only, good thing that had come from our families being at war for over a hundred years.”
I stared out the windshield. “Where do you think she’s going?”
Rylan stared at it too. “Wherever she wants. Same as us.” Taking his pistol out from behind his back, he set it between us then threw his arm over the seat behind me. “Ready?”
“What are we waiting for?” I looked out the windshield, vowing to watch every mile tick off because I’d waited for this for so long.
“Nothing.” Rylan set the car into motion.
I felt like I didn’t take a single breath until we’d left the city limits, almost like I was afraid if I did, someone would hear it and we’d be caught. Once we were safely outside of Chicago, I let myself relax a bit. The instant I got comfortable on the plush bench seat, exhaustion set in. When I scooted the rest of the way across the seat to lean my head on Rylan’s shoulder, something hard stopped me.
“Think we can put this in the glove box for a while?” I asked, picking up his gun from the seat and moving it to the glove box. In a grand feat of clumsiness, I managed to somehow pop open the cylinder, causing bullets to tumble to the floor mat. After cursing under my breath and ignoring Rylan’s muffled chuckle, I stuffed the pistol into the glove box. I was just tossing the bullets in with it when I noticed something. “Rylan?” My eyebrows pinched together as I recounted the bullets.
“Yeah?”
“There’s only one bullet missing from your gun. All the rest are still here.” Wondering if my tired eyes were playing tricks on me, I rubbed them then looked again. Nope. Still only one bullet gone.
“Yeah? So?”
“I thought you said you killed all those men back at the warehouse, but how could you have? I fired the first shot, which explains why one bullet’s gone, but that doesn’t explain why the rest of them are still here.”
Rylan’s peaceful expression broke, his whole face lining for a moment. Glancing at the gun with his face still creased, his gaze wandered to me. “I didn’t use my gun to shoot them. I used one of theirs.”
“How?” I asked.
“I don’t know. One of them must have dropped it in the chaos.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “What aren’t you telling me?” I slammed the glove box shut.
“Something I’m not ready to tell you quite yet.” When I opened my mouth to protest, he continued in a rush, “But something I will tell you when the time is right.”
“When will the time be right?” I twisted in the seat to stare at him.
Sighing, he pulled me c
lose. My head wound up on his shoulder, where I’d been trying to put it a few minutes ago. “When it’s right.”
I should have gone another couple of rounds, but the moment my head relaxed on his shoulder, the rest of my body followed. Exhaustion, it seemed, was even more powerful than a person’s desire to get to the truth.
I was out for a long time. So long, I was pretty sure the sun was more falling from the sky than climbing it when I woke. After exchanging a few words with Rylan to make sure he was still doing okay, I fell into another deep sleep and didn’t wake up until it looked like the sun was just barely thinking about climbing into the sky.
The car rolling to a stop and turning off was what woke me. Rylan’s lips against mine got my blood pumping. He pulled away just as my limbs came back to life.
“Wake up, sleepyhead.” He sounded perky, like he’d just woken from a full night’s sleep and had a couple cups of coffee.
“Please tell me you pulled over to sleep while I was selfishly passed out in a coma?” I rubbed my eyes and stretched my stiff arms and legs.
“Nah. I’ve been waiting to get here for so long, the last thing I wanted to do was stop to sleep.” Once he slid out the door, he helped pull me out.
My body wasn’t just stiff; I felt like it had practically atrophied. “How long have you been driving?”
“A bit over a full day.” He stretched his arms over his head.
“A bit over a full day?” I repeated, blinking. “Where are we?”
Rylan swept his arm out in front of us toward a cottage-style home surrounded by every kind of plant and flower. The house was small, not quite shoebox size but nearly, and the shutters framing every window were in need of a fresh coat of paint. It was the most beautiful home I’d ever seen. In the background, I heard waves crashing against a shore, and I smelled salt in the air. A thin layer of fog rolled around us, just starting to lift in the morning sun.
“Our new life,” he said, looking from me to the house and back again.
“This is yours?” I nodded at the home I was smiling at.
“This is ours,” he corrected.
“You planned all this out? For me? For us?” Our entire escape had been so carefully orchestrated. He’d left nothing to chance and no detail ignored.
Rylan nodded as he took a long breath. The air here was fresh and clean, so different from what we’d left behind. I could only assume the air would be the first of many stark differences to come.
“How did you manage all of this?” I stared at the home’s green front door. At our home’s green front door. My smile stretched.
“Remember what I said about the up-side to growing up in organized crime?”
“You’ve got way better connections than I do. I’m going to have to work on that,” I said as a chortle of seagulls interrupted me. I’d begged to visit the ocean as a child, but I’d never actually seen it. I was going to now. “Those connections wouldn’t have happened to find us a couple of jobs, would they? You know, so we can keep things like the lights on, the water running, food in our stomachs, clothes on our backs. Those little things.”
I’d fled Chicago with the clothes I had on and thirty-two dollars in my pocket. I hadn’t counted the change in my wallet yet, but I knew what I had wouldn’t stretch far. I wasn’t sure how much he had on him, but either way, we’d have to find some way to make money sooner rather than later. I’d never worked before, but unlike most wealthy kids, the idea of waiting tables or making change excited me.
Rylan chuckled. “No jobs yet. But while we’re working on that, I’ve got a suitcase in the trunk that happens to be stuffed with money. We should be good to go for, you know, the next couple of decades or so.”
All I could do was shake my head. I shouldn’t have been surprised he’d thought of everything. A suitcase of money included. “We’re safe here?”
“We’ve got the Pacific Ocean in front of us and people who think we’re dead behind us. This is home.” He grabbed my hand and led me up the stone walkway toward the house. “Our clean slate. Write on it whenever and wherever you want.”
Pulling him to a stop, I looked at him. “How about we start right here?”
I pressed myself into him as my arms slipped around him. His wrapped around me, pulling me to him so tightly I slipped up onto my tiptoes. Closing my eyes, I sighed. Every time I’d held Rylan, it had felt like that could have been the last time. This embrace felt different. This one felt like the first of many to come.
Because once upon a time, our stars had been crossed. We’d fought fate and our families to uncross them, and we were ready to start living that happily-ever-after part. Or however close to it we could get.
Thank you for reading CROSSING STARS by NEW YORK TIMES & USA TODAY Bestselling Author, Nicole Williams. Nicole loves to hear from her readers.
You can connect with her on Facebook: Nicole Williams (Official Author Page)
Twitter: nwilliamsbooks
Blog: nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com
Other Works by Nicole:
CRASH, CLASH, and CRUSH (HarperCollins)
LOST & FOUND, NEAR & FAR, FINDERS KEEPERS
UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK)
GREAT EXPLOITATIONS SAGA
THE EDEN TRILOGY
THE PATRICK CHRONICLES
Nicole Williams, Crossing Stars
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