Jennifer Estep - Deadly Sting

“It was a nice service, as far as those things go,” Owen said. “She was well liked. Lots of friends there, along with her brother.”

I nodded again. There was nothing I could say to make Owen feel better or ease my own guilt.

“The folks who were there were happy that McAllister had been arrested,” he continued. “Especially her brother. He was glad that Jillian was going to get the justice that she deserved, and so am I.”

“Are you upset that I didn’t kill McAllister?” I asked. “Because I thought about it. I thought long and hard about it.”

He shrugged. “I’d like to see the bastard suffer for everything he’s done to all of us. I’m okay with your decision.”

I hadn’t spoken to Owen, but I knew that Bria and Xavier had filled him in on everything McAllister had said, including the lawyer’s plan to implicate him in the robbery.

“But I didn’t come here to talk about McAllister,” he said.

“Then what did you come here to talk about?”

“Salina.”

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah. That.”

He stared at me, his eyes steady on mine. “I’m okay about Salina. I understand why you did what you did, Gin.”

Those were the words I’d hoped to hear, but that sad, dull, resigned tone still clouded his voice. The one that told me that he might understand, but he hadn’t really accepted it yet. Still, I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“What changed?”

Owen shrugged. “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about Salina and everything that happened. Replaying it over and over again in my mind. I told you that at the museum.”

I nodded.

“But no matter what I think, I can’t see things ending any differently from how they did. I even hired a private investigator to dig into her past for me, everything that she’d done since she’d left Ashland. He gave me the report a few days ago. It wasn’t pretty. She was married several times. Did you know that?”

“Yes. Finn found out.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked. “Especially that all of her husbands looked like me? And that she killed every single one of them with her water magic?”

I shrugged. “I thought about it. But after everything that happened, I wasn’t sure how to tell you. I wasn’t sure that you’d want to know.”

I wasn’t sure that it would have made any difference, since you loved her so much .

I didn’t say the words, but that had been my main fear. That Owen had loved Salina so much that he would forgive her even that. That he would never get over what I’d done to her. That he could accept all of her awful actions but not mine. That she’d always have more of his heart than I ever would, despite all of the terrible things she’d done.

He nodded. “I suppose I can understand that too.”

“So what changed?” I asked, repeating my earlier question. “Why are you here now?”

He stared down at the tabletop for several seconds before finally lifting his gaze to mine. His violet eyes burned with emotion. “Because part of me shattered when I thought that you were dead.”

My breath caught in my throat, even as hope blossomed in my chest. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, but I held my tongue. This was Owen’s chance to speak, and I wanted to hear what he had to say, all of it—no matter how good, bad, or ugly it might be.

“When Clementine threw Jillian’s body into the middle of the rotunda, and I thought it was you, when I thought that you were dead . . .” Owen’s voice trailed off, and the memory and pain of that moment etched lines of anguish into his face. “It ripped me apart inside. Not just that you were gone but how things were between us. How I’d left things between us. I couldn’t believe that I’d never get the chance to tell you how I felt about you.”

“And how is that?” I whispered.

He looked me in the eye. “I love you, Gin. That hasn’t changed, even with everything that’s happened between us. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“But?”

He sighed. “But every time I close my eyes, I still see Salina lying there, reaching for me, asking me to save her. And I feel guilty that I didn’t.”

“You didn’t have a choice. I took that away from you when I had Finn hold you at gunpoint.”

He nodded again. “Maybe you did, but I still felt like I should have tried harder, fought harder. Can you understand that?”

I let out a tense breath. “I do, because I feel the same way about Jillian. Like I should have been able to save her, even though I didn’t know anything about McAllister’s plans.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Owen said.

“And Salina wasn’t yours. Not what she did to Eva or Phillip or Cooper. Not what she did to those ex-husbands of hers or what she tried to do to everyone at her estate.”

We fell silent, lost in our own thoughts, in our own guilt about everything we’d done and all the regrets we had. Finally, after a few minutes, I spoke once more.

“Salina might be dead,” I said, “but that doesn’t change things. It doesn’t change me .”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Salina’s not just a onetime thing. It could happen again. I could choose to do something that you don’t approve of. You might disagree, you might tell me all the reasons not to do something, and I might just do it anyway, because I think it’s the right thing to do.”

It was something I’d been thinking about ever since I’d had those dreams about the Delov hit all those years ago. Fletcher had been right when he’d said that I’d hurt the people I cared about. That’s what I’d done to Owen when I’d killed Salina. But the old man had also been right about something else: that I’d rather have Owen alive and hating me than dead by Salina’s hand.

This simple fact had helped me make peace with the water elemental’s death and my part in it. More than that, it had helped me come to terms with what was happening between me and Owen now. I would always love him, but I would understand if he couldn’t get past this. I would understand if I’d ended us when I’d killed Salina. It hurt—it would always hurt—but I would accept it and move on. Because no matter what, Owen was alive, and Salina wasn’t, and that was all that I really cared about.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Because if things are going to work between us— really work—then you need to understand this about me,” I said. “I will do whatever I have to in order to protect the people I love—even if they don’t like my actions. Even if they hate me for them.”

He sat there and studied me, his gaze tracing over the smooth set of my shoulders, the determination in my face, and finally, the certainty blazing in my eyes.

“And what if you’re wrong about something?” he asked. “What then?”

“Then I’ll be wrong. And I’ll live with that—and all the consequences of my actions.”

He studied me a moment longer. “I think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“So where do we go from here?”

Instead of answering me, he tapped his fingers on the table for several seconds before abruptly stopping. He hesitated a moment longer before answering me. “I don’t know. I just don’t know yet.”

I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t know what was left to say. We weren’t back together, but maybe we weren’t as far apart as we’d been. And for the first time, that spark of hope in my heart didn’t snuff itself out. Oh, it flickered and sputtered, but it kept right on burning, and I knew that it would until things were finally settled between us—one way or the other.

After a moment, Owen smiled at me. “I actually had another reason for coming by today. I wanted to give you something.”