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After the fact, maybe, but Grant went up a notch in my estimation.
I leaned back, grabbing for our clothes I collected earlier, and dressed her one-handed as she talked, then myself.
“They came into my room. After their meeting. Something about the school, wanting to limit who attended. Daddy, he didn’t like it.”
“Bonnie.” I kissed her temple. My eyes weren’t the only ones on the door. I had a damn good idea where this conversation was headed.
Her tears drenched my arm long before she told me what she kept inside all these years. “I couldn’t stop them. Too many. My dress was ripped.”
I swallowed. She went shopping for that damn dress with her mother weeks before prom. I remembered I hadn’t been allowed to see it. They teased me with the thought of her dressed up and I played along, aching to see her, waiting for her. So damn gorgeous just in jeans and a t-shirt. My girl.
“Fuck, Bonnie.” I kissed her mouth before she could keep talking. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
The platitude didn’t go far, but she pressed into me as I fixed the back of her dress and managed to wrap my belt around my waist, checking for my wallet, my badge I’d need the moment the local cops rocked up, and a different sort of rock.
“Mom came in halfway through. She saw everything.” Bonnie’s voice broke in full. “He held down, and she tried to help but they’d, I don’t know, someone kept Daddy away. He didn’t know, couldn’t help. He was heartbroken after. Called the police, reported everything. But they police were?—”
She choked, and I filled in the rest of the story because I knew this one by heart. Coldness filled my veins.
“The police were paid off because he owned them, didn’t he?” I recited by rote. “My grandfather.” Fuck. The one case I’d been after, all these years. If I’d been able to put him away earlier, she’d have been free that much sooner. “This was his man, wasn’t he?” I jerked my head back toward the body cooling on the carpet. She nodded, and sucked in a breath. “The reason you haven’t been able to come back to Texas at all?” Another nod. “Christ, love. I’ve failed you. Not being there for you.”
“I wasn’t allowed to. The police. I– they took me away. I– I asked them to drive past the prom. I saw you that night. You looked so angry.”
I stared down at her, horror building in my gut. “I saw that. The police car. I thought it was a routine drive by, checking on the kids. Our safety.” I uttered a hollow laugh. You were rightfucking there, love. I could have–” I slammed a fist backward into the plaster by the headboard and put my knuckles right through the wall.
Bonnie didn’t even flinch, only burrowed deeper into my chest, her tears soaking my shirt, but I didn’t care. Her hand slipped through my fingers, trying to pry my hand open, kissing the tiny cuts I put on my own skin.
“Don’t hurt yourself. Nash, please, let me hold your hand–”
Her desperate plea snapped off as I opened my fingers, displaying the diamond ring sitting in the middle of my palm.
“I’ve had this in my pocket ever since that night. I knew it was too early, and it was everything I had saved for a car we talked about me buying that I used on this instead.” I caught her hand and as she nodded, her lips parted, I slipped the ring always meant for her onto her finger. Her tears flowed fresh and fast as I kissed her knuckles, folding my bloodied ones over hers. “I love you, Bonnie. I want my name next to yours forever. It’s always been us.” I searched her eyes. “I wish I’d been there. Would have fought for you. But damn, girl. I’ll fight for you now.” I hit stop on the recording on my phone, knowing I’d need that later, and pulled her in for a deep kiss when she didn’t fight me.
She nodded, but her eyes were serious when I let her breathe. “What if I’m in jail for the next twenty years for killing a man?”
“That? That was defense, love. I promise.” I sent off two messages, one to my local FBI contact, the next to Archer, and pocketed my phone.
That pocket suddenly seemed a hell of a lot lighter. “Wanna tell your daddy before the cops arrive and we gotta tell them everything all over again?”
She kept on nodding, and let me lead her back around the dead man whose name I still didn’t know to Grant.
He didn’t turn his head when she hugged him, but did hold out an arm. “I heard,” he said gruffly. “You sure you want to be hitched to a Texas Ranger, Bon-Bon?”
She glanced at me with wide eyes. “Is that what you are?”
I shrugged. “It’s new to me, too. I was FBI.”
“Oh.” She blinked at me. “Daddy? We’re getting married in Texas.”
He looked down at her and ignored me. “You trust him?”
“We always should have.”
My heart glowed in my chest as she released her father and slipped her arms around my waist.
Then, we waited.
