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“Yeah,” Leigh breathed. “We can go home. Or… Actually, I guess I don’t have a home, now. My mother owns my house, legally.”
“You have a home with me,” Morgan promised. “And from the sounds of it, we’ll soon be upgrading, if we take that kind offer that was given to us earlier.”
Leigh grinned. “I wish someone had snapped a shot of her face. It was priceless.”
“That it was. It—”
Morgan didn’t know what it was that alerted her. Maybe it was an errant sound or a sudden movement, or perhaps it was simply her instincts, but from one moment to the next, she knew that something was deadly wrong.
She grabbed Leigh and pulled her to the ground just in time. A bullet went shooting over their heads, hitting the wall behind them.
“Stay down!” Morgan shouted to Leigh. She was up and running at once, darting through the panicked crowd. This time, Leigh’s stalker wasn’t going to get away from her.
It seemed he hadn’t gotten the memo that Leigh was no longer with Jake, which made sense, given that he had been lurking outside the event rather than inside where all the excitement had been happening.
Morgan saw a dark shape and the silhouette of a gun. She threw herself to the side just in time to avoid another shot. She didn’t stop moving forward, rolling over the ground and back to her feet, popping up right in front of her attacker.
He yelped in alarm and stumbled back. As his grip on his gun automatically loosened, Morgan wrenched it out of his hands and hit him hard on the side of the head with the handle.
Leigh’s stalker dropped like a stone.
Morgan took off her tie and used it to bind his hands before grabbing him by the ankles and dragging him back to where she had left Leigh. No way was she going to risk letting him out of her sight until the police had arrived.
Leigh was standing by the venue door, along with a crowd of others. Jake gasped when he saw who Leigh was dragging.
“That’s Simon!”
“You know him?”
“We dated—it has to be ten years ago now. I barely even remembered him.He’swho has been stalking Leigh? Why now, after all this time?”
“That’s for the police to figure out. There was probably some recent trigger in his life, a stressor that made him long for a past stable relationship. He fixated on you, but since you weren’t available, his obsession switched to taking Leigh out of the picture. We can’t know for sure until he’s questioned, but whatever his reasons, at least he won’t be on the loose anymore.”
“I’m not so sure.” Leigh bit her lip. “It’s not like I have access to money to hire the best prosecution lawyers anymore. What if he gets off?”
“He’s not going to.” Yet another guest stepped forward. “My brother is an attorney specializing in criminal law. He’s one of the best, and I’m sure I can convince him to take your case pro-bono.”
Morgan supposed she shouldn’t really be surprised by such generosity coming from people attending a charity gala, but it still took her breath away how many people were willing to support Leigh.
If Amanda had crushed Morgan’s faith in people, it was being renewed tenfold right here and now. She put an arm around Leigh as Leigh stammered her thanks. Someone had already called the police and there were sirens sounding in the distance.
Morgan took a deep, settling breath. It was truly over now.
Now, she and Leigh had nothing to do but plan the rest of their lives together.
Epilogue
Four years later
Leigh
Leigh shifted slightly, looking through the line of her peers, trying to spot her wife. There she was. Morgan was right next to Jake and Mike, who were holding hands. A mere three weeks after Leigh and Morgan had gotten engaged, Jake had come out to his family.
He told Leigh that she inspired him, and they walked each other down the aisle at one another’s weddings.
Neither of them had had any contact with their families since coming out. It was sad, but Leigh had learned to live with it. Jake and Mike had their own little family now—two beautiful twin girls, less than a year old.
Morgan waved at Leigh, her eyes shining with pride. Leigh waved back, fingering her graduation robes, making sure they were hanging right. She was graduating top of her class in computer programming and already had a number of companies vying to have her work for them, who were happy to have her part time while she finished her postgrad.
