Redstone, Incorporated: The Best Revenge Part 22

"There's another decision you have to make."

"What?" He was surprised at how steady his voice was.

"I know I'm all tied up in your mind with the bad times. Will I always remind you? Can you let go of that?"

"You're...the only thing I want to keep. From then."

"You don't get over the kind of things that happened to you. I know that. You can only figure out how to live with them, around them. It's pretty obvious you've learned that. And that Redstone's become the family you should have had, but didn't. You trust them. I know what a miracle that alone is."

So did he. He hadn't really realized it before he'd gone back to Cedar, but he knew it now.

She went on, gently but relentlessly, that warrior closing in.

"And I know you'll need time, now and then, to come to someplace like this, rebuild those walls. And I'm okay with that."

He felt a new, fiercer kind of tightness that seemed to encompa.s.s his entire body as her gentle words and her un canny understanding washed over him. He hadn't needed this before, this escape to rebuild the walls, because he'd never been close enough to anyone that it mattered.

It mattered now.

"That is," she went on, "I'm okay with it as long as we get an equal amount of time away. Josh says you work too hard. That you never sleep."

"Sleep...isn't always good."

"Nightmares? I think I know how to fix that," she said, with a look that sent his pulse racing. "So what you have to decide is...if you want me. If you want us."

He sucked in a breath. Steadied himself. And looked up to meet her eyes. Clear, honest, beautiful eyes. Eyes in which he could see the future, the chance at things he never even dared to wish for, if only he could find the nerve to reach for it. And somehow, what he saw there gave him that nerve.

"More," he said slowly, "than I've ever wanted anything. Anything."

He saw in her face, in her eyes, that she understood the import of his words. That he wanted the precious "us" she'd spoken of more than he'd even wanted to destroy the man who had nearly destroyed him.

"Kids. Can't," he said, knowing she'd understand.

"After the way you were with Tyler? I wouldn't worry at all. We could adopt. But if you want, we'll raise dogs instead. Borrow kids. I understand there's a few of them available at Redstone."

"Work."

"I know. You have to be there. That may take me some time, until Mom's in a little better shape. But I've always wanted to see California."

"Election."

"I withdrew." She grinned, startling him. "The town council appointed a temporary mayor, in light of circ.u.mstances."

"Who?"

"Uncle Larry."

He blinked. Nearly smiled at the very thought.

"I never really wanted it anyway," she said.

"That's who should hold office."

"Those who don't really want the power? I agree. Larry sees it as a temporary but necessary nuisance in his life. I think that's the right att.i.tude."

She reached up then, her gentle fingers tracing the scar. He shuddered under her touch, unable to hide the reaction, and, deep down, not wanting to.

"No one will ever own you again, Dam."

He shook his head. "Wrong."

"What?"

He knew what he was about to admit, knew it down to his bones. And knew it had to be. Because it had always been.

"You do. Want you to."

The smile that curved her mouth then made him think of a long, unbroken string of mornings, waking to that smile. And then, in a voice full of so much emotion it sounded nearly as shaky as he felt, she said, "I love you, Dameron St. John. Just as I loved Adam Alden. And I always will."

He swallowed tightly. "I know. And it makes me feel like...for the first time in my life...I...G.o.d, Jess, is this love? Is this what it feels like? Too big to hold, so huge you think you're going to explode into pieces?"

"That," she said, "is exactly what it feels like."

"Then...I..."

He couldn't quite get the words he'd never said out. But it didn't seem to matter to Jessa. She simply looked at him, that smile widening.

"I know," she said softly, in answer to what he hadn't said. And much later, in the dappled sunlight that played across two sleek, naked bodies locked together, he found the words.

It was in the quiet aftermath that he reached over to his discarded jeans and dug into the pocket. He found what he was looking for, tugged it out. And held it up for her to see.

When Jessa focused on the clay dog dangling from the keychain she'd given him so long ago, her beautiful, changeable eyes widened. And the smile she gave him then held all he needed to know of the future.

Epilogue.

"This place is buzzing like a power saw convention," John Draven said as he walked into his boss's office. "Never seen anything like it. Is it for real?"

Josh sat behind his desk, but he was staring out the windows to the west, toward the ocean. The view was the only thing in this surprisingly-for a billionaire-spare office that spoke of what this man had achieved in a relatively short time. But Josh was all about function, not show, and Draven knew he always had been.

For a long moment Josh said nothing, and Draven could only imagine what was going through his mind.

"So it seems," Josh finally answered, but he still didn't turn to look at his Chief of Security.

"You told me once," Draven said softly, "that if you heard St. John was getting married, then you'd know the world was coming to an end."

"And it may well be," Josh said under his breath, so quietly Draven knew it would be better if he pretended not to have heard it. And then Josh seemed to shake it off, and at last turned to look at him.

"It's right?" Draven asked.

"Very," Josh said. "She's probably the only woman in the world who could deal with him, with what he has to live with. And G.o.d knows he's earned what he's found. Paid for it in the hardest way." Humor flickered in Josh's eyes. "And the fact that he's so surprised and stunned about it is the icing on the cake."

Draven couldn't help smiling at the very idea of St. John in either of those states. "Who is she?" Draven asked.

"From what he told me, she's the only reason he was still alive for us to meet, all those years ago."

Draven sat down on the scarred leather couch that Josh had had for years, since the early days in the hangar. It sat facing the other way, toward the Redstone Headquarters central courtyard, with its cool green garden and peaceful pond and waterfall. Josh expected the most out of his people, but he also gave them the most, and that garden was a favorite spot of most who worked here in the building.

"Then we owe her," Draven said.

"Yes."

"You know, don't you? What happened to him? What made him...who he is?"

"Yes. For the most part. I doubt anyone knows the whole ugly truth." As if in counterpoint to the unpleasant acknowledgment, a smile curved Josh's mouth. "Except, I'm guessing, Jessa Hill."

"Can't wait to meet her."

"You'll like her. She's...just what you'd hope."

What he hoped, Draven thought, now that the unthinkable had happened and the Redstone magic had transformed not just his own hardened heart, but even the legendary St. John's, was for the one thing that would cause even more buzz. The one thing that would delight all of Redstone, a bit of the happiness they'd found for the man they owed it all to.

Once, before his own life had changed so incredibly for the better, he would have never thought such a thing. Now he, and most of Redstone he guessed, wished for nothing less than the biggest dose of Redstone magic to happen to their beloved boss.

"It could happen," his own sweet Grace had said this morning when she'd heard the impossible news about St. John. "If it could happen for him, it could happen for Josh."

"Like it happened for us," he'd said.

"Yes. And still does," she'd purred, and proceeded to make him late getting here.

"There must be," Josh said musingly, "something in the Redstone water."

Draven pulled himself out of the hot, sweet memory of this morning and back to the present. "More like something in the Redstone people. When you bring together the best, people who think in the Redstone way, it's going to happen."

When he left a few minutes later, Josh was back to staring out the window.

And battle-hardened, intimidating, ruthless John Draven was aching inside for the man who had given so much and taken so little.

It could happen....

"Then let it be soon," he muttered to himself.

And he knew that there wasn't a single person in this building who wouldn't echo his sentiments.

But sitting around hoping wasn't the Redstone way. And it certainly wasn't his. Action was. He just wasn't sure what action to take. But he'd figure it out.

He was Redstone, after all.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4836-0.

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