“Oh stop… I love it.” I snap another photo. “This is going in next year’s Christmas card.”
“We’re not sending Christmas cards.”
“We are now.”
He shakes his head but he’s smiling, and that’s when I know I’ve won.
We’re loading up the car with gifts and treats when I notice something on the porch.
“Damon.” I freeze. “Is that?—”
My medical bag.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAMON
Blake freezeson the porch steps, staring at something by the front door.
“Is that—” she asks, cutting herself off in shock.
Her medical bag.
My hand instinctively goes to where my gun would be. “Stay here.”
“It’s my bag,” she says, already moving toward it.
“Don’t.” I reach it first, scanning the porch and driveway for any signs of threat. There’s nothing. Just the bag sitting there like someone carefully placed it out of the snow. There’s an envelope taped to the top with Blake’s name written in neat, feminine handwriting.
Lexi.
Blake crouches to open the bag, quiet and shocked. I watch her take inventory of the contents— stethoscope, supplies, even the fucking taser that knocked her out.
And the envelope with the money. All of it.
“Read the note,” I say. She opens it carefully, and I read over her shoulder.
Blake,
I found your bag in the exam room after everyone scattered. Your address was on the luggage tag inside. I wanted to return it—and to say I’m sorry. For hurting you. For not trusting you when you were trying to help.
I’m going somewhere they’ll never find me. Somewhere I can be whoever I want to be.
The money is yours. You earned it, and honestly, it’s blood money anyway. Do something good with it. Something that helps someone else.
Thank you for trying to save me, even when I didn’t want to be saved.
Merry Christmas,
Lexi
Blake reads it twice, and I watch her throat work as she swallows hard.
“She got away,” she whispers, rubbing her eyes. “She really got away.”
I wrap my arm around her, pulling her close. Part of me is still furious at Lexi for hurting Blake, for that moment of pure terror when I thought I’d lost her. But the bigger part, the part of me that Blake has softened, understands.
Desperate people do desperate things. Fuck, I’ve been there more than once.
