Page 119 of Until You

I turn from a stall of oversized sunflowers when a stranger bumps firmly into my shoulder.

“Hey,” I yelp in reaction, spinning around to glare at the jerk.

I’m met with a pair of eyes I know on a face that’s changed some. The hair is a bit lighter, the nose cosmetically altered, and there’s a goatee when there never used to be one.

But it doesn’t matter.

I’d know that face anywhere because he’s the man who saved me.

The man I thought was dead beneath a sheet on a stretcher.

We stand in the middle of the walkway with people passing all around us, but I can’t take my eyes off him. Off Agent Tom Halston. He gives me the subtlest of nods and the slightest of smiles as one would a stranger. And before I can speak or act or even process who I’m seeing, Agent Halston turns on his heel and disappears back into the crowd he must have come from.

I want to run after him. To shout questions to answers he can’t probably give. To tell him how glad I am he’s alive.

But I don’t.

Can’t.

And when I get to my car minutes later and go to reach for my keys, I find an envelope there when there wasn’t one before. My fingers can’t open it fast enough.

T-

It was time for my demise. You can only push your luck for so long, and I feared mine was running out. Yes, we publicly blamed it on him just as your death was blamed on me. All loose ends were tied up.

Please know you’re still safe. You always have been. K never doubted your fate once. He trusted that I took care of it, and that trust never wavered.

Have a nice life.

You deserve it so very much.

-R

Tears blur my vision as I read and reread the note. As every part of me sinks into the knowledge of something I never thought I would feel again.

I’m safe.

How did he know that’s what I needed to hear?

Maybe because just like he knew how to take care of me before, he’s still taking care of me now.

One day you’ll wake up and suddenly realize that you really are Tennyson West.

Is this that day Peter told me would happen? That I’d finally feel more like Tennyson than Tessa?

I want that future, that reality, and I can finally feel that it’s a possibility.

I’m ready to be Tennyson West. To let go of the fear that has ruled me and to step into this new life of mine wholeheartedly.

It’s time to go home.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Tennyson

I slow the Jeep to a stop as I come to the drive.

The driveway that used to be dirt but that is now paved in fresh asphalt.