Strange in Skin (39 page)

“We can let it all go now,” he whispered, putting his hand underneath my chin and pulling my face
upwards next to his. “We have our beginning now. Nobody can stop us.”
“No, Emry, wait …” But my words were interrupted by his lips pressing down on my own in a kiss
that made all the bad dissipate from within my mind at that moment. All I could focus on was this
beautiful moment and the way his lips felt against my own, the way his breath felt hot on my tearstained cheek.

“I almost thought you’d given up on me,” he whispered.

 

I blushed just then, feeling the shame of what he didn’t know, that I had, well, at least tried to. I had
been so convincing that I had almost tricked myself into believing it as well. What an idiot I had been.

“I love you, Anna James.” He smiled at me again.
“I love you, too,” I whispered and pushed up to kiss him again.
“And who is this?”

Emry released his hold on me at the sound of the voice. He put his hand on my back being cautious
of my crutches holding me up. He turned me around to face his attorney, Ben Hanley.
“This is Anna,” he said proudly.

 

Ben extended his hand out to me. I slowly balanced my crutch against my hip so I could have a free
hand to shake his. I gritted my teeth together but tried to force a smile and be polite.
“It’s nice to meet you, Anna. I’m Ben Hanley, Emry’s attorney. He’s told me so much about you.
You’re pretty much the only thing that got him through all the time he spent in prison,” Ben said.

He had a warm smile and a gentle face. He looked very professional. It was hard to hate him as
much as I did at that moment when he was such a likable guy. Looks were so deceiving sometimes, I
reminded myself. I couldn’t let his pleasant personality sidestep my attention to the task at hand. I had
to tell Emry about his untrustworthy lawyer and his evil intentions. I hoped he was going to leave, at
least give us a moment to ourselves.

“I don’t know if that’s entirely true,” I managed to get out, the words feeling like they were sticking
to my tongue.
Emry laughed. “Yeah, right. You’re so modest.”

Ben clasped his hands together. “Well, all right, let’s get you out of here. I’m sure you’re anxious to
go.”

 

“That’s an understatement,” Emry replied.

The panic overtook me again. Ben Hanley wasn’t going to leave. He was actually going to be the
one to guide us out the doors. I had to do something, but before I knew it, Emry had his hand firmly on
my back again as he led me toward the doors out of the room.

“If I didn’t think you’d be embarrassed, I’d carry you out of here so you didn’t have to use those
things,” he joked.

 

I didn’t smile. I couldn’t think of anything else but that something terrible was about to happen if
Emry got near the front entrance of the courthouse.

 

“Emry, I need to …”

 

“Hey, congratulations, man,” a guy said quickly shaking Emry’s hand making him incapable of
paying attention to what I was trying to tell him.

 

“Yeah, thanks,” Emry said.

Before I knew it, we were already outside of the room and in the hallway. There were a lot more
people out here, most of them not happy about the verdict and glaring at Emry, especially now that
they saw that I was by his side. My father and Buck were leaning up against the wall. When Buck saw
us together, his face turned pale. I looked away from them. I refused to worry about what they were
thinking right now as I continued to get dragged along by Emry.

Ben, who had only been a few steps ahead of us, turned quickly on his heels and faced us. “Listen,”
he said in a low tone so nobody else could hear what he was saying. “I think we should go out through
the other doors, the back way out.”

Emry raised his eyebrows suspiciously at him.

Ben frowned. “I just think there’s going to be too much publicity, even more when the press sees
her.” He nodded toward me.
Emry wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. “You’re right, Ben. Where’s the
other exit?”
“Let’s just try to do this discretely,” Ben suggested.

“Emry,” I tried to say.

 

“You do want to come with me, don’t you?” he asked as we moved slowly but steadily toward the
back of the courthouse.

“Yes,” I answered. “But shouldn’t we …”
“They’re following us,” he said.
“Who?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Pastor James and Buck Brady.”

I didn’t bother to look myself. I took his word for it. I found myself distracted. Emry wasn’t
listening to me. I wasn’t being forceful enough. But what should I do? I couldn’t make a scene in front
of Ben. I was afraid he’d kill him right then and there if I confronted him. I could be making it worse.
But why had he suggested the back way? My heart thumped wildly in my chest. He probably had
someone out there waiting for Emry, maybe even waiting for the both of us. The back door was now
in sight. Adrenaline raged within me as I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to stop it. I was
sure that we were both about to die.

My eyes darted around madly for something, anything that would be able to help me in my moment
of pure desperation. There wasn’t even anybody down at this end of the hall. I could hear footsteps
behind us though, and I knew that it was my father and Buck hot on our heels to come retrieve me, to
convince me of what a horrendous mistake I was making.

We were almost to the door now. It was just up ahead. A door opened at the corner of the hallway.
A woman stepped out just ahead of us. She had long, sleek brown hair and appeared to be in a hurry.
She looked up at me just then, her green eyes with a hard stare toward Emry. A feeling that I had seen
her face somewhere before at one time or another filled me. I
had
seen that face before. A pretty girl
with a hard face and grim expression. Then it hit me. I had seen her at the hospital when my mother
had been admitted for her heart. That same woman had been sitting outside in the hallway of the
hospital and had given me the same cold stare that I now saw she wore. And then I looked down and
saw the shimmer of a silver knife blade gripped tightly in her hand. She was coming directly at Emry.
Without even having time to panic or even think about what I was doing, about what was happening, I
released my crutches and swirled around. Buck and my father had caught up to us. I reached toward
Buck and ripped the gun viciously from his holster, and in another split second, turned back around.
Ben and Emry had stopped dead in their tracks, distracted by what I was doing. They weren’t even
facing the woman. They had no knowledge that it was about to happen. The woman lunged directly for
Emry, the knife held out in front of her, and I felt my finger instantly find the trigger as I aimed and
fired Buck’s gun at her. The noise of the gunshot echoed off the walls of the hallway and pierced
through my ears. I watched the look of surprise on the woman’s face as the bullet had sliced through
her body and she fell backwards onto the floor, her blood gushing from the wound that had ended up
very close to her heart. I heard people screaming down the hall.

I knew I had got to her before she had got to Emry. I knew she was dead, that I had been the one to
have killed her, and that I had saved Emry. My mind was now overwhelmed with emotion as I
realized that I was still standing there with the gun aimed upwards, my finger still locked securely on
the trigger. I felt someone wrap their arms around me, forcing my extended arms down as their hands
quickly wrapped around the gun and squeezed, forcing me to release my grasp on it. I felt my legs
buckle underneath me and the sudden pain in my bad ankle as I had accidentally put weight on it. I fell
down to the ground, hunched over and sobbing.

“I have the gun,” I heard Buck shout.

 

“Anna!” Emry rushed over to me as other people rushed over to the woman. He picked me up in his
arms and cradled me to his chest. “Anna, please talk to me. Are you all right?”

 

I looked up at his marvelous face and I shook my head and started laughing at the same time as I
was crying. “Oh, Emry,” I sobbed. “I’m just so glad you’re still alive.”

 

“That girl tried to kill him,” Ben Hanley said.

 

Emry turned around and I could see the small group of people that now surrounded her, most of
them police officers.

 

“There’s the knife,” Buck said. “She was definitely almost up to Logan. She almost got him and
would’ve if …” He turned around and looked at me.

“You saved my life?” Emry asked me.
A state of confusion settled as everyone tried to figure out what had just happened.
“Is she all right?” my father asked, coming over to us.
I nodded.
“I think she’s just shaken up,” Emry told him.
“I thought
he
was going to kill you,” I managed to say.
“He?” my father asked.
I pointed to Ben who, shocked by the accusation, gave me a horrified look.
“Ben?”
“Yes. I thought he was Mrs. Anderson’s brother.”

Ben now narrowed his eyes at me. I guessed by his reaction that I might have been right about the
relation to her.

 

“What?” Emry asked, stumped by what I’d said. “Ben’s a good man, Anna. He’s very trustworthy,
believe me.”

 

I still had my eyes locked on Ben who stared back at me, and then I looked down at the woman
lying motionless on the floor in front of us.

“Put me down, please.”
Emry gave me a worried look.
“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “I’m fine.”
He set me down and Ben bent over and retrieved my crutches and handed them to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Ben, realizing that he may have not wanted to harm Emry. “I just assumed …
and then I saw that woman with the knife. I’d seen her before at the hospital. She must’ve been
following me then.” I know I wasn’t making sense to them. It was just a bunch of garbled-up words as
they tried to listen and understand.

“Wow,” Emry mumbled. He put his arm around my waist and held me tight. “You saved my life,
Anna.”

 

“Indeed she did,” my father said as if not completely happy about it.

Emry turned my face away from the dead woman and the pool of blood that was pouring out and
coming close to where we stood. “You must really love me or something.”
I sighed and closed my eyes as I felt the warmth of his hands cupping my face. I felt the stresses of
the day melting away now. The joy of being together with him again filled me and I let myself just be
happy, savoring the moment for what it was.

“Yes,” I whispered. “That must be it.”

The rush of the wind danced along my skin as we walked barefoot on the pearly beach of Evadere.
Crystal clear waters rushed up underneath my feet. I made my grip tighter on Emry as we continued on
hand-in-hand and marveled together at the beauty of this wondrous world before us.

I looked at him. He flashed me a grin and I gave him one in return. He glowed here in this light as
the red sky hovered above us and a million white stars that never seemed to go away danced in
between the clouds. I couldn’t imagine him looking more happy than he did at this very moment. We
were here, away from everything, and it was just the two of us. We could linger as long as we desired
and had no one to answer to when we got back. We could just be us.

“You look overly happy today,” I teased him.

He tugged at my arm and pulled me into his chest in one swift motion. I felt the hardness of his
muscular body against mine as I gazed up into his shimmering blue eyes and touched the dimple in his
cheek as he just couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from his face.
“I am. Aren’t you?”

“Hmmm …” I put my finger up to my lips as if I had to think about it. “Extremely.”
“The happiest you’ve ever been in your whole life?”
“Without a doubt.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he admitted, his fingers tracing the outline of my face.
“You’re stuck with me now, you know.”

 

“I don’t know how I’ll ever manage being stuck here with you.”

He grinned and then leaned in and wrapped his strong arms around me. He lifted me off the ground
so I was face to face with him and then we kissed again and again, the breeze swirling around us,
drops of sunlight falling on our skin.

“Hey there!”

He instantly dropped me to my feet in shock at the sound of someone else’s voice. We both looked
over and saw a figure standing in the distance. It was a man wearing white clothes that matched his
white hair as he waved his arm wildly in the air to make sure he had gotten our attention.

Emry took hold of my hand. We were both surprised and feeling a little guarded at the sight of
someone else on Evadere. Never in his entire time here had Emry ever seen a single soul, even a
single animal or even an insect. This had always been just his own private secluded beach. The man
walked over closer to us.

“Hi. Please don’t be afraid,” he said cheerfully.

 

Emry eyed him and had put me slightly behind him making himself a barrier in between the man and
I.

“Are you lost?” he asked.
We both just gawked at him for a moment.
“Are you hurt?” he asked when not getting a response from either one of us.
“No,” Emry finally managed to say. “You just surprised us is all.”

“Oh.” The man smiled warmly at us. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. The name’s William.”
He extended his hand out toward Emry.

Emry shook his hand. “Emry, and this is Anna.”
“Nice to meet you folks. Where are you from?”

Emry and I just turned and looked at each other, reading each other’s minds. So we weren’t all
alone on this beautifully strange world. There was life on Evadere.

 

Acknowledgements

This journey would not have been possible if not for the two biggest supporters of my dreams, my
mother, Harriet Muir Payne, and my husband, Bradley Zook. Thank you for being there for me and for
the encouragement to keep writing.

Also, I would like to thank my two closest friends, Jill Lichtenfels and Melissa McFeaters, for
being my guinea pigs and giving me their honest opinions. Melissa was the brains behind the idea and
symbolism for the cover.

Brenda Sedore and Jonas Saul, I thank both of you for being such wonderful people, believing in
me and my manuscript and for your willingness to be so insightful. Brenda did an awesome job
capturing the right images on the cover, and Jonas is a delightful editor whom I’ve had the honor of
working with.