Worth Dying For (33 page)

If Dorothy noticed the almost electrical charge in the room when she returned, she didn’t let on. She marched up to Bane, holding the towel open between her hands. “Here, let me dry your hair.”

Malachi turned amused eyes in Amber’s direction, and bent almost in half to give her mom access to his head. Amber couldn’t stifle a laugh at the sight before her as she watched her mother rub his hair—all the while clucking and sighing and muttering that he was big enough to know better and would catch his death of cold.

Amber took it all in, her heart full of joy, as the two people she loved most in the world found a way to co-exist. If anyone had told her twelve months ago that she would have to die to find this kind of happiness, she would have laughed. The cosy scene unfolding before her eyes made her smile but she could never forget that their lives together might not always be this idyllic. What and who they were would likely bring many challenges and personal losses over the coming years.

But right now, basking in the glow of the unwavering devotion of her mother and the love of Malachi Bane—the kindest, most decent man she had ever known—Amber finally had the kind of life she had always craved.

And that life was worth dying for.