more, and he’d argued with her.
Even with being under the influence himself, he’d known she’d been in no shape to drive. Unfortunately, neither had he been and he’d known it, refusing to give her his keys.
She’d taken off running into the darkness, calling out over her shoulder that if he wouldn’t take her, she’d just run there.
He should have let her. She’d have run herself sober.
Instead, to the teasing of her friends that he couldn’t control his girlfriend, he’d climbed into his car and driven down the road to pick her up.
But he hadn’t been taking her to the liquor store when he’d wrecked the car.
He’d been taking her home.
They’d been arguing, her saying she should have known he was a baby, rather than a man.
He’d been mad, had denied her taunts, reminded her of just how manly she’d said he was earlier that evening, and in the blink of the eye she’d grabbed at the steering wheel and he’d lost control of his car and hit the tree.
The rest had come in bits and pieces.
Waking up, not realizing he’d wrecked the car. The smells of oil, gas and blood.
That was the first time he’d realized blood had such a strong odor. His car had been full of it. His blood. Shelby’s blood.
He’d become aware of people outside the car, working to free them from the crumpled metal, but then he’d lost consciousness again until they’d been pulling him from the car.
Shelby had still been inside.
“I can’t leave her,” he’d told them.
“We’ve got her, son,” a rescue worker had said. “We’re taking you both to the hospital.”
“Tell her I love her,” he’d said. “That I will always love her.”
“We will, son. They’re putting her in the helicopter right now, but I’ll see to it she gets the message.”
“Tell her now. Please. Tell her now.” He’d tried to get free, to go to her, but his body hadn’t worked, and he’d never got to tell her. He had no idea if the rescue worker had carried through with his promise or not.
But as soon as Lance had been released from the hospital, he’d told Shelby himself.
Kneeling exactly where he currently knelt.
He’d been guilt-ridden then. He was just as guilt-ridden now.
“I’m so sorry, Shelby. I love her. In ways I didn’t know I could love, I love McKenzie.”
He continued to talk, saying all the things that were in his heart.
For the first time peace came over Lance. Peace and self-forgiveness. Oh, there was a part of him that would never completely let go of the guilt he felt that he’d made such bad choices that night, but whether it was the late hour or his own imagination he felt Shelby’s presence, felt her forgiveness, her desire for him to let go and move on with his life.
Was he being self-delusional? Believing what he wanted to believe because he wanted McKenzie?
“I need a sign, Shelby. Give me a sign that you really do forgive me,” he pleaded into the darkness.
That was when he looked up and saw a ghost.
McKenzie couldn’t stay in the shadows any longer. For the past half hour she had leaned against a large headstone, crying, not knowing whether to make her presence known or not. She hadn’t purposely tried to keep her presence from him initially. He just had been so lost in his thoughts, in his confessions that he hadn’t noticed her.
Lance had run away from her.
Only he loved her. She’d known he loved her even before she’d heard his heart-wrenching words, and she hadn’t been willing to give him up without a fight. Especially not to someone who’d been gone for over fifteen years.
She’d listened to him, cried with him and for him from afar, and had prayed for him to find forgiveness, to be able to let his guilt go.
When he’d asked for a sign she’d swear she’d felt a hard shove on her back, making her stumble forward, almost falling in the process.
“Shelby?”
Her heart broke at the anguish in his voice. “It’s McKenzie, Lance.”
Wiping at his eyes, he stood. “McKenzie? What are you doing here?”
“I followed you.”
“You followed me from the Senior Citizen Center?”
“It wasn’t difficult as slowly as you drive.” Which she now finally understood. He liked his fast sports car, but never got it up over the speed limit.
“I didn’t see you.”
“I didn’t think you had. I sat in my car for a few minutes after you first got here. I realized where you were going and was going to give you privacy, but it’s after midnight and we’re at a cemetery and I’ll admit I got a little freaked out, sitting in my car by myself.”
“You shouldn’t be here, McKenzie.”
Yeah, he might think that.
“You’re wrong. This is exactly where I should be. Right beside you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You love me,” she told him. “And I love you. And maybe you love her, too, but she isn’t here anymore.” At least, McKenzie didn’t think she was. That had been her imagination playing tricks on her when she’d felt that shove. “I am here, Lance. I used to be terrified that I’d make all the same mistakes my parents made, but I’m not anymore. I’m not like my father, although I may be more like my mother than I realized. You told me that my father did those things because he loved himself more than my mother or me.”
“I shouldn’t have said that, McKenzie.”
“Sure you should have. You were right. But guess what, Lance Donovan Spencer? I love you that much. I love you enough to know that you are who I want, that you are the man I admire above all others, that you are the person I love enough to know that being faithful won’t be a problem because I don’t want anyone but you.”
“Don’t admire me, McKenzie. I’m not worthy. You heard what I admitted to back at the Senior Citizen Center.”
“I heard and I love you all the more for it.”
In the moonlight, she saw the confusion on his face. “How can you love me for something I detest myself for?”
“Because in the face of adversity you learned from the lessons life threw at you and you became a wonderful man who is constantly doing things for others, who is constantly trying to save others from the agony he suffers every day, from Shelby’s fate.”
“You make me sound like a hero. I’m not.”
“To me, you are a hero. You are my hero, Lance. You’re the man who made me know what love is, both to feel and to receive it.”
He closed his eyes.
“Don’t try to tell me you don’t love me, because I heard you say it,” she warned. “But I already knew, deep down, I knew. That’s why I sang to you, why I followed you. Because of love and my trust in that love.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I’m stubborn and prideful and prone to run when things get sticky, but take a look at these.” She raised one foot up off the ground. While she’d been sitting in her car, waiting for him to come back to his,