“What’s it going to be?”
Answer me, you stubborn man....
“Believe.”
“What?” She wasn’t sure she’d heard right.
“Believe,” Jon said again. “I have to believe, Lil. I’ll marry you. Now. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Whenever you want.”
It was like a dam burst inside Lillie, throwing her across the room and at Jon, knocking him backward. With her arms around his neck, she clung to him, burying her head against his warm, strong chest, and started to cry.
She’d been holding on for so long. And hiding, too.
“Lil?”
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“I’m fine,” she said, remembering where they were. “I’m just happy,” she said, her eyes still blurry with tears as she looked up at him. “Come on, baby, let’s go home.”
He held back, the light in his eyes dimming. “I can’t do that.”
“Oh, yes, you can.”
“I can?” He didn’t move.
She nodded. “Yep.”
“I don’t understand.”
And he still didn’t quite believe. She could read the doubt in his eyes. In the slight droop to his shoulders.
So they had some work to do. They had a lifetime ahead of them to do it.
“You’re not alone anymore, Jon. And I don’t just mean me. You’ve got friends who care about you, who are fighting for you.”
“I’m under arrest, Lillie.”
It was time to tell him. “I was sent in here to tell you that the charges were dropped,” she said.
“What? Why?”
“I was telling Mark that you wouldn’t have an IP address alibi because you don’t go on the internet at night because of the baby monitor.”
Nodding, he said, “I told Addy the same thing.”
“Well, Mark’s a bit of a techie, did you know that?”
“Yeah.”
“He said that the monitoring software doesn’t just monitor in real time, it saves the files somewhere in the program, kind of like a security camera in a store. I took him to your place and he went on your laptop and found the files. They’re time and date stamped. And you, bless your heart, visit Abe’s room so often that you were captured on video on two different nights there were break-ins.”
His mouth gaping, he stared at her. “I’m free.”
“Yeah.”
Jon’s grin was like an ocean. And a sky filled with brilliant sunshine.
* * *