She picked up one of the towels she had brought, drying off. When she would have wrapped it around herself, Lucky stopped her.

"Let the air dry you. Come and help me move the table to the shade."

Willa placed the towel on the bench before picking up one end of the table as Lucky picked up the other side. When they set it down, she noticed it fit down into four perfect grooves of dried earth.

"Does it usually sit over here?"

He sat down on the bench, pulling a sandwich out of the basket. "Yep."

"Then how did it get by the water?"

"I have no idea," he said, taking a large bite of sandwich.

"Are your fingers crossed?" Willa asked suspiciously, staring at his fingers.

"Nope," he said, unwinding them.

Willa sat down on the bench across from him, taking a sandwich for herself. She took a bite, chewing thoughtfully while Lucky demolished his then another.

"What are you thinking about so hard?"

"I was wondering if G.o.d counts it as a lie if you cross your fingers. I'm going to add it to my list."

Lucky stopped chewing. "What list?"

"I have a list of questions I'm going to ask Him someday. Like, do more women or men go to Heaven? Does He really love all the creatures He created? I don't think I could love a bat. Could you?"

"No, I don't think I could," Lucky admitted, his lips twitching. "What else are you going to ask?"

"Who's the worst sinner in history? Who's the worst sinner in our church?"

"I can answer those two."

"Okay, who?"

"Shade is the worst sinner in history. I'm the worst in our church." Lucky tried to make a joke out of his answer, but his hazel eyes held a pain that Willa wondered at as she stared at the cross necklace around his darkly tanned skin.

"I don't believe that."

"Believe it." Lucky laid his hands down on the picnic table. "Since I was a child, I've always wanted to be a pastor. I would watch my father behind the pulpit and knew that was where I belonged. I became a youth minister then became a pastor over my father's church by the time I was nineteen. I believed I would spend the rest of my life there in that small town. I even had a high school sweetheart I intended to propose to when the time was right."

Willa didn't interrupt, imagining him as a young man with all his dreams coming true.

"One night after service, I was putting up the Bibles that had been left on the pews. At first, I thought the voice I heard was a parishioner who had come back. It wasn't. I heard His voice as clearly as if He was standing next to me."

"What did He say?"

"He said, 'There is more.'" Lucky stared down at his hands. "I was being called. A month later, I joined the service. Then I finished my degree before I was shipped out.

"It took one week before I realized I didn't know s.h.i.t about life. I ran around, trying to save as many souls as I could before the enemies took them, but I lost more than I saved, mine included. I told them we could get out of there, go home. They placed their faith in me, and I let them down."

"No."

"I did, Willa. I rode back on the plane with their bodies and informed the families, watched their hearts break, and knew they would never be the same again.

"I married Knox and Sunshine. I still see them together that day. Knox was so happy, and Sunshine looked beautiful. A week later, I was telling Knox that she was gone." A tear slid down his cheek. "I'll never forget his face. Knox is as big as a mountain, and he fell to his knees, crying. After that, I couldn't do it anymore.

"I took the Seal training, left being a pastor behind. I didn't lose my faith in Him, though; I lost faith in myself. I had to learn differently-to take a life instead of saving them. I began to enjoy the adrenaline rush when we were in combat. This way, I was making a difference. I was saving the brothers I served with, giving them a chance to make it another day.

"I became tight with Bridge. We had gone through training together, spent vacations together. I got to know his family. Mine were all gone, but his took me in and made me one of their own. When his younger brother joined, Bridge called and asked me to watch out for him, and I swore I would. I made another promise I couldn't keep. I promised he would make it home, but he died his second week there."

"You can't blame yourself."

"Yes, I can. I left him behind."

"You had to have a reason."

"The reason doesn't matter. He's dead, and Bridge wants payback."

"Payback?"

"He wants me to lose something I love, to feel what it's like."

"Is that why you bought Ria when we pretended to be engaged?"

"Yes. I wanted you to be protected when I couldn't be with you. That's why I only went out with women who would be able to move on when Bridge grew tired of me waiting to fall in love. He doesn't know that I found what I was searching for. I found that out when you nearly died, when Ria gave her life for yours."

"What did you find?"

"I found home. You were what I had been searching for all along. I didn't want you hurt because of me, yet you almost died. None of us know how long we have on this earth."

Lucky stood up, coming to sit down next to her with his back to the table. Reaching into the picnic basket, he took out a ring box.

"I love you, Willa. Will you marry me?"

"Am I dreaming? I'm afraid, if I say yes, I'll wake up."

Lucky opened the ring box, showing her the large, pink diamond in the rose gold setting that she had fallen in love with all those months ago. The tiny diamonds twinkled up at her in a starburst of color as he slid the ring onto her finger, closing his hand around hers.

"No. This is as real as it gets." He kissed her with a pa.s.sion that was able to convince her that her body wasn't asleep.

"I guess this is my lucky day," she teased.

He winced at her pun, looking up at the bright blue sky. "I have another question to ask G.o.d when you see Him."

"What?"

"How many times I've heard that before."

Chapter 22.

"b.i.t.c.h, you didn't just carry those cupcakes in here?" s.e.x Piston paused while blow-drying a pretty blonde whom Willa once would have been envious of as she set a bright pink box on s.e.x Piston's reception desk.

"Is it me or does this box get a brighter shade of pink every time I see one?" Killyama asked, opening the box to take out one of the cupcakes.

"I keep experimenting with the color. I thought you girls could use a treat while s.e.x Piston does my hair." Willa smiled.

Killyama stared down at the box as she ate her cupcake. "You chose this shade of pink deliberately? Pink is pink, b.i.t.c.h."

The comment didn't hurt her feelings. She knew she was a little OCD over her boxes. She was in search of the perfect shade of pink; therefore, she ordered a different color each time she ordered boxes.

"Do you know how many shades of pink there are? It's hard to pick just one."

"My a.s.s doesn't need another cupcake!" Crazy b.i.t.c.h wailed as she teased a woman's hair.

Willa laughed. "I say that all the time."

"Give me five, and I'll be with you," s.e.x Piston told her.

"Take your time." Willa started to take a seat, nearly tripping when she saw Sissy sweeping the floor. The girl had stopped to glare at her.

"What are you doing here? I thought you left with Travis." Willa started to give the girl a hug then stopped when she saw the reaction on her face.

Killyama took a chair that was near where Sissy was sweeping.

"I turned eighteen. I can do what the h.e.l.l I want to now."

"She showed up here last week, asking to work here, so I hired her to run errands." s.e.x Piston frowned at the girl.

Willa had seen enough instances of kindness from s.e.x Piston to not be surprised. She watched over her biker b.i.t.c.hes like a sister, and as a result, she would have recognized, like Willa, that Sissy was crying silently for help. Sissy wouldn't take it from her, but maybe she would from s.e.x Piston.

"What about Leanne and your cousins; don't you miss them?"

"Miss all the tantrums and snotty noses? No, I don't." Sissy started sweeping again.

Willa bit her lip. She should ignore the girl and go sit down, but Willa couldn't stop the need within her to somehow reach the girl.

"I miss them all the time. Caroline and Chrissy are getting bigger every day. Leanne has a crush on one of the work hands-"

Sissy laughed at her, leaning on the broom. "Do you really think you're going to fool me? You may fool all of them"-she waved her hand at the women in the shop-"but I know what kind of woman you really are. You're a murderer and a s.l.u.t!" the young woman spat at her.

As Willa gasped at the hatred on Sissy's face, Killyama jumped up to stand in front of Willa, but she stepped around her.

"I wish every day I wasn't responsible for taking your uncle's life, but I'm not a s.l.u.t," Willa said firmly.

"I saw the text messages you sent. My uncle would get me to babysit when he went out to meet you at a hotel."

Willa shook her head. "I never met your uncle at a hotel once."

"You're lying!"

"Why would I lie? If I were sleeping with someone, I wouldn't care who knew. It's not like a woman gets in trouble for that."

"You want to keep your image up in town."

"What image?" Willa gave a bark of sarcastic laughter. "I was made fun of in high school. I never had a date until Lucky asked me out a few months ago. I never had friends until Lily, Beth, and Rachel felt sorry enough to include me. People never even talked to me in church unless they wanted me to bake them something."

"Lewis was in love with you!"

"Lewis wanted me to be his babysitter, and he wanted the money my business brought in." Willa sighed. "You want the truth, Sissy, but the thing about the truth is it can be twisted to anyone's advantage. I don't know whose text messages you read, but they weren't mine. I never texted Lewis." Willa paused then admitted, "I hated him. I was so afraid of him I bought the gun to protect myself. He managed to almost rape me, and if a customer hadn't shown up to pick up a cake, he would have."

"No!"

Willa stared at her in sympathy. "If you don't believe me, ask Angus Berry. I don't know how he managed it, but he did. I was so embarra.s.sed and afraid of Lewis that I asked him not to tell anyone. I bought a gun the next day."

"Why would Lewis lie to me?" Doubt was beginning to show in Sissy's eyes.

"I don't know. Maybe he wanted to keep who he was really having an affair with secret. Only Lewis knows the answer to that question."

"And he's dead."

"That, I accept responsibility for. I don't know if I would have been able to pull the trigger to save myself, but I couldn't let him kill Rachel."

"My mom hated you."

"Yes, she did, from the time we were in grade school."

"Why?"

Willa looked away from Sissy. She had never admitted to a living soul why Georgia hated her so much, but she remembered it as if it had happened yesterday.

"We were in second grade homeroom together, and it was Valentine's Day. I had stayed up the night before to make a Valentine box. It was very pretty," Willa said modestly. "The teacher placed mine next to Georgia's, and the children in the cla.s.s weren't very nice. They made fun of hers." Willa blinked back tears at the cruelty of the other children. "When we came back from lunch, my box was lying in pieces. The teacher tried to blame Georgia, but I told her I had done it, that I wanted to count my valentines."

"Did my mom do it?"

"I don't know," Willa lied, crossing her fingers behind her back. "But I'm sure it was embarra.s.sing for her, anyway."

Georgia hadn't been embarra.s.sed; she had been furious. After school, Georgia had followed her home and had ripped out half of her hair before Drake had pulled her away.

"That's not much of a reason," Sissy scoffed.

"For Georgia, it was." Willa had thought about it over the years. "She knew I was afraid of her, and it made her feel powerful. She liked the feeling it gave her. That's why people bully others." Willa stared at Sissy.