“No. I want you to come back to our home—the cabin—to recuperate. I want you to move in with me back in Newton, marry me, have my babies. I love you, Carlise. So damn much.”
“Yes,” she said on a sigh.
“Yes? To what?”
“All of it.”
Riggs stopped dead and studied her face. “Yes?” he asked, as if he hadn’t quite heard her correctly.
“Yes,” she told him with a smile.
“JJ, Cal, Bob . . . will you guys stand up with me when I get married?”
“Hell yeah!”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Of course.”
“When?” he asked Carlise.
“Maybe you shouldn’t ask her when she was just rescued from near death and is probably a little loopy from pain,” Chief Rutkey said dryly.
Carlise ignored him. “Whenever you want.”
A gleam entered Riggs’s eyes, but he only nodded.
Carlise had a feeling she might be Mrs. Chapman before the week was out . . . which was perfectly all right with her. “But I want my mom there,” she said a little belatedly.
“I was going to call her as soon as we got cell service on the way to Newton,” Riggs reassured her. “She’ll want to know you’re all right and what happened.”
Carlise nodded, her eyes feeling extremely heavy. Suddenly, she could barely keep them open.
“Sleep, love,” Riggs murmured. “I’ll take care of you.”
“I know you will,” she told him, before she let the stress of the day and the pain take her under.
Chapter Sixteen
“I’ll be back as soon as you give me the word that you’re getting married,” Carlise’s mom said, doing her best not to let the tears in her eyes fall down her cheeks.
“I will, Mom,” Carlise reassured her. Her arm was still in a sling, but she was feeling pretty darn good, all things considered.
The doctors at Newton’s clinic were top notch, and they’d immediately gotten to work removing the bullet from her shoulder when she’d arrived with Riggs. Luckily, because of the distance between her and Susie, it hadn’t gone too deeply into her flesh. They were able to extract it without the need for any kind of major surgery. But they’d still used some heavy-duty drugs to knock her out, and they’d completely numbed her shoulder before they’d started.
When she woke, she’d been in quite a bit of pain, but Riggs had taken it on himself to make sure she didn’t downplay her discomfort, that she took the pain pills she’d been prescribed.
Her mom arrived not too long after she’d woken up in the clinic, and they’d both been pretty emotional about what Susie had done. It was a rough day or two for Carlise, but with the support of Riggs and his friends, she’d managed to put what had happened behind her pretty quickly. For the most part. She knew she’d have bad moments for a long time to come, but with Riggs at her side, she could deal with just about anything.
The cameras in the cabin had been all the proof anyone needed as to what had happened, and that Susie had arrived to kill her former best friend. It still didn’t make a lot of sense to Carlise. Until Chief Rutkey told her that he’d dug deep . . . discovering that Susie had kept a lot of secrets.
Her birth name wasn’t even Susie. She’d spent most of her childhood in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She’d learned to cope amazingly well for years, but apparently, she’d stopped taking her meds sometime after Carlise began dating Tommy, and she’d slowly spiraled downward.
The entire thing made Carlise extremely sad. Especially the fact that she’d never really known her friend at all.
Carlise’s mom had stayed in Newton for four days, enough to make sure her daughter was really all right, and to meet Riggs and all his friends. JJ was driving her back to Bangor in a few minutes so she could catch her flight to Cleveland.
“You love him,” her mom said.
Carlise smiled. “So much. You aren’t worried we’re rushing things?”
“Not at all. Anyone can see just by looking at you two that you were meant for each other. But with that said, if you ever decide you need more time or you change your mind, don’t hesitate to say something. I made the mistake years ago of going ahead with a marriage I didn’t want because I couldn’t bear inconveniencing anyone.”
Carlise wanted to reassure her mom that there was no way she’d ever feel that way about Riggs, but she just nodded instead. “Okay.”
“I love you, and I’m so happy that this stalker business is behind you, and you can get on with your life.”