Page 82 of Cowboy Elite 2: Mike

"No. She shouldn't." Mike's arm came around her shoulders. "But she did. And she was magnificent. Just like her Miss Liv."

Liv leaned into him, exhausted beyond words. "Is it really over?"

"Federal prosecutor confirmed it. Russo's done. Even without your testimony, they've got enough to lock him up for the rest of his life. Your deposition just ensures he never sees daylight again."

"I lied," Liv said quietly. "About the deposition. I didn't give one three days ago."

Mike went very still beside her. "What?"

"I gave one this morning. Five a.m., right after training. FBI agent came out, we did the whole thing in Joe's office while you were checking the perimeter." She managed a tired smile. "But Russo didn't know that. So I bluffed."

"You bluffed a mob boss with a gun on a six-year-old."

"Actually, I was the only one with a gun. He said he was unarmed.”

“And you believed him?”

“Well, no. That’s why I kept the pistol pointed at him. I wasn’t letting him get through me to Charlotte.”

“Gutsy.”

“I learned from the best. You Watkins boys and your terrible judgment are contagious."

He laughed, surprised and proud and so relieved he felt dizzy. "God, I love you."

"I love you too. Even though your family is completely insane and your ranch attracts violence like a magnet."

Mike laughed and drew her closer to his side. "Between you and Heather, I suppose we have seen more than our fair share of intrigue lately. I could do with a little less excitement, if you want to know the truth."

Liv remembered what Heather had told about the ex-husband who'd tracked her down and terrorized her. Who'd learned, like Russo, that the Watkins family didn't surrender their own.

"You seem to collect strays," Liv said softly. "Broken things that need fixing."

"We collect family," Mike corrected. "There's a difference."

He turned her to face him, both hands coming up to frame her face with a tenderness that made her chest ache. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, and in the dim light from the kitchen window, she could see everything written plain across his features—love and relief and wonder that they'd both survived to see morning.

She wasn’t sure she even knew how to be here now that the danger had passed and she was no longer in hiding. On the run.

She was in love with Mike Watkins. Yes.

But her entire life, the life she’d lived up until just a few short months ago, was in New York. She’d put a closed sign on her building, paid severances to her two part-time employees and simply left everything behind. There would be back rent to pay on her Crème & Crumble space. For all she knew, the landlord had liquidated her equipment and rented out her space to someone else.

She’d worked her whole life for that business, to prove herself. Maybe even to prove something to her parents.

Did she even want that anymore?

The coast was clear to return to Manhattan, to resume a life that was familiar.

The problem was, this life here with Mike felt more familiar.

14

Morning light painted stripes across Mike's bedroom floor, honey-gold through the slats of the wooden blinds, warm on Liv's cheek where she lay pressed against his chest. She'd woken to the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear, the rise and fall of breathing that had anchored her through the night.

Through the whole night.

No nightmares. No jerking awake at phantom sounds. No lying rigid in the dark, counting escape routes until exhaustion finally dragged her under.