Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Lachlan didn’t want to put himself out there and get his battered heart broken all over again if there was no chance for them to be together.
She looked out at the marina, the other houseboats floating on the calm surface.
“I don’t know. After my current situation resolves, I need to find a more permanent job.
I’ve been doing contract work for Blaine, helping him out with some projects, but I can’t expect him to keep throwing me contracts forever.
I need to find something full-time with security and benefits.
I don’t know if I can do that here in my industry. ”
And he’d spent years building up his business and life here. “Seattle’s a huge tech hub. That’s only a ferry ride away.”
“Three-plus hours, each way without any mechanical or weather issues cancelling sailings.” Her tone made it clear she didn’t see that kind of commuting relationship as sustainable.
His stomach sank. His concern about her picking up and leaving one day was valid, confirming he was in for a world of hurt if he continued down this path. But it was already too late for him to walk away.
Maybe she would see he was willing to meet her halfway and how much she meant to him if he showed her the same level of trust he’d placed in her last night. He never talked about it. Only with Grey when forced. But he wanted Maddy to know the truth about him.
“I know it’s a big deal that you told me about what happened in Syria. I want to tell you something about me too.” He didn’t want to hide anything from her—except for the thing even his brother didn’t know. It was better for all of them that way.
She looked at him. “You don’t have to just because I told you what happened to me. I don’t expect that. That’s not why I told you.”
“No, I want to.” He needed to. “But first…” He reached over to hook an arm around her and slide her into his lap, settling her back against his chest and her delectable butt on his groin.
Didn’t help that he knew she was naked under that shirt. “This okay?” Cuddling her like this eased the dread in his stomach, and saying what he needed to was a lot easier without her eyes on him.
“Yes.” She rested the back of her head on his shoulder, her body relaxing into his hold. Telling him without words that she trusted him. “Is it about your wife?”
“Yeah.” He tipped his head back to rest against the edge of the hot tub, stared up at the sky and focused on the feel of Maddy in his arms. The bright stars shining in the inky blue pockets between the drifting clouds.
“We met up in Kodiak the summer I was first stationed there after graduating from A school.”
“I watched a documentary about that. A school and Kodiak.”
Of course she had. He smiled a little. “You did, huh?”
“I wanted to know what you and Grey did, so I did some basic research. Sorry I interrupted you.”
“That’s okay, I like that you were curious enough to look it up.
” He understood that she often spoke before she’d had time to filter it, especially to people she felt comfortable with.
Her bluntness was a compliment. “Kathy was visiting a friend there. We were both young. I was twenty-two, and it was my first duty station assignment.”
“Kodiak is an intense and prestigious posting.”
“It is.” He’d felt honored to be sent there. “I was pretty cocky when I got there, thought I was pretty much invincible, and for some reason she liked me enough to overlook that and stay on Kodiak through the summer. We moved fast.”
Too fast, considering how young they were. Turned out, they hadn’t known shit.
He stroked his thumbs over the backs of Maddy’s hands, folded across her stomach.
“After six weeks we moved in together and got engaged that Christmas. A few months later, we flew down to San Diego and got married there so her family could be at the ceremony. Things were okay at first when we got back. But within a year, they were shaky. Kathy had thought she knew what she was getting into as the wife of a rescue swimmer.”
Turned out the reality was a lot different than what she’d envisioned.
“Most of the time I was either working, training, or on call.” Some things never changed.
“We lived in a little place near base. She struggled to find full time work she liked.” Another reason why Maddy’s earlier answer had stirred all his ghosts.
“I knew she had a history of depression, though not the extent of it. I naively thought she’d be fine once we were married and making a life together.
But little by little, she started withdrawing from me and even her friends. ”
Maddy remained silent, but he could tell she was listening intently to every word. Giving him the time and space to continue at his own pace.
“She stopped going out and doing things she used to like. I tried to help and support her, thought she just needed the right motivation to do something.” He’d been a fucking idiot.
“I pushed her to see a doctor to see if meds could help. I talked to her parents about what was going on. When it got worse, I looked into flights to send her back home for a while, thinking that some sun and her family could lift her out of it. But she refused to go without me.”
He should have insisted. Made her go.
“I didn’t understand it. Got frustrated with her. But what I thought was mostly a struggle with the winter blues turned out to be way more serious.”
He swallowed as the memories rushed back. The fights. His irritation at coming home to a cluttered mess and usually finding her in bed, even in the middle of the day.
“It got to the point that I couldn’t wait to escape her and the house. Every callout made it worse. I would head into work to do what I loved, and she was all alone.”
He’d been so selfish and too blind to see it.
“She hated being stuck on that island. Hated that I was gone all the time and never knew when I would get called out. Every time it happened, she resented me more for leaving her with her darkness. She was lonely and isolated, struggling to function, and her mental state was way worse than I ever guessed.”
Maddy didn’t say a word, but he could feel the tension creeping into her muscles. As if she sensed what he was about to say next.
“I was out one night on a call, pulling injured sailors off a disabled tanker in a bad storm. I called her as usual once I got back to base to let her know I was okay, left a message when she didn’t answer.
She never responded.” He pulled in a breath.
“When I got home at the end of my shift, I found her in the tub. Fully submerged, with an empty Ziploc bag on the floor beside the tub.”
“Oh no,” she said softly, gripping his hand.
“I hauled her out, did CPR and everything else I could think of until the medics got there, but I knew the whole time she wasn’t coming back. Losing her would have been devastating on its own, but finding her like that, it…wrecked me.”
She made a sympathetic sound but didn’t speak.
“I took a leave of absence. Tried to go back to work a few weeks after the funeral because I was desperate for the distraction, but just couldn’t function the way I had.
Everything up there reminded me of her, of how I’d let her down.
I requested a transfer and moved around a bit after that, stationed in different places along the West Coast. When my contract ended, I left the military and came back here to pick up the pieces and start over. ”
Maddy was quiet after he finished. “Do you still think it’s your fault?” she finally asked.
He let out a slow breath. “In some ways. I should’ve seen how serious the situation was and been more proactive in getting her help. Forced her to when she resisted. Even if the damage to our marriage was already done and we wouldn’t have stayed together for long, at least she’d still be alive.”
“I can see why you’d feel that way. But I don’t think it’s right. Or fair.”
He grunted. “Her family thought it was my fault too. They felt I should’ve done more to prevent it, and they’re not wrong.” He pushed out a breath. “It’s a hard thing to live with, even now. All the regret. The guilt.”
She nodded, the back of her head moving against his shoulder. “But feelings aren’t always logical, even if they feel real to us while we’re feeling them.”
He couldn’t help but smile a little at the highly logical way her brain worked. “That’s true.”
“I think what happened is horrible, especially that you were the one to find her. That’s such a traumatic thing to go through.”
In his darkest moments, sometimes he still wondered if it had been a deliberate last act on Kathy’s part. Making him be the one to find her to punish him for her suffering. But mostly it just made him sad that she’d seen no other way out of her darkness.
“Most of all, I’m sorry that you’ve punished yourself all this time for it.”
“Grey said the same thing to me last night.”
“He’s right.”
Grey would so rub that into his face if he knew.
“It’s okay to feel sad when you think of her though. You loved her.”
He’d truly thought he had. But looking back, what he’d thought was love seemed more like physical attraction and devotion now. His deepening feelings for Maddy were on a whole different level. More mature. The thought of her leaving the island soon made his whole chest tighten.
“Are you okay now? Or do you want to keep talking about it?” she asked.
“No, I’m done. I actually feel better now that you know.”
“That’s good. You can talk to me about her whenever you want. I don’t mind. It won’t bother me. She deserves to be remembered.”
He hugged her closer and closed his eyes. She was so fucking sweet, disarmed him without even trying. How was he supposed to wall off his heart when she’d already snuck into it? “Thank you.”
“Of course.” She tilted her head back on his shoulder to look up at the sky. “Orion’s belt is so clear tonight.”
He followed her gaze, not surprised that she knew her constellations. Maddy was so damned smart, and noticed things most people didn’t. “It is.”
“How’s your back?”
“Better.” All of him felt better now. He nuzzled the side of her face. Kissed the edge of her jaw and found the sensitive spot on the side of her neck. Wanting to hold on to her, yet all too aware that time could be running out for them.
“Good. Because I want you to take me upstairs to your bed.”