Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Athena
“ H ere.”
I turned, a waft of lemon hitting me from the steaming cup of tea.
“Thank you.” I took the offered mug, scooting over on the couch as Rob took a seat. “Any news?”
Her pause told me everything I needed to know. Nothing yet.
“We’re still looking. The car will turn up eventually.”
I closed my eyes, frustration filling my chest. I used the pressured emotion to blow a steady stream of air over the cup, venturing in for a sip, even though I knew it wasn’t cool enough yet. Sure enough, the hot tea scorched the tip of my tongue, and I winced.
“One step forward and two steps back.”
“I know that feeling,” she admitted softly, toying with the chain around her neck. She was typically quiet but not soft-spoken. I didn’t realize the difference until I met her. Soft- spoken implied shy or unsure or hesitant. Rob was none of those things. She was determined and calculating and reserved, and she was quiet because she got more done that way with less interference.
Except right now, there was a softness to her voice that hadn’t been there before.
“I can’t imagine you ever sacrificing a step back.”
She smiled small. “Then I’ve done a good job.”
“At not being in danger?”
Her laugh was short and sad. “At hiding,” she confessed, brushing a strand of red hair back over her shoulder. “I’ve stepped back so far, I couldn’t tell you the way forward any longer.”
My chest tightened. “I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what to say—how to help her; I couldn’t even help myself.
“Don’t be sorry.” She patted my hand. “I’m telling you this because I’ve lived the better part of a decade in hiding; I won’t let that happen to you.”
“Why are you in hiding?” It didn’t make sense; she and Dare and the rest of them hunted down bad guys. No one had said anything about her being in danger.
She took a slow sip of her tea. “I did something stupid to try and catch the men who stole my parents’ legacy: Ivans, Sinclair, Wheaton, Wenner, Belmont…all of them.”
I winced as pain burst on the side of my head, there and gone in a second.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Just some pain. Dare’s tackle probably wasn’t the best thing for my brain, but I guess it’s better than a bullet.”
She hummed in agreement. “You still don’t remember the rest of that morning?”
Slowly, I shook my head. “No.”
It was the only piece left. Those few hours…the hour, re ally, before the explosion. I still only remembered getting in the car with the paintings, and then nothing until after the explosion. Rorik said it would come back; that if my vision came back, the rest of it would, too, but the secondary trauma of Dare knocking me to the ground set my healing time back.
“It feels like I’m missing something,” I said and drank some more of the tea. “Maybe it’s just because that’s the last…part…of this whole thing I can’t get back, but…I don’t know. I just have this feeling that there’s something important there, and if I could just remember it…”
“You will,” she assured me, and then shrugged. “Or you won’t, and Dare will figure out who is threatening you regardless.”
The mention of his name made me shiver.
“I’m sure he will,” I said, my voice quiet. “Then I’ll be out of his hair for good.”
“You know he doesn’t want that.” She sounded so sure.
“Doesn’t he?”I hadn’t seen him since the night I showed him my drawings and demanded his trust. Three days. At first, I chalked it up to his injury and healing. I’d sit here—on the couch in the rec room—and listen to the steady stream of the other guys going down to see him. Rorik to check on his wound. Harm and Rhys and Ty to discuss various parts of the case. But not me.
And it was my own fault.
He’d offered me the truth, and I’d countered with my demand for trust. I was tired of men lying to me—for my better or for my worse. I was tired of their secrets. Tired of their guilt.
What was the point of the truth if it didn’t come with his trust? What benefit was an explanation about the past if he wasn’t willing to risk opening himself to our future?
I bit my lip and swallowed down a sad laugh. One night with him was all it took to think about a future…and to turn me in to a fool. It was more than one night, that was why. It was every night—every single moment from the second my car exploded and threw me into his arms. The nights he sat and held my hand. The days he cared for me in every way imaginable. The honesty he’d given me about things he hadn’t told anyone else.
Time was just one factor when it came to knowing someone, just like sight was just one sense available to discern your surroundings. Without sight, I’d learned to navigate life. I’d fumbled and fallen, but I’d also adapted, my other senses becoming stronger because of it. And without time, the way I felt about Dare had fumbled and fallen but ultimately had grown.
“Of course he does.Love makes people do stupid things,” she said, and for a second, I swore she was talking about herself, but I had to be mistaken.
“How do you forgive someone who doesn’t want to be forgiven?”
“He wants to be forgiven, he just needs time. Hard to believe you deserve forgiveness when you’ve gone so long telling yourself you don’t.”
We both turned at the commotion in the hallway, Rhys and Harm’s voices booming suddenly from the elevator.
“Athena.” Harm filled the doorway. “He’s asking to see you.”
My heart stumbled. Dare.
“Go.” Rob stood, taking my almost-finished cup of tea from my hands.
“Thank you,” I murmured when I reached Harm, staring up at a face that was familiar.
I hadn’t known Harm in high school. By the time Mom stopped homeschooling me and I transferred there for junior year, he’d already graduated and had joined the military. There were photos of him, of course, but those tiny images and decades that spanned the war would’ve made him unrecognizable if I didn’t already know who he was.
But I did. And because I did, I saw the resemblance between Dare and his older brother.
“No, thank you.” His solemn expression said it all. I’d managed to reach Dare in a way none of them had been able to, and as much as that thought filled me with hope, it stung with equal pain, knowing it might not be enough.
“Dare?” I called, opening the door.
It was strange to enter the cabin this way—as a guest—when I’d been the one living there for weeks. But then again, all the tables had turned. Where I’d been the one injured and vulnerable, now he was. Where I’d needed to take a risk to trust him, now he needed to do the same.
One turn of my head confirmed the cabin was empty. But Harm had said…
A flicker of light caught my eye through the front windows. He was outside. I went to the door, opening it to a sky that bled the pink and purple of a summer sunset…and to a man who stood tall and beautiful no matter how his life had tried to break him.
“Dare.”
He faced me, shoving whatever was in his hands in his back pocket and out of sight. “Athena.”
My gaze greedily stole over him. Knowing how it was to not be able to see, I appreciated and hungered even more for every second I could soak in the sight of him .
“How are you feeling?”
His left arm was in a sling, stabilizing his shoulder so he wouldn’t overextend and tear open his wound. But other than that, he looked…well. I struggled to explain it, but the shadows under his eyes were less. The pain haunting his expression had started to fade. Something had changed, but he’d been avoiding me, so it couldn’t have been me.
“Okay,” he rumbled, taking a step closer and then stopping hesitantly.
“Does it still hurt?” I asked, crossing my arms to stop myself from reaching out to touch him. I hated when he looked so solemn and alone like a lost boy who wasn’t sure he deserved a home.
“Less than staying away from you does,”he rasped, taking another small step toward me, like he was unsure just how close I’d let him come.
I sucked in a breath, shocked by the brutal honesty of his answer. “Dare…”
“I want to give you the truth, Athena, and my trust.” Give me the truth, not tell me. Hope fluttered in my chest, beating away the shadows of doubt that had crept in like cobwebs to the corners of my heart.“If you’ll still take it.”
“Of course,” I said quickly—maybe too quickly for some.
Maybe anger at him would be righteous, but it would also be wrong. To be angry at a man who’d done the wrong thing for the right reasons, who’d hurt me in order to spare me a deeper pain, and who’d punished himself far longer and far worse than I could’ve ever done—well, it would be easy, but it would also be weak.
I would be weak to choose anger when forgiveness takes far more strength.
“But first, I want to give you these.” He reached in his back pocket and extended his hand, a stack of envelopes in his grasp .
“What…” I recognized them instantly.
“The day we went to search your house. We were in your old room, and I saw them in the dresser. I don’t know why—no, I do know why…I took them. Read them.” His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry.”
My tongue slid over my lips. “Sorry for reading letters that were written to you?”
He frowned. “You never sent them.”
“Because if I never sent them, I never had reason to expect a letter in return,” I murmured, and when he still looked unconvinced, I added, “I never sent them out of self-preservation, not secrecy.”
And knowing he’d read them felt like a weight lifted from my chest that I hadn’t even known was there, it had been resting steady for so long.
“I got all your letters, Athena,” he rasped. “Every one. And I read them so many times, the ink is too faded to read them anymore.”
He hadn’t even gotten to the explanation of his silence yet, and already I felt tears prick at the pain on his face.
“The week after I’d left for boot camp, Rob’s parents died,” he began, his strapped arm clenching and releasing in a fist. “It was such a shock—the whole situation—I didn’t know how to write to you about it, and I couldn’t come home. My parents were devastated, and Rob…Harm was deployed. Izzy was too young. They asked me to talk to her, to console her. And I just remember sitting in silence on the phone because I didn’t know what to say.”
I banded my arms tighter over me, imagining the position he’d been put in.
“I was eighteen…you don’t experience a lot of death by eighteen.” He paused and cleared his throat. “I tried to be there for her. For my parents. But no matter what I said, it didn’t feel li ke enough. And because it wasn’t immediate family, I couldn’t go home. It was like I was trapped in a room with a door with no knob. I couldn’t—” He broke off with a huff. “I couldn’t figure out what to say to help them…and I couldn’t figure out what to say to you.”
“I’d never blame you for that,” I said softly. We were both kids.
“I started a letter to you at least a dozen times. I tried to find the right words…” He shifted his weight, shadows haunting his face like ghosts. “But what were the right words to say when your mom was sick again? Back in the hospital? It felt like everyone I cared about was hurting, and there was nothing I could do.”
Tears burned in the corners of my eyes, and I fought to keep them from falling.
“You didn’t have to do anything, Dare.” Except be there. “I just needed you.”
His mouth pulled into a hard line, his chin nodding like he was signaling the executioner to let the axe fall.
“I was going to call you. I didn’t have a lot of phone time, and the time I did have, I kept spending it talking to my family or Rob…but I remember the day I was going to call you,” he insisted. “We’d just finished morning drills. I remember the mud on my boots because it rained the night before. I remember I couldn’t see the sun through the clouds. But I remember thinking if I just talked to you, it would be okay.”
I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, they streaked down my cheeks like my chin was the finish line.
“I don’t remember holding my breath, but I do remember the way it rushed out when instead of being released to free time, our drill sergeant told us to head to the chapel on base,” he went on, his voice growing hoarse. “My buddies and I thought it was some fresh variation on the…hell of boot camp. And I guess, in the end, it was.”
I brought my hand to my throat, needing to feel it bob to convince myself I could still swallow. “What happened? What did they make you do?”
He stared at me, his eyes darkening to a black hollow. “Watch.” The single word made my stomach tighten. “There was a soldier—a fallen soldier who’d just been brought back to the base. His body was being delivered to his family.”
My pulse hammered underneath my fingertips, imagining him in that moment. Eighteen. Alone. His family suffering through their own tragedy, relying on him to try and pull them through from a distance. Me, needing his support as my mom declined. And then having to face this. The reality of war. The possibility…
“One of my buddies asked our drill instructor why we were there. There would be a service where we could pay our respects, but not intrude on a private moment…” He exhaled slowly. “His response was that we all needed to be prepared for our future, should this be it.”
“Oh, Dare…”
“It was like you see on TV: the casket draped with an American flag,” he forged on. “But they never show you the grief. At least not like this. His mother couldn’t stop sobbing. I swear the sound of her cries echoed in the chapel for weeks after that day.” He brought his free hand to the bridge of his nose, pinching it as his jaw muscle tightened.
It was then that I couldn’t stop myself. I stepped forward until I was in front of him—until I could put my hand on his arm and convince myself that he wouldn’t crumble under the pain.
He tensed. I was afraid he’d pull away—that I’d gone too far. But he didn’t. He lowered his hand and opened his eyes slowly.
“But it was the sight of his wife I’ll never forget.” And with those words, my heart broke in its entirety for him. “She couldn’t even stand. When she saw the casket, she crumbled. Two of us went to her. Lifted her and held her upright. I fumbled for the same words I’d tried to find for Rob. That she was strong. That she’d survive this.”
I bit into my cheek so hard it bled; the metallic taste oozed over my tongue but did nothing to stop the pain in my chest. “Dare…”
“She looked at me and said she didn’t want to.”
I cried out then, as if my own heart were present in that moment, and felt a thousandth of her pain. I’d been broken when my mom died. Adrift. But if I’d lost Dare that way…I would’ve drowned. Sank to the very pit of grief with an anchor of my adoration. To lose them both…
“The next day, I got your message that your mom passed, and I couldn’t…” He swore low, his big body trembling in the air around us. “I just couldn’t, Athena. I thought of how I’d left you…and I thought of that soldier’s wife. And I just…I realized I’d rather live with you hating me than risk hurting you. You didn’t deserve to lose anyone else in your life.”
I couldn’t see. Not because of an injury but because of emotion. I’d been drowning in loss, but so had he. And guilt. And fear. Tears tumbled down my cheeks unchecked, and my chest couldn’t catch a steady breath.
“Dare…”
“I wouldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t,” he rasped. “And after that mission, the day we came home with Ryan’s body, yeah, I made a lot of fucking mistakes. I carried all that guilt…but not for this—not for you. I did it all for you because it could’ve been my body beneath th at flag.”
I didn’t know what happened first—if I reached for him or he pulled for me. All that mattered was that I was cocooned in the warmth of his chest when I started to sob.
“I’m not sorry,” he repeated over and over again, and ironically, it was the non-apology that had me forgiving him.
“I don’t want you to be,” I finally managed to say as I tipped my head back to look at him. “I don’t want you to be sorry.”
For him to be sorry, he would have to be someone else. Someone who wasn’t driven by protectiveness and loyalty and sacrifice. Someone who didn’t have those qualities woven into their very DNA that he’d risk my hatred and his own happiness if it meant keeping my heart safe.
“But you have to know,” he began again, his voice even thicker than before as he brushed my hair back from where it matted to my cheek. “You have to know that day on the lawn, I never wanted to say goodbye to you. Never planned on it. That day on the lawn, I wanted our forever, and I never stopped.”
“Dare…” I tipped my head, aching for him to kiss me, but he pulled back.The stars dotting the rapidly darkening sky were reflected in his eyes, a constellation of hope knitted together by his words.
“You asked for the truth.”
“And you gave it to me.”
“No, I told you what happened, but this…” He released my face to reach behind him for whatever he’d shoved into his pocket earlier. “This is the truth.” It was arolled leather notebook, worn and wounded with age. And then he handed it to me.
I held it, my fingers hesitant to peel it open.
“It’s all for you. Always has been.”
Carefully, I peeled open the worn cover, underneath, loose pages started to slide free. I stopped them before they fell, unfolding the top one to a sight that stopped my heart .
Athena,
I don’t know how to deal with death, but I don’t have a choice now, really.
My eyes sped over the sentences—a letter written but unsent. With every word, my heart beat faster, reading about what he’d gone through. All the things he wanted to tell me. And when I finished one page, the next opened to more of the same. Letter after letter after letter.
Athena,
I’m so sorry about your mom. She was such a fighter. Braver than half the guys here. And so are you. Still, I wish I was with you. Holding you. I’m so sorry.
And then the folded papers became pages in his journal. One he’d taken with him overseas. The entries weren’t every day, but there weren’t more than a handful between entries. And they were all written to me.
Athena,
He’s gone, and it should’ve been me. It should’ve been me in that cold, lonely box. At least then I’d feel justified for leaving you.
“I was so used to writing to you…I just couldn’t stop,” Dare murmured. “And when we came back, the therapist said I should journal,” he breathed out. “I couldn’t write to myself—couldn’t face myself. So, I kept writing to you.”
Years of letters. Some pages of handwriting. Others no more than a sentence. Some scrawled in a hurry, others printed slow, like the sentences on the paper were his only way to escape. I wanted to read them all. I wanted to sit and savor every word that this man had penned so I would know what he’d been through and who he was. Except I’d always known the kind of man he was. It was why, even when I didn’t understand it, I hadn’t hated him.
“I never stopped loving you, Athena…I just wanted to spare you from pain. I needed to believe I was leaving you to a better life.”
I stared at him, my broken knight. “I don’t want better, I just want you.”
A rough noise groaned from his chest. “Am I worth saving?”
“Yes.” I reached for his cheek. “I’ll save you if you save me, too.”
His head dipped lower. “Tomorrow,” he said softly. “Tomorrow, I’ll save you,” he promised, his mouth inches from mine. “But tonight, I’m going to love the hell out of you.”
And then his mouth crushed mine.