Chapter 44 #2
“I met him when Heather and I were not quite twenty-four.” She sighed, then started eating.
She was quiet a moment. “I was home from school. Samia and I had driven home together for the weekend. I was missing home, and so was she. Heather had worked for the TSP for about four months then. I opened the front door, before checking who it was—Sam had just left and I thought she’d forgotten something, and well…
I had been in the process of changing clothes—and I ended up standing there, almost naked, in front of a hot man I did not know.
Two of them, actually. Nick had his arm slung over Miguel’s shoulder, and Heather was helping keep him on his feet.
The three of them were laughing like lunatics, battered and bruised.
He looked at me and assured me he was just hamburger, not drunk.
Then he looked down and saw what I was not wearing.
The poor man turned bright red. I stopped.
I thought…there he is. The man just meant for me forever.
Of course, my wonderful, shy little twinsie brought him right home to me just like a present.
Heather is good at taking care of her family, after all, and making certain we all have what we need.
They got him inside, and I played nursemaid all weekend.
We just knew, Commander Butthead, we just knew.
And…four kids later, I lost him. You know that story, too.
Not…not the happy ending I had imagined.
I miss him. So damned much sometimes. He was the love of my life, and he was Heather and Miggy’s best friend.
Those three were always together—it just amazes me Hope and Miggy never crossed paths before.
Amazing. They lost Nick, too. He…had the kindest heart of any man I have ever…
known. Good, honorable…a man a woman could trust and depend on.
Not very many of them left out there. I think Miggy is the only one even in Finley Creek I could ever say the same about now.
Hope really should snag and shag him, I think. Keep him for her very own.”
Daniel was not going to even think about Hope and shagging. Ever again.
“I am very sorry for what happened to him.” The pain in her big dark eyes—he wouldn’t forget it any time soon, either. So many people were hurting.
“We know who did it, and we think we know why.” Her hand covered her stomach instinctively.
“But those answers…I’ll have to tell my children those answers someday.
Especially my baby girl. She’ll know…her daddy died to protect her.
That’s a heavy load. And me…well, I’ll never forget the way that monster shouted that the price he paid was worth it.
I never did figure out what he meant. I do know one thing: every day I had with my Nick was a gift. And I treasure them completely.”
The price he’d paid was worth it.
She stared at him, just as intently as Heather did sometimes. “Have you ever felt like that with someone, Daniel?”
He just shook his head. “No. I…could have. Almost came close…with…Haldyn. But…it just never happened.”
“She’s happy. She’s been by to see Hope earlier.”
He nodded. He’d heard. Jarrod had brought her to check on Hope himself. Two days before Daniel had ended up…here. In Coleson Castle.
With beautiful women wearing silk and lace and tempting a man to sin just by breathing. “I just want her to be happy. That’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“So…why not with you? Why haven’t you found someone?”
There was something about the night, about the quiet, and…the hurt…that had him opening up to her. For some reason, it just didn’t feel like this woman would judge.
“I just don’t know. The job, mostly. It’s…
a harder life than some women are prepared for, I think.
My mother certainly wasn’t.” Neither had his ex…
before Haldyn. She’d accused him of only caring about the TSP.
He’d heard it before. Now…maybe he even believed it.
He was almost thirty-eight years old. Was this all he really wanted his life to be?
“But if she loves you enough, a woman can handle the job. I did. And I know exactly what it entails. I still do—I feel the fear every time Heather walks out the door, you know. I probably always will. We worry for the ones we love. Even more…now.”
“How is she doing?”
“I was able to sit with her for a few hours. She opened her eyes, Daniel. She opened her eyes. Told me she wanted a milkshake, and then drifted right back out. Heather has always wanted junk food when she’s sick.
If I had been able to get her a damned milkshake I would have.
” She sniffled. Daniel fought the panic.
If she cried, he’d be destroyed. “She is doing okay tonight. It’s going to take a while and she still has fever off and on.
I am just telling myself her body is resting. Healing from the trauma.”
They just talked as she ate. Daniel did his best to ignore the beautiful parts of her seriously on display. Then she slipped upstairs to find her bed, on one of the floors upstairs he hadn’t been to yet.
Leaving him sitting there, a piece of chocolate cake in front of him, and questions he wasn’t quite ready to face.
What was it about the women here that made a man hurt so much?