“Damn it, Ana.” He lunged forward before she hit the floor. Taking her weight, he settled her back against his chest as he slowly lowered them both to the hardwood. Her skin was hot, sweat slicking down the side of her temples despite having been discarded in the snow for who knew how long. “How the hell are you going to do that when you can’t even stand?”
“I’m not going to lose you again, Benning.” Long lashes rested against the tops of her cheeks as she closed her eyes, but when she opened them again, a fire he’d never seen before burned in the depths. “And I’m not going to lose her, too. I can’t.”
Her voice broke, right along with his heart. Something shifted then. Something he couldn’t explain as she rested against him. He’d been wrong before. She’d detached herself from the people she’d been assigned to find, but not because she didn’t want to feel the pain and loss of another victim, someone she cared about. How hadn’t he seen it before now? It’d been there in the way she’d kept her bullet wound to herself to get them to safety, the way she’d shouldered the blame of Samantha Perry’s death, how she’d sacrificed herself to give his daughter a chance to run. Even now, she was determined to put his medical needs above her own, despite the fact she was on the verge of passing out.
She wasn’t protecting herself from being hurt again.
She was punishing herself.
For what’d happened to her sister, what’d happened to Samantha Perry seven years ago. All of it. She’d taken the blame and twisted it into her own personal responsibility, leaving her wrung out and nothing more than the empty shell he’d accused her of becoming. She’d cut herself off from the things—the people—she cared about the most, not because they were a distraction, but because she didn’t believe she deserved them to be part of her life. That because she’d failed, she didn’t deserve to be cared for. Benning swept her hair out of her face. He held her tighter, counted her slowing inhales and exhales. No. She wasn’t going to die here. Her lashes dipped to the tops of her cheeks once again, and his eyes burned with the possibility of losing her all over again. “You’re not a ghost of the woman I fell in love with. I was wrong. I know now why you left, why you think you need to put your own life on the line for everybody else to make up for the past, but if you keep going like this, you’re not going to have anything left to give, Ana, and my kids need you.” He took a deep breath as the truth surfaced. “I need you.”
“It’s my fault.” Her voice vibrated against his chest. She struggled to open her eyes, her hands limp by her sides. “I was the one who was supposed to be watching my sister the day she went missing. I’m the one who should’ve found something we could use on Harold Wood before he killed that girl. No one else. Me.”
Warmth spread through him as he set his cheek against the crown of her head.
“You were five years old when your sister was taken, Ana. Five. You couldn’t have even saved yourself at that age, let alone someone else. You were a child, and nobody in their right mind blames you for what happened. Just as nobody blames you for what happened to Samantha Perry.” Tension built at the thought of how many times she’d internalized that blame, made it a part of herself, carried it on her shoulders day after day, how it affected her life. Her happiness. “The criminals who abducted them, they’re the ones who need to answer for their crimes. Not you. Don’t you see that?”
She didn’t answer.
“You told me the work you do makes it so you have to walk in the dark, and I believe you.” He smoothed blood from her bottom lip, and a new level of awareness heightened his senses, chased back the pain in his shoulder. He shouldn’t be surprised. She’d always had this effect on him, always been able to shut out the chaos around them, grounded him, kept him in the moment. Gave him confidence. “But nobody said you have to do it alone or that you don’t deserve to see the light.”
She shook her head. “I should’ve been able to save her.”
“Think of how many others you have saved, Ana. They’re alive because of you.” He’d been down this road, blamed himself for not being strong enough to protect Owen and Olivia, but in the end, that wasn’t what mattered. He could tell her it was because his kids were out there, possibly in the hands of a killer, that he’d laid it all out there, but that wouldn’t be the truth. He cared about her. From the moment she’d walked onto that construction site asking him questions about the Samantha Perry case seven years ago, he’d known she was the kind of woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. She was intelligent, independent, insightful and caring when she let that part of herself show. And, damn it, she deserved more than this, more than a life filled with unanswered questions, heartache and pain. She deserved to be happy. He and the twins, they could make her happy. The thought should’ve scared him, but a sense of rightness, conviction, burned behind his sternum. Hadn’t he’d always felt that way when it came to her? “This obsession you have with saving everyone but yourself only has one end. Yours.” A hint of anger bled into his voice. “Damn it, Ana, you have people that care about you, but you’re
