I reached back and caressed it, my chest stretched tight as I took in the child who was filled with so much life and laughter and mischief, and still, so vulnerable and innocent.
Her well-being cast into my hands.
A shiver curled down my spine.
An ice-cold dread.
Maybe it hit me right then. After the shock had worn off.
What truly could have been. How close she’d come. That it could have been any other day when she was off on one of her escapades and no one would have been there to save her.
Gratefulness rocked me. Slamming me from out of nowhere. So intense it brought moisture burning at the back of my eyes.
“Shit,” Richard muttered.
Like he’d been struck by the intensity, too, but in an entirely different way.
I jerked, and my attention rocked back to the man who kept hitting me like an earthquake. Quivers that staked through my being every time he said a word. Driven deeper with each glance.
Pain lashed across his face when he looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
My brow twisted, and my heart skittered. “What exactly are you sorry for?”
Loaded question, much?
But I couldn’t stop the gate that busted wide. Freeing something. Opening me up for one vulnerable second.
Truth billowing between us.
That connection zapping and zinging through the dense air.
“For not getting there sooner. For doing it wrong. For fuckin’ it up.” He mumbled it toward the windshield as if the night could take hold of his confession. Like there was more to it than what had happened this afternoon.
I needed to refuse it. Give him no credit.
But I couldn’t ignore what he had done. That cresting of gratitude pouring from me.
Wave after wave.
“You saved her, Richard. If you hadn’t been there…in that spot…”
I shuddered at the thought, unable to process a tragedy that great.
“She has a broken wrist.” His voice cracked with some kind of unspent grief when he said it.
My head shook, that truth gettin’ free. “And I’m thankin’ God it wasn’t a broken neck. Thankin’ God that you were there. Right when she needed you. Right when we needed you.”
The statement hovered in the cab.
Words smothering just as much as they were giving life.
The weight of it pressed down on our chests.
Our hearts drumming so fierce they’d become a lifebeat in the cab.
The two of us trapped in it.
Going under.
Clearing my throat, I ripped my attention from his profile and glanced back at her again, my voice filled with adoration and fear. With the burden I carried. “Sometimes I worry that I’m not enough for all that she is.”
Richard’s teeth clenched, his hands firm on the wheel as he stared out at the road ahead of him. “I’m pretty sure you’re everything she needs.”
My mouth trembled. “You don’t even know me anymore.”
He tossed me a glance. “Don’t I?”
I got caught there, lost in the depth of his gaze. Unrelenting. Hard and soft and everything in between. I searched for a missing breath, finally tearing myself from the trance cast by this man and forcing myself to drop my focus to my lap.
I doubted that more than a blip of a second had passed that we’d both been there watching it through the distance. But in it had been the eternity we were supposed to share.
His eclipse right there to swallow it up.
A black hole where I’d forever gotten lost.
I instantly felt the loss of it like a kick to the gut. This hollowed-out vacancy that moaned and ached.
Coming alive from where it’d lain only half dormant in the time he’d been gone.
Agony rushed me all at once.
I stifled it and tried to hold it together, but my chest constricted, and moisture clouded my eyes as a sea of sorrow threatened to sweep me away. Through the tears, I looked out the window at the passing countryside.
I just needed to make it home. Get inside and lock the door and shut him out.
Permanently.
Because I wasn’t sure I could remain this close to him for a second longer, for my heart to be right there but no longer mine to keep.
Pressure filled the space. His breaths hot and heavy and saturating the air.
The man the oxygen in my lungs.
Questions vied to get free. Like talons trying to claw their way out of me. Eviscerating. No care for the destruction their seeking this closure might impose.
I bit down on my tongue, praying for the seconds to pass, holding my breath, feeling like I was nearly gonna faint by the time Richard rounded the last curve that brought the house into view.
A beacon on the hill.
In silence, we rambled up the dirt drive, old truck bouncing like crazy, my hand already curled around the doorlatch.
Before he came to a full stop, I was out the door like a gun had gone off, and I was launching myself into a 300-yard dash.
I rounded the back of the truck so I could get to my child.
And yet again, he was there.
Invading my space.
Stealing that breath that he’d supplied.
Before I could argue with him, he shot me a look that told me his actions were not up for debate when he opened the back door.
Oh, I was pretty sure there was plenty to quarrel about.
But still, I remained quiet as he picked her up, his entire demeanor at odds with the gentle way he handled her.
The way he pulled her sleeping form into his arms.
The way his breaths were short and ragged.
As if he were suffering.
Physically.
Mentally.
Like maybe he’d had his heart broken as severely as mine.
My spirit screamed, Why, why, why? Why would you do this to me? Was loving her too much of me to ask?
I sucked them down and instead ran ahead of him, keeping my footsteps quieted as I moved up to the porch and to the door. I pushed my key into the lock, and
