by Hill, Teresa
“Why? What’s wrong? Is it Annie? Did something happen? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, but she misses her brother. It’s not unreasonable to want to see you once a year for at least a day or two, even if you don’t see it that way.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been really busy — ”
“We know. Believe me, we do.”
“It’s true. We’ve been on a nine-month rotation schedule for years. You know that.” Six months training and preparing, three months deployed.”
“And the last time you got leave — three weeks of it, I think — you went to Europe and almost got yourself killed.”
Yeah. They were all still mad at him about that. They’d cried — all of them, when he’d finally woken up in that hospital in Germany. He’d seen how scared they were and felt like shit because of it.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Rae shot back. “But I’m willing to let that go for now if you’ll tell me about Dani. We like her. You should keep her.”
“I’m doing my best to.”
“Annie and I aren’t going to mess that up for you. Besides, she’s into you. It’s obvious.”
Mace wanted to believe that. She’d made him work hard for every moment they spent together, and she was probably still in love with Aaron and heartbroken over him.
Would she ever get over him? Ever move on?
How could he even ask her to, given what he did for a living?
“Leave it alone, Rae. It’s complicated.”
“She told us about her fiancé, that he was on the train.”
That surprised Mace. Maybe Dani was finally talking about it. Maybe it wasn’t as hard as it used to be when people knew. That would be progress.
“So, any idea when you’ll be back?” Rae asked.
“No. Sorry, I really don’t know.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. This is nothing — ”
“Training, right? You always say you’re training. To hear you talk, you do nothing but train. Do you really think any of us believe that?”
“We do train, all the time, but the reason I’m gone now … It’s personal, I swear. Please don’t say anything to imply that it’s not. I don’t want Dani worrying about me.”
“It’s impossible not to worry about you. You have no idea how scary it was after the train shooting — ”
“See, that’s the kind of thing you don’t need to be saying around Dani. Please? For me?”
“Uhh … We might have already talked about it, a bit. Not how bad you looked, exactly, just how worried we all were.”
Jesus.
Sisters.
It was impossible to keep them from meddling in his life. They’d been doing it since they were born. When he was a teenager, they’d said outrageously embarrassing things to any girl he brought home. Once he left for the Navy, he never, ever introduced them to anyone he was seeing. Now they were there with Dani, and he wasn’t there to try to keep them under control.
“Ace, I swear, we’re not trying to make things more difficult for you. She started talking about her fiancé and the train, what that had been like for her, and we told her what it had been like for us. I’m serious — we like her. We can tell she likes you, and she seems like a really nice person. We want you to have someone nice, someone special. We don’t want anything but the best for you, but if you really want us to leave, we will.”
Shit, now he’d made his sister cry, or almost. Now Dani would think he drove his sisters to tears. Perfect.
“No, I don’t want you to leave.” That wasn’t completely true. He didn’t want to hurt their feelings, but what about all the other things they might tell Dani? “I’m sorry. I just … ”
Get a little crazy where Dani’s concerned.
He sweated nearly every conversation, every move he made. He’d never felt so inept with a woman.
“Don’t go anywhere, Rae. With luck, I’ll be back before you two leave.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.”
“Yeah. I’m sure. Now, I really have to go — ”
“Wait. Annie wants to talk to you.”
God. He loved his sister so much, but talking to her tore him up inside.
“Hi, Ace,” she said, sounding so happy.
“Hi, baby girl. How are you?”
“Good. I’d be better if you were here. Are we gonna see you before we leave?”
“I’m not sure. You know I’d be there if I could.”
He winced at his own words, because he wouldn’t. If he’d known they were coming, he’d have found a reason he couldn’t be there. Seeing Annie in the chair left him bleeding regrets and and an anger at himself that still burned painfully.
“I miss you,” she said.
Her words and the sound of her voice left him aching. For the girl she used to be, the one who’d looked up to him, depended on him, the one he’d let down in ways he could never make up for.
“I miss you, too.” He had to force the words out. “What’s new with you?”
“I just got a kick-ass new wheelchair! I told you my doctor signed me up to participate in testing prototypes for people with spinal cord injuries?”
“Yeah, you did.”
“I wasn’t sure anything would come of it, because I figured a ton of people would want to do it, but for some reason, they picked me. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
Not that he wanted her to know. “Uhh … I don’t think Mom or anybody else told me about it.”
“Right.”
“Annie, I don’t know what you think — ”
“Skip it. I just wanted you to know it’s the coolest thing ever. It’s basically a Segway-wheelchair! This guy in New Zealand got the idea. It’s fast. It looks amazing. No hands required. I lean forward, it goes forward. I lean back, it goes back. It goes across so much terrain that a normal wheelchair can’t handle. I love it, Mace!”
“That’s great. I’m so glad.”
“I’ve been all over the ranch with it, on trails through the grass, dirt, gravel. It just keeps on going. And the best part is that I can go out alone. You know what it’s like to be out there by yourself. It’s so peaceful. I can think there.”
“You go by yourself?” Fuck, he hadn’t thought about anything like that before he arranged for her to have one through the facade of a face study. Her, alone, no-one-knows-where on a three thousand acre ranch? Anything could happen. “You think that’s safe?”
“Now you sound like Dad.”
“He’s okay with this?”
“Uhh … How old am I? Do you remember? Not eight. Not twelve. Not sixteen. I’m twenty-six, Ace. A grown-up. My father doesn’t get to tell me what to do anymore.”
Shit, now he’d made her mad.
Really mad.
But he imagined her falling, sliding, that stupid chair going too fast or breaking down … He could see a dozen things happening, and there she’d be, lying on the grass or a rock, drenched and shaking hard from the cold rain, unable to move.
He’d never get that image out of his head.
“Mace, I don’t want to fight with you.”
“I don’t want to fight with you, either, baby girl.” But his pet name for her would set her off again. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just — ”
“Can’t see me as a grown-up. Believe me, I know. Being in the chair doesn’t make me a child — ”
“Annie, I know that — ”
“Or someone who needs another person to take care of me!”
“I’m your big brother. I will always want to look out for you.”
“Not the way you do Rae or Wendy or Tina.”
He couldn’t deny she was right. Every time he saw Annie, he managed to make things worse between them, and God, he hated that.
Silence stretched between them, as it often did. She’d be seething and biting her tongue.
Finally, she calmed down. “Look, I’m here
, and I’m happy. My life is good. I love this new chair. All I have to do is use it and tell the company that makes it what works well and what I think could be improved, and I get to keep it!”
“I’m glad,” he said. “Really, I am.”
And he’d talk to his father about her taking that damned chair out on the ranch by herself. If he’d ever imagined it could let her do that, he never would have bought the prototype for her, with a promise to give the company a lot more if Annie thought it was a good product. If he ever played a part in anything that led to her getting hurt again, he’d …
He wouldn’t survive it.
Not again.
“Dani seems sweet,” Annie said. “You need a woman in your life. You must get lonely here without all of us.”
He did. He ached to be home on the ranch with his parents and his sisters, but it would never be the same after Annie’s accident. He didn’t want to ride. He didn’t want to even see the horses. Nor the house. Nor his hometown.
“Well, I know you probably need to go. I just wanted to tell you I miss you, and I hope you get back before we have to leave. Stay safe, okay?”
God, her telling him to stay safe?
“Don’t get in the ocean if I’m not there, okay?”
“I swim circles around anybody but you and the guys you work with. You know that!”
“In a pool. The ocean’s different. It can fight you, when it wants to. Anything could happen. Annie, please?”
“Okay, I promise. I won’t go in the ocean.”
“Thank you. I love you.”
“Anything else you want to forbid me to do?”
“Smart ass,” he said.
“I love you, too.”
She said it every time they talked, which — granted — wasn’t often, and he wondered how she possibly could either love him or forgive him. She had to live with the consequences of her fall every day.
“Hey, let me talk to Dani for a minute before I hang up, okay?”
A moment later, she came on the line with a soft, tentative hi.
He felt better when he was talking to her. Even when she was so far away, hearing her voice eased something inside of him. Everything, actually. It started small, but the tension unraveled and the relaxation spread through his whole body until he could breathe freely again.
“I’m sorry they just descended on you and Leah,” he said.
“They’re your sisters, and this is your apartment. They have every right to be here.”
Just what he expected. “Dani — ”
“I know. I know exactly what you’re going to say. We’re not all helpless without you — ”
“I never said you were.”
“No, you just act like we need a keeper. I know I was a real mess when you found me, but I’m better now. You don’t need to worry so much about me — ”
“But I want to — ”
He cut himself off just in time.
He wanted the right to worry about her, to take care of her. He wanted her to listen to him and let him help. He wanted to come home to her. Every time he came home, he wanted her there waiting for him. He wanted to walk into her arms, haul her up against him, breathe her in and know that he was home at last. He hadn’t had a home since he left the ranch, and now he wanted one with her.
“What, Mace?”
“Nothing.” He sighed. “I don’t suppose I could tell you not to believe a word my sisters say about me, could I?”
“They adore you.”
“Right.” He frustrated them, made them mad.
“Mace, they do. They miss you. I miss you, too,” she whispered.
God, he hoped she did. “I miss you, too. Rae said you told them about Aaron. I hope they weren’t trying to pry. They do that.”
“No. Not at all. Annie told me about her accident, and I … ”
Oh, fuck.
He didn’t hear anything after that except a roaring in his ears.
Annie told Dani about ending up in wheelchair?
He thought he was going to throw up.
He’d been trying to convince Dani that she could count on him, that he wouldn’t let her down, but now she knew about the worst day of his life, the day he found his sister on the ground and unable to get up. The day he’d never forgive himself for.
He never told anyone his sister was in a wheelchair. They’d ask what happened to her, and he couldn’t talk about. If anyone ever did force the story out of him, they’d know he shouldn’t be trusted in a job where he had people’s lives in his hands.
“Mace?”
Finally, he heard her voice. How long had he been out, lost in memories? Probably a while.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Oh, I thought I’d lost you for a minute.”
He could not lose her.
Not Dani.
“Annie loves her new wheelchair. Everyone who sees her in it wants to stop and talk about it. A lot of them say they know someone who would love one like hers. She said something … Well, she thinks you got it for her.”
“Don’t tell her, but … yeah, I did.”
“You did really good there. You should tell her you did it.”
“I’ll think about.” But he wouldn’t. It would seem like groveling for forgiveness, and he had never been able to bring himself to ask for that from her.
“All right. I know you have things to do, so … I’ll see you when you get back. Night, Mace.”
“Night, Dani.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Three
Dani
Mace came home only a day and a half before they had to leave, and, while Dani had no evidence, she thought he’d done that deliberately. Like he could handle only so much time with them.
She loved watching him with his sisters. They were all over him, hugging him, hanging onto him in the pool, ruffling his hair, leaning into him on the couch. They adored him.
He was equally affectionate with them, but at times Dani would catch a strained sadness in his eyes.
They made his favorite dishes and filled his freezer for him to enjoy once they were gone. They showed him tons of photos of their parents, their other sisters, old friends of his from their hometown and their ranch, which looked beautiful in a way Dani hadn’t realized Texas could be. The Hill Country, he told her, full of beautiful, green, rolling hills.
His Realtor showed up, and when she mentioned his new condo, his sisters insisted on seeing it and dragging Dani along. Mostly, Dani thought, Rae and Annie didn’t want to leave him alone with his Realtor. So they all went to see his new place.
It was big, three bedrooms, with even better views of the ocean than his current place. They teased him about where he might be getting all his money and offered him tips on decorating it. The place looked like something straight out of the seventies. They offered to come back to paint and help him pick out furniture. He kept looking at Dani and asking her what she thought of the place. Like he might want her to share it with him? She tried hard not to freak out at just the idea of living with him so soon.
They spent their last day in the pool. Annie loved to swim, and she was great at it. Apparently, one didn’t have to be able to move her legs to swim well. She said other than being on horseback — yes, she still rode — being in the water allowed her to move more easily and feel more normal than anyplace else.
When it came time for them to leave, his sisters started crying and had a hard time stopping. He hugged them, kissed them, tried to dry their tears and get them to smile, and in the end begged them to stop crying.
“We just miss you,” Annie said.
It looked like that broke his heart.
They hugged Dani tightly as they said goodbye and whispered that they hoped to see her at the ranch one day, meeting the rest of the family.
Dani stood with her arm around his back as they watched his sisters drive away. Every muscle in his body seemed tight. His face looked exhausted.
She didn’t know how to
begin to talk to him about Annie and her accident or the way Mace had been avoiding his home and the family he obviously loved ever since.
He also hadn’t told her what he’d found out on his trip. It had been chaos with his sisters there, and they’d had so little time together, and no privacy. He insisted Dani and Leah stay, and his sisters stayed. He slept on the couch.
He wanted to be alone with Dani before he told her anything about Aaron, and she’d agreed. She feared more bad news was coming and was nervous about hearing it.
Finally, they were going to be alone because Leah had to work that night and Dani didn’t. After seeing Mace’s sisters off, Dani and he walked back through the parking garage to the elevator to take them to his condo. Wanting to break the silence, Dani said, “Annie still rides?”
“Yeah. She pitched a fit like you wouldn’t believe once she found out there were paraplegics who still rode, and our parents finally gave in and let her.”
“You don’t think they should have?”
“She nearly died, Dani.” His hard tone was one she had never heard from him before. “She could have broken her neck instead of her lower back, could have split her skull open on those rocks, anything. I hate that she rides. I can’t understand anyone letting her or her wanting to do it.”
“How does she do it?”
“At first, she had a special saddle with a tall back and a chest strap that held her against the back support. Later, when she got more control over the muscles in her hips and abs, she didn’t need anything more than straps on her thighs to keep her from sliding off.”
“And you worry that she’ll have another bad fall?”
“People come off horses all the time. Or go down with the horses and get crushed beneath them. Strapped in the way she is, Annie would go down with her horse for sure.”
Dani put her hand on his arm, leaned into him and pressed the side of her face to his arm, too. He sounded like he could never stop worrying about something else happening to his sister.
He pulled his arm away from her, and she thought she’d made him mad, but he put the arm around her instead and pulled her close into his side. His breathing wasn’t as slow and steady as usual. His body felt tense.