"I'm glad he had you in his life. For however long it was, I'm glad he had someone to love and someone to love him back. I'm glad he had you."
"Oh, Kelsey." The woman leaned forward, pulled her into a hug with a strength that surprised her. "I am so, so sorry. For everything."
Kelsey wrapped her arms around her, squeezed her eyes closed and held on tight. "No, don't be. Please. It's not your fault. None of it's your fault."
They stayed that way for a long time, holding onto each other while Paige clung to Kelsey's leg. They finally separated, each wiping at their eyes, bound together by their shared love of a strong man.
"Have you decided where you're going yet?"
Kelsey pushed to her feet, shook her head. "No, not yet."
"You'll let me know when you decide? You'll keep in touch?"
"Yes, of course." And she would—as soon as she figured it out.
Kelsey took Paige's small hand in hers and let herself out, waving a final goodbye to the woman who meant so much to her father. She walked back to the car, stopping for one last look at her father's house.
Wondering, for just one minute, how things might have been different.
Stop the damn nonsense, Katydid. You can't live in the past, and you can't build a life on regrets. You just need to move forward and make the best of every damn day that you have.
She didn't bother turning around—her father wasn't standing next to her. But he was close by. He would always be close. Would always be with her.
A small smile curled her mouth as she unlocked the back door and buckled Paige into her car seat. Kelsey climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, sat there for a long moment as her father's words echoed in her ear.
It was time.
Time to put the past behind her.
Time to move forward.
She put the car in gear and headed east.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
His ass was dragging.
No, it was more than that. More than being physically tired from pushing himself. More than doing too much on his way to full recovery. More than—
Hell, Daryl didn't know what the fuck it was. All he knew was that it felt like something was missing. That he'd misplaced something important, even though he didn't know what the fuck it was, and he couldn't find it.
He snorted, reached for the coffee pot and topped off his mug even though he hadn't taken more than two swallows of the stuff.
What the hell was his problem? Was it some kind of gray funk? The start of another downward spiral? No, not that. At least not yet.
Was the potential there? Maybe. He could feel something, hovering around the edges, calling to him. Beckoning him. But this was different from what he'd experienced nine years ago, when his heart had been ripped from his chest and shredded into a million tiny pieces, so many fucking pieces he didn't think he'd ever get it back again.
But he had.
Hadn't he?
Maybe not. Maybe that feeling of normalcy, the one he'd struggled so hard to recapture, had been nothing more than an illusion. Maybe the steel control he prided himself on was nothing more than a fucking fantasy he'd convinced himself was reality.
Yeah, sure. Or maybe he was just losing his fucking mind. Wasn't that what he had thought right after being shot? When he was floating into nothingness, higher and higher? Feeling nothing, caring about nothing—
Until he saw Layla. She'd been sitting on a swing, pushing it back and forth with the toe of one bright blue sneaker. Only she couldn't be because her feet had never been able to reach the ground, she'd been too young, too small.
But she could reach it now. She placed her foot on the ground to stop the swing and looked up at him, a bright smile lighting her face.
"Daddy! You're not supposed to be here, you know."
He moved closer to her, ruffled her hair with his hand and sat on the swing next to her. "No? And why not?"
"Because you're not."
"But it's my dream, Bean. I can be anywhere I want in my dream."
Layla laughed, the sound light and musical and filling his heart with so much love, he thought he'd burst from it. Not just love, but sadness, too. Sadness that he'd never see his little girl again. Never get to hold her or watch her grow up.
Layla's tiny hand cupped his cheek and he looked up, surprised to see that she was standing in front of him now. "Don't be sad, Daddy. You can always see me. Whenever you want. You just need to close your eyes and open your heart. Not just to me, but to them, too."
"Them? Them, who, Bean?"
"You know who. You just need to let yourself admit it."
He shook his head, forced a smile to his face. Started to question her again, started to ask her why she sounded so different. It was Layla's voice, but older. Wiser. But this was a dream. Who was he to question a dream?
"If that's what you want to believe, Daddy." Layla laughed again, clapped her hands against his cheeks and pressed a noisy kiss against his mouth. "I love you, Daddy."
"I love you, too, Bean. Always."
Layla smiled. Reached for his hand, tugged him to his feet and led him to the swing she had been sitting on a few minutes earlier. "Push me, Daddy. Nice and high, just like always."
"Yeah? How high?"
"Higher and higher. Higher than the angels, Daddy."
Then she was gone, her voice fading away as someone yelled at him. Wolf, telling him to stop fucking moving before he hurt himself—
Shit.
Daryl sat the mug on the counter, reached for the towel to mop up the hot coffee he had splashed over his hand and shirt. What the fuck was wrong with him? It had been a dream, nothing more than a fucking dream.
He needed to get back in the field. Go do something other than sitting around doing nothing. That was his problem—too much inactivity. Daryl had never been the kind of man comfortable with sitting behind a desk and that's all he'd been doing since he got out of the hospital. Hell, he hadn't even been to the fucking range.
He tossed the kitchen towel onto the counter and started for his bedroom. He'd change, call Mac or Chaos or Wolf and see if they wanted to go with him. They could run some mock scenarios or hell, just empty clip after clip into those damn paper targets.
He was halfway down the hall when the doorbell rang. He swore under his breath, changed direction and bounded down the short flight of stairs. Maybe it was Mac, coming to give him shit again. Fine, let him. The mood Daryl was in, he'd have no problem getting into a damn wrestling match right here in the fucking entranceway.
He yanked the door open, ready to give the man a shit-ton of grief. The words died in his throat and he stood there, his mouth hanging open, wondering if maybe he was fucking hallucinating.
Kelsey stood on the small porch, her hand wrapped around her daughter's. Sunlight glinted off her hair, shooting back reds and golds and browns. Green-ringed hazel eyes stared back at him, filled with uncertainty. She blinked and the uncertainty disappeared, replaced by something else he couldn't quite make out.
"Kelsey."
"Hi." She raised one hand, dragged it through the loose waves framing her face. "Um, can we come in? Or is this a bad time?"
"What? Oh, no. No, it's—yeah, come on in." He stepped back, held the door open as they moved past him. Kelsey hesitated for a brief second, her gaze catching his before she led Paige upstairs. Daryl closed the door, followed them with slower steps. Tamped down the confusion swirling through him as Kelsey got her daughter settled in the living room, spreading out some coloring books and plain paper and crayons on the coffee table. Then she turned to him, the uncertainty back in her gaze.
"Do you mind if we go into the kitchen to talk?"
He shook his head, grimaced, changed it to a nod. "Yeah. Sure. Is everything okay? Did something happen?"
"Everything's good." She followed him into the kitchen, leaned against the counter and folded her arms in front of her. "I'm selling Dad's house. The real estate agent came out two days to fin
alize everything."
"Selling it? You didn't want—"
"No." She shook her head, offered him a shaky smile. "No, I couldn't stay there. Not after—well, I just couldn't."
Daryl heard what she wasn't saying, understood her reasonings—she couldn't stay there, not after finding her father. Not knowing that he'd been murdered there.
"I saw Theresa."
"How's she doing?"
Kelsey shrugged. "Healing. Moving forward, one day at a time. By the way, thank you."
"For what?"
"For the private duty nurse. She didn't say as much, but I know you arranged for her to have one."
Daryl crossed his arms in front of him, dropped his gaze to the floor. Yeah, he'd arranged for the nurse, for as long as Theresa needed her. It was his damn fault she'd been hurt in the first place. If he had acted sooner, if he'd sent Ninja out there earlier or—
"It's not your fault. What happened to Theresa. What happened, period. None of it's your fault."
Daryl looked up, met Kelsey's gaze, saw the truth of the words in the depths of her eyes. Maybe she didn't think so, but he knew better. He wasn't going to argue the point with her, not now.
"So where are you heading off to now? Have you decided?"
"I'm not really sure." She shrugged, looked around the kitchen then stepped closer to him. Close enough he could feel the heat of her body, smell the faint scent of her shampoo.
He stepped back, needing to put distance between them, and collided with the refrigerator. A small smile teased Kelsey's mouth, there and gone so quickly he thought he might have imagined it. But she kept talking, acting like she hadn't noticed the way he'd moved away.
"I was thinking about heading out to the coast. Either California or maybe Oregon. We spent some time there—Paige and I—when we were running. Paige likes the beach and the water."
California? Christ, that was on the opposite side of the country. "Yeah, the beach would be nice."
"Then I was thinking about maybe the mountains. I've always liked the mountains. The crisp air, the sense of peace and solitude." She smiled, lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. "One place that definitely isn't on the list is a big city. I've never liked big cities, even before all this. I—I don't think I'll ever be comfortable around that many people."
Daryl nodded. Yeah, he could understand that. What he couldn't understand was why she was here, standing a foot away, telling him all this. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."
"Probably. But whatever I decide has to be soon because I need to enroll Paige in school." She inched closer, rested her hip against the edge of the counter and tilted her head to the side. "I did some research and learned something pretty interesting."
"You did?"
She nodded, that small smile once again teasing the corners of her mouth. "Yeah, I did. Did you know that Maryland has a coastline with beaches? Bumps right up to the Atlantic."
Daryl swallowed back a surprised laugh. "Yeah, pretty sure I knew that."
"It has mountains, too. Did you know that? And—" She leaned closer, close enough that her shoulder brushed against his arm. "Did you also know that central Maryland puts you just around two hours away from both the ocean and the mountains?"
"I—"
"Isn't that where we are now? Central Maryland?"
"Yeah." He nodded, called himself a fool for letting his heart race in his chest. For jumping to conclusions. "Yeah, we are. But, um, that two-hour calculation might be a little off, especially for the ocean. Especially—"
"Maybe, but it's close enough."
Close enough. What the fuck was she saying? What was she trying to tell him? Was he just imagining things when he looked at her? Was that a flicker of need in her eyes—or just wishful thinking on his part? Should he push her way—or risk making a fool of himself?
Daryl shook his head, started to push away from the refrigerator, to put distance between them. Something stopped him—the echo of a small voice, from somewhere deep down inside him. He dug his fingers into his arm, stared at a spot over her shoulder because he was afraid to meet her eyes.
"Kelsey, what are you trying to say?"
A hand reached for his, soft and warm, the touch light and hesitant. He looked down, saw her fingers trembling against his. He hesitated, slowly turned his hand palm-up and folded it around hers.
"I'm not sure. I just...when I first saw you, this past summer, I—I had this image built up in my mind, from everything Dad told me about you. You were Zeus, this mighty hero who could slay dragons and—"
"I'm not a hero, Kelsey—"
"But you are. You always have been—to me. I kept building you up in my mind, convinced myself that you were this larger-than-life mythical god who would swoop in and rescue me—"
"A mythical god?" Daryl laughed, the sound filled with bitter sarcasm. God save him from that stupid fucking name. Zeus. What a fucking joke. "Do you know how I got that name?"
"I—"
"It was your father. Him and his stupid damn sense of humor." He squeezed her hand, released it and stepped away. "Kelsey, that name was nothing more than a joke. It was during my first deployment. We'd been over there for two months when a bunch of us had gone out and had a few too many cheap beers, had thought going back to the barracks and wrapping sheets around us like togas was the funniest damn thing ever. Your father caught us—caught me. I was waving around a damn mop like some drunken gladiator fending off a pack of hungry lions."
The memory came back, crystal clear. Davis, standing at the entrance of the barracks like a silent sentinel, his clear eyes scanning the dozen men who thought they were so fucking smart. They had no idea how long he'd been standing there but the heavy silence quickly spread around the room once the first man noticed him.
Except for Daryl. He'd been facing the other way and suddenly spun around, wielding the mop like a sword—and came damn close to catching Captain Davis in the chest with it. The mop fell from his hands, hit the floor with an ominous sound. And Davis just stood there, watching him with eyes that missed nothing.
"Let me guess. You're the head asshole in charge of all these other assholes. Is that right?"
Daryl had started to answer—whether with 'yes, sir' or 'no, sir', he hadn't yet decided, wouldn't know until the words fell out of his mouth. But Davis had stopped him with a simple shake of his head. "Forget it, son. You want to be the head asshole, I won't stop you. I'll just call you Zeus from here on out."
Daryl finished the story and turned back to Kelsey, expected to see disappointment flash in her eyes. She was laughing instead, her mouth curled into a smile and her eyes dancing with amusement.
She stepped closer, reached for his hand and threaded her fingers with his. "I know. He told me the story years ago. Told me again last year when he said I could go to you if I ever needed help."
"He told you?" Daryl tried to step away, couldn't make his feet move. "Then you know the entire name was nothing more than a joke. I'm not some mythical god, Kelsey. I'm not even a hero."
"But you are. And that's what I was trying to say. I had built this image of you in my mind so that when I finally met you the first time, you were already larger than life to me. Meeting you, in person, only reinforced that. For those three months—from the time I first met you until you showed up at that cabin—I fantasized about you. About how you'd find me, how you'd help me slay those dragons and end my nightmare. And during that time, I fell in love with you."
His heart slammed into his throat. He shook his head, squeezed her hand then tried to let it go. "Kelsey, you don't love me—"
"I love the man I thought you were, the larger-than-life hero I had built up in my head. But somewhere along the line, I started to realize I could very easily fall in love with the man you really are."
"Kelsey—"
"We never got the chance to really get to know each other, Daryl. Not under normal circumstances. That's all I'm asking for—a chance to see what we might have together." She
finally released his hand and stepped back, uncertainty flashing in her eyes as she watched him. "If—if you want to, I mean."
If he wanted to.
The gray fog that had been hovering around him for the past four weeks—no, for the past nine years—finally lifted. Fell away from him in tatters, disappearing into the light surrounding him.
If he wanted to.
Yeah. Yeah, he did. But he couldn't get the words out, wasn't even sure what words to use—so he did the only thing he could think of. He reached for Kelsey's hand and tugged her toward him. Wrapped one arm around her waist and cradled her cheek with his hand. Then he lowered his face and caught her mouth with his for a kiss. Deep. Warm. Filled with promise. Lingering, turning to something else—
Until the sound of a young girl giggling broke them apart.
Daryl looked down into a pair of wide green eyes, felt a hesitant smile curl his mouth as the little girl studied him. Kelsey eased out of his hold, knelt next to her daughter and ruffled the girl's hair.
"Paige, do you remember Mr. Daryl?"
The little girl's fingers tightened around the edges of the drawing in her hand. She shot him another shy smile and nodded then buried her face against Kelsey's neck.
"You can say hi if you want. It's okay, sweetie. You can trust him." Kelsey's voice was soothing, reassuring. She looked up, offered him a smile that made his heart lurch in his chest. "Mommy does."
Daryl recognized the words for the gift they truly were. He pressed one fist against his chest, rubbed to relieve the unexpected tightness beneath his breastbone. Then he crouched down next to Kelsey, his gaze on the little girl as he smiled.
"Hi, Paige."
She turned her head, offered him a shy smile. "Hi."
She watched him for a few more seconds, her smile growing bigger. Then she lunged toward him, nearly knocking him over as she held the drawing out to him. He took it, his mouth twitching with amusement as he studied the colorful images.
A full rainbow of purples and reds and greens and oranges. Below that was a little girl with curly hair, holding a dog on a leash. A woman with wavy reddish-brown hair stood next to the girl, holding her hand.
The Guardian: DARYL (Cover Six Security, #2) Page 22
