by Jordan, Skye
“How long have we got you here?” she asked.
“It’s a little up in the air right now. I offered to help Emma renovate her aunt’s house. I don’t know if she’ll take me up on it or not, but probably a month at least. Longer if we renovate.”
A lot longer if he could work things out with Emma.
“Tell me about her. She’s come into the bar a few times, but I’ve only talked to her in passing. She’s really beautiful.”
He smiled. “Always has been, inside and out. We met in Germany when our fathers were stationed together. Started dating at sixteen. Got married at nineteen. Sometimes it seems like a different lifetime; sometimes it seemed like yesterday. We were only married six months when I had my accident.”
“Yeah, Gypsy told me about that just recently. I didn’t know anything about it. What happened?”
A weight pushed the air from his lungs. Dylan cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts. It was painful to think about. Not because of the accident or even the recovery, but because of all the pain he’d caused Emma. Because of the way he’d lost her.
“In Gypsy’s defense, I didn’t tell her how bad the accident really was until much later. And even then, I minimized the whole thing. I was in bad shape for a long time, and not just physically. I was depressed and angry and self-pitying. Even in the midst of it, I recognized how ugly the emotions were, and I was ashamed of both feeling them and not being able to control them. Retreating and maintaining radio silence was my coping method.”
Miranda’s gaze was steady, a frown creating vertical lines between her eyes.
“I was working as a freelance writer at the time,” he said, “and I got a gig with the German tourism board. They were working on a promotional piece for the popular tourist destination of Berchtesgaden.”
“Wow, that’s a mouthful.”
Dylan smiled, but it faded instantly. “It’s a town in the Bavarian Alps. The alpine views are breathtaking. And there’s so much history—museums and five-hundred-year-old salt mines. There were incredible hiking trails and ski resorts. Anyway, they hooked me up with three other guys—photographers and videographers—and we took the trip together.”
He leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together. “On the way home, the guy driving fell asleep, and the car went over a cliff.”
Miranda pulled in a sharp breath. Dylan was used to these kinds of reactions to the story and went on.
“The SUV rolled down the granite face of this massive boulder, finally landed on a ledge, and caught fire.”
Miranda rested her elbow on the table and her head in her hand, her face tense. “Oh my God, Dylan.”
“The guys I was with didn’t make it. They died on impact. I was airlifted to the closest trauma center. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the accident. I was asleep in the back, then knocked unconscious. I do sometimes have nightmares or flashbacks, but nothing as bad as you might expect from something like that.”
He sighed and sat back. “I was in a coma for three weeks. Wasn’t expected to live. When I regained consciousness, the prognosis was bad. Really bad. They said I’d never walk again. Never write again. Broke my pelvis, my femur, ribs. I had a severe concussion, was burned over thirty percent of my body, mostly in my midsection.”
Miranda’s face had gone pale. “I wish I’d known about it at the time. I would have found a way to get to you.”
“I’ve done a lot of stupid things over the last decade. Not staying in better contact with you and Gypsy is one of my biggest regrets.”
She reached over and curled her hand around Dylan’s. “That ends now, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Emma… God, Emma was beside me the entire time. She was at my bedside, holding my hand when I came out of the coma. She took a semester off school and stayed with me in the hospital night and day. When she did go back to school, she brought her work and did it at my bedside. She never left until I was asleep, and she was always there when I woke—”
His voice cracked. Tears stung his eyes. Miranda reached for his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
He cleared his throat. Blinked back the tears. “She borrowed money from her parents to bring in specialist after specialist for second, third, fourth opinions. Researched my issues relentlessly. She never lost hope, even when it was nowhere in sight. But over time, it became crystal clear my future would be short, painful, and extremely limited.”
“Jesus Christ,” she murmured.
“Once I saw the writing on the wall, I knew I had to let her go. But I didn’t know I’d be in for such a fight. She was determined to stand by me, no matter what. And I was determined not to chain her to my bleak future.”
“Oh, Dylan. You didn’t.”
“I did.” The reality still stung like a thousand hornets. “The only way I could get her to leave was to break her heart. I told her I didn’t love her, told her to go away and, when even that didn’t work, I banned her from my hospital room.”
“Ah, Christ, Dylan, you’re killin’ me.”
He nodded. “Killed me too. And, you know, even when they moved me to an extended-care facility, she still came every fucking day for an entire year. She sat out in the lobby for hours, studying, hoping…believing…I’d change my mind. My nurses used to beg me to see her.”
“You hardheaded son of a bitch.”
He smirked, and tears slid down his cheeks. He wiped them away with both hands. “That’s probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.”
“What happened?”
He exhaled, sinking into the chair. “I won, which ultimately meant I lost. Everything. She came home, moved back in with her parents, finished her bachelor’s degree.”
“What about you?” she gestured toward him. “You’re strong, well, together, successful. After those kinds of injuries? How did that happen?”
“I was determined to get well, get on my feet, make something of myself, and return to Emma whole. Or as whole as humanly possible. Unfortunately, by the time I had my shit together, she was in medical school.”
“And you were a foreign correspondent.”
He nodded.
“That is the most gut-wrenching story I’ve ever heard in my entire life.” She blew out a breath. “How are you now? What kinds of issues do you have from the accident?”
“Neuropathy, mostly. The burns damaged my nervous system, so I’m always in some level of pain. I’ve got a bunch of plates and pins all over my body. The only part of me without a scar is my face. But I was relentless about physical therapy, and it’s made a real difference. I’ve also found some great alternative, holistic pain management methods that work for me. I’ve grown as used to chronic pain as anyone could.”
“How in the hell did you pay for all that medical care? The surgeries, the rehab, it had to be insanely expensive.”
“It was, but lucky for me Germany requires all residents, permanent or temporary, to carry some kind of health insurance. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have spent the money. I was young, invincible, you know.”
She smiled. “You always were a bit of a daredevil.”
“So, I picked up an insurance plan that covered both health and accident insurance for foreigners, and the price was based on an adjustable scale dependent on your income. Since I didn’t make much, the insurance didn’t cost as much. My dad gave me some money as a wedding present, so that helped. Then, when he was killed in action, I inherited everything he had, which ended up going toward the medical costs insurance didn’t cover.”
“Wow, that’s”—she winced—“tragically fortunate. Sort of. I mean—”
He nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve spent countless nights trying to untangle that universal mystery.”
A moment of silence lingered between them, and Dylan’s mind drifted back to a dark, confusing, heartbreaking time.
“So what’s happening with Emma now?”
Miran
da’s question pulled Dylan back to the present. He hadn’t realized until now, after seeing Emma again, that even his soul-searching and introspection hadn’t lifted the shadows on his soul. “She finally divorced me about four years ago. Is…or was…engaged to a surgeon. I’m not sure if that’s still the case or not.”
“What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
“Nah. Emma was my One. My Only.”
That statement never felt as real as it did now, after seeing her again. Holding her again. Kissing her again.
“What’s going on with this house Gypsy told me about?” Miranda asked.
“Yeah, I really want to talk to you about that.” He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands. “Her aunt never had kids, but she was really close to Emma. So she put the two of us on the title as a wedding gift. She passed away a few months ago, but had dementia and went downhill fast over the last two years. She was hoarding, and Emma says the house is a mess.”
“You own half of it, then.”
“I do.” He thought of the offer he’d made Emma and prayed she took him up on it. “There’s nothing I can ever do to make up for the past, but I do have this opportunity to help Emma with her future. She’s made a great life for herself, but she’s got one hell of a lot of medical school debt. I believe I could turn this house into a source of relief for her. She’s got a lot of equity there. She was just going to throw most of it away before I offered to renovate it.”
Miranda waited a beat. “Somehow that doesn’t feel like the whole story.”
He felt like he was about to step out on a ledge. But it was only one of the many ledges he would face over the next few weeks or months, so he might as well get comfortable with them.
He took a deep breath and met Miranda’s gaze directly. “I want her back. I want her back so bad, it’s like an ache in my bones. I have a lot to make up to her, and that’s going to require face time.”
“So, this renovation serves two purposes,” Miranda said. “Getting Emma out of debt and getting her back.”
Hearing it from someone else made his heart flutter. “That’s what I’m going for.”
Miranda’s smile reminded Dylan of how ingenious she’d always been. How she’d woven any tale required to get whatever Gypsy and Dylan had needed, from food to school supplies. “And how did Emma take to the idea of renovating the house?”
“She slammed her car door in my face.”
Miranda laughed. “You always did have a way with the ladies.”
“To get her to even consider it, I promised to hire a general contractor and clear all the renovations through them as well as put the money for the renovation into a joint account.”
“Sounds like she’s afraid of another disappearing act.”
“I don’t blame her. Can you recommend a contractor? I have no intention of leaving before it’s done, so they wouldn’t really have to do anything other than guide me through the permit and inspection process with the county.”
“I have my contractor’s license. I’d be happy to step in.”
“Oh, I can’t ask you to do that. You’ve got your business—”
“Like you said, you’re not going anywhere, right?” She shrugged. “Then there won’t be much for me to do. And if she’s opposed to having family involved, I’ve got a couple of alternative names for you.”
“I have no idea what I ever did to deserve you,” Dylan said. “You’ve always had my back. I promise not to take that for granted again.”
She smiled and opened her arms. “Come here, brat.”
Her use of the affectionate nickname she’d given him as a kid made him laugh. He accepted the invitation and hugged her long and hard.
All while thanking Amir for being such a hardheaded, single-minded bastard.
8
At the back door of her aunt’s home, Emma turned on her Amazon Echo for tunes to keep her motivated for this trash-out.
She’d spent a week doing nothing but working and soul-searching. And it had been utterly hellish. She hadn’t spoken to Dylan in a full seven days, and she was pretty sure he’d given his offer a second thought and bailed.
“Fuck men,” she muttered, pulling on gloves.
She decided this clean slate was for the best. As soon as she’d returned the engagement ring to Liam, her head had cleared. Her goals had sharpened. She still felt like she had a knife sticking out of her gut from Dylan’s sudden appearance, but at least the bleeding had stopped. If she could manage life on her own through pre-med, medical school, and residency, she could certainly handle whatever life threw at her now.
Dylan had painted an irresistible image of freedom by taking on this job, and Emma was eager to get this thing done. With her workout playlist pumping, she stepped into the Tyvek bunny suit she’d picked up in the OR, then pulled her personal respirator mask into place, followed by plastic eyewear.
She smacked her hands together and headed into the home that had become a pathogen haven. “Let’s do this.”
But inside, she looked around, and her stomach clenched. She’d told everyone—her mom, Liam, Dylan, friends, and coworkers—that she hadn’t had time to start working on the house. But the reality was that seeing Shelly’s home in this condition broke her heart.
Her aunt had never married and never had children. Seeing how small and distorted Shelly’s life had become in the end gave Emma a few flashes of how her own life could turn out if she didn’t get over this long-standing heartache.
Shelly’s treasures had become the thousands of rubber bands in a pile in the corner of a bathroom, a hundred mugs purchased from QVC but never used stacked in one of the bedrooms, and dozens of brand-new plastic food storage containers lining a wall in the kitchen.
Emma had already spent two full days just creating pathways through the house so she didn’t trip and break an arm or a leg. Yesterday, she’d started filling the dumpster in the driveway. Ten hours of work and she’d barely made a dent.
With a black trash bag in hand, Emma turned up her grit, and started another day of cleanup. She tried not to look too closely at anything in the house. Too many things in here had turned from a normal household item to something unrecognizable. Often something infected with bacteria, mold, rot, and bugs.
She did, however, keep a keen eye out for creatures. This place was a veritable Noah’s Ark of pests, and the sound of them rummaging around somewhere under the two feet of trash made her skin crawl. Just in the last two days, she’d found countless cockroaches, ants, flies, a dozen mice, a few lizards, and even a garden snake.
Emma got into a groove and threw herself into the project. The purging felt surprisingly cathartic, and she wondered if this hurdle had been purposely put in her path to provide her an exterior way to mirror her inner excavation.
Three hours in, she was sweating beneath the thin coveralls. She dragged her twelfth full bag out the back door and swung it into the dumpster, then peeled back her mask, unzipped her suit, and wandered around the backyard, drawing in a deep lungful of fresh air. Before she went back in, she pulled a bottle of water from the cooler she’d brought and downed the whole thing.
Once her thirst was quenched, her body gave her another nagging signal about taking a break to pee. She’d been waiting because it was going to suck to get completely undressed every time she had to go to the bathroom. But unless she wanted to brave one of the gaggable bathrooms in the house, she’d have to trek to a local gas station or fast food restaurant. And once she left this place, she feared she’d just keep driving.
Emma scanned the bevy of cleaning supplies she’d lined up against the house. “Maybe I ought to just clean the damn toilet.”
The water and electricity were still on, and she had her mask and gloves. She needed one more look at the toilet before she made the decision.
Three steps into the kitchen, paper and plastic rustled on her left. A second later, a rat the size of a freaking football ran across her path and right over Emma’s c
ross-trainers.
She screamed and recoiled. The rat darted toward her, and Emma screamed again. She stumbled backward before finding her feet, then turned to run out—and smacked right into a man’s wide chest.
“Shit.” She reeled back and fell off balance.
Just before she landed on her ass, he caught her with an arm around her waist. She didn’t have to look up to know it was Dylan. He smelled like Dylan. Felt like Dylan. Moved like Dylan.
“That scream could only mean you came across something with beady eyes,” he said.
She gripped his arms for balance and dropped her head against his chest. He was strong and warm and so…Dylan.
“God, I hate mice and rats and—”
“Anything with beady little eyes.”
“I’d rather dissect a corpse.”
“A little morbid, but considering your line of work, I’ll let it slide.” His hands moved down her back, a sweet, familiar gesture that released fiery tingles across her skin and butterflies in her stomach. “Our first apartment in Hanover was pretty bad. But we won that battle. We’ll win this one too.”
Our. We. Hearing him talk about them as a couple felt both comforting and calculated. But then, everything with Dylan felt like a contradiction, a double-edged sword, bittersweet. Yet every time she was within ten feet of the man, her body came alive in a way that dragged her back to the first glorious months of their marriage.
And right now, after everything she’d been through, she wished she could stay here and just rest. Just lean on him. Just…feel loved. Safe. Wanted.
But she knew exactly how quickly Dylan could turn her life upside down. She wouldn’t depend on a man again, not for her happiness or her security. And definitely not Dylan Wright.
Emma forced herself to take a step back. Then another.
She turned and wandered into the yard to reset. “Alexa, off.”
The music cut out, and Emma pressed her hands to her hips. “Thought you’d decided to face terrorists instead of me.”
“Just getting our ducks in a row and giving you some space.”
