by Mona Shroff
Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, confused. “Replacement?”
Finally, he was ready to tell her everything. “Sheila’s new baby is going to replace the child we had.” He wasn’t making any sense to Annika, he knew it, but how did you tell someone that you had a beautiful girl at one time, but now you didn’t?
“You had a child...” Her voice drifted off, and then her eyes met his, and she gasped. Her next words were barely a whisper. “Daniel, what happened to your—”
“Sara.” However softly he spoke her name, it was still too loud for him. “She was five.”
“Was?” She walked toward him and stopped just two steps from him. Tears shone in her eyes. “Sara.” Her breath hitched.
At the sound of his daughter’s name on her breath, the sound of her surprise and sorrow, tears prickled at his nose. Tears he had never allowed before blurred his vision and clogged his throat.
“Beautiful name.”
Daniel nodded slowly. If he moved too fast, he would lose his mind. A tear escaped, falling directly to the floor as if even his own tears needed to escape his sorrow. He took another gulp of his bourbon and spoke. His first words had to fight the backlog of emotion in his throat. “She had curly brown hair and blue eyes, and she loved school.”
Annika smiled through her tears. “She looked like Sheila?”
He nodded, his mouth automatically forming a frown. “Except when she smiled.”
Annika nodded, knowledge in her eyes. “The dimples.”
“Yeah.” He could barely even whisper. Her smile had been a miniature version of his from the start. Everyone had commented on it. He had thrilled in seeing that little piece of him in another human being. In the end, it was the thing that he had come to avoid.
“She, uh...she had made a card for her teacher and wanted to go to school early to give it to her. Sheila said no, but I felt bad because the night before I had played only one song for her on the piano, instead of two, because I was tired.” Self-loathing overwhelmed him as it did when he thought of that second song. “I was such an ass. It would’ve taken three minutes to play that damn song, then I wouldn’t have felt guilty, and then...” He polished off his bourbon.
A sound like a laugh escaped him, but it was mean. “So, I took her.” Nausea flooded him at the memory. Sara had hopped out of the car and grabbed his hand. Her tiny five-year-old-little-girl voice clear as if she were standing in front of him.
Thanks to the bourbon.
“Thank you, Daddy. Ms. Groller is going to love this card. She’s the best teacher I ever had. I love her almost as much as I love you and Mommy.”
The air had been warm that day. It was close to the end of the school year, so Sara had on her favorite blue dress with small white dots and flowers. Daniel had left the house in his blue scrubs. There must have been lavender growing nearby, because Sara had commented on the pretty smell, but Daniel had found it cloying.
She had taken his hand in hers and smiled up at him as they walked up to the doors to be buzzed in. He remembered thinking that her hands were sticky again, and that no matter how many times a day he washed her hands, they always seemed to be sticky.
The school wouldn’t be open to students for another thirty minutes. They waited outside, the sun growing warmer as they stood, the thick lavender scent turning Daniel’s stomach. Daniel was ready to take Sara and wait in the car until the building opened, when Ms. Groller herself opened the door.
Sara’s eyes lit up upon seeing her teacher, her smile wide, those all too familiar dimples melting his heart.
“I took her hand—you know she could only hold three of my fingers in her whole hand.” He held up his hand and gazed at it as if Sara’s tiny hand might miraculously show up. “We followed her teacher to her classroom.”
The thick scent of lavender filled his nostrils, making him almost gag. He closed his eyes to shake it. It wasn’t real. There was no lavender in this room. He opened his eyes, his gaze resting on those beautiful brown eyes. Annika watched him, no sign of the discomfort most people wore when he inadvertently mentioned Sara. Their faces closed, as if, by being too close to him, they might inadvertently lose their own child and become a member of that club no one wanted to belong to.
Annika rested her hand on his, squeezing tight. He allowed it.
His heart began to pound as if it were all happening again. He couldn’t ignore it.
It had been cooler in the building, and the hairs on his arms had stood on end. Sara had chattered away with her teacher as Daniel followed behind them.
He shivered from the memory of the chill.
“Come on, Daddy!”
His sneakers made soft squishing noises on the tile floor as he followed behind his daughter, allowing her to lead the way. “I’m right behind you, babe.”
End-of-the-year displays lined the walls. Bright yellow construction-paper suns with children’s names on them floated along walls outside Sara’s classroom.
He entered the classroom behind Sara and Ms. Groller. Sunlight streamed in from the window, making yellow bands across the room. Sara walked right up to her desk, opened her backpack and took out her homemade card.
“This is for you, Ms. Groller. I made it.” No inhibitions. No concern that her love would not be well received. The innocence of youth. Pride swelled in his little girl as she watched her teacher ooh and aah over the craftsmanship.
After Ms. Groller admired the card, Sara went to hang her backpack where it belonged.
“I could never get Sara to hang up her backpack at home, but at school, she was Miss This-Is-Where-It-Goes.” His mouth went dry. “There she was, hanging it up like she owned the place.” He’d had another moment of parental pride.
“Sorry she’s so early, but—” Daniel threw up his hands in surrender “—she had to get that to you.” He looked around. “Is there anything I can help you with before I head out?”
“No, not at all. Sara is a wonderful helper.” The teacher smiled broadly at her little charge. “We’ll manage, won’t we?”
Sara nodded proudly.
“Okay, then. Off to work I go.” He knelt down to kiss Sara goodbye. She smelled like baby powder and lotion and that mysterious essence that made children smell so precious.
Try as he would, Daniel could never quite exactly remember Sara’s scent. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as if he could extract that scent from the air around him. It didn’t seem fair that he could easily remember the offensive odor of the lavender, even feel the chill of the school building, but the little baby smell of his daughter was lost to him.
“Bye, Daddy.” She waved him off. She felt safe.
“Bye, sweetheart.” Daniel stood and nodded at the teacher as he left.
“I left. I left my sweet little girl at school and I went to work.”
“Daniel.” Annika’s eyes were wide; her breath was coming fast. “Daniel, where did Sara go to school?”
He met her gaze with nausea in his belly, unable to say the name of the school.
It was enough for Annika. She gasped. “Chase Creek. Sara went to my school, didn’t she?” Tears filled her eyes. “There was a shooting...”
“I left.” He spat out the word and pounded the granite, relishing the zing of pain that flew up his arm. “I was at work and he came...and he...” He hung his head as he leaned against the granite counter with one hand. Sweat beaded on him, his skin went cold. He couldn’t say the words.
A gunman had entered the building twenty minutes after he left and shot the teacher and Sara. He had shot five other people, too, because they were in his way. Four teachers and another student. Seven people. Seven people dead because an unstable man that Ms. Groller had dated one time found access to a gun. Because even though the gunman had a history of violent behavior, even though Ms. Groller had obtained a restraining order, he
still had a gun. Because it was easier to get a gun than to get help. He had a gun and he took seven innocent lives before taking his own. Daniel didn’t even get the satisfaction of facing the man while he rotted in jail. Rage built again, and he fisted his hands. Annika took one of his fists in her hands, forcing him to look at her.
The rage melted away, and he dropped his head and shook away the tears that threatened his eyes again. “What if I had stayed? Just an extra twenty minutes?” His breath caught. “I could have saved them.”
“Or you could have been killed with them.”
The thought had occurred to him more than once. It didn’t seem like the worst option.
He recalled being in the ER. His own voice seemed to be coming to him from far away as he tried to explain to Annika. “The next thing I knew, the ambulance was in the bay. Everyone was scurrying about—normal for the ER. I heard snippets—gunshot wound, child, school shooting—I didn’t think anything of it, past what my job entailed, until they brought her in.” He glanced up, trying to catch a glimpse of Annika’s eyes, but tears pooled, blurring his vision. “I saw her—” his voice cracked and his knees buckled and nausea swept over him as if he was actually seeing her “—on the gurney.” He could barely stand.
“The staff—they tried to keep me from her. But she was my little girl—I had to save her.” He could still feel the strength in the hands and arms that had tried to restrain him—tried to keep him from his Sara. He had easily fought them off, colleagues or no. That was his daughter. “She looked like she was sleeping, but blood—was everywhere. The docs took her right back—I tried to follow, but I heard Sheila screaming for me. Somehow she had heard and came in after the ambulance.” He could still hear her calling out his name. It was one of his recurring nightmares.
“Daniel—where is she? Where is she? Daniel, go fix her. Go fix her! Daniel!”
“I went to Sheila, because I couldn’t let her see—and I knew. I knew—” His voice failed and his body was too heavy and his knees finally gave way as he fell onto them to the cold tile floor. He pressed his palms to his eyes as if he could press away the memory of that vision. “I couldn’t let Sheila see what had happened to our little girl.”
Soft fingers threaded into his hair. Annika skimmed his face with her fingers. Then she was kneeling in front of him. He kept his eyes shut to keep the tears away. He couldn’t look at her.
She spoke so softly, her voice smooth, comforting. “Daniel, I’m so very sorry.”
She took his face in her hands, and at her gentle touch, he broke. He couldn’t fight the tears that he had kept at bay for five years. He kept his hands over his eyes as if he could stop them. But there was no stopping them now.
Annika pulled him closer to her. He rested his head on her shoulder as sobs racked his body. Visions of Sara’s life came at him. Her birth, Sara crawling, toddling, falling, scraping a knee, going to school. All that and now she was gone. He cried for all the things Sara would never do: play soccer, dance, graduate high school, fall in love, get married. His heart broke again for everything that Sara lost, and with her, everything that he had lost, too.
Annika’s fingers were soft and strong, offering soothing comfort. At some point, the waves calmed. Cool hands wiped his cheeks. Daniel hazarded a glance at her. Brown eyes swept across him like a comforting blanket, no accusation, no pity. It looked like love, but he couldn’t be sure.
No one had looked at him like that in a very long time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ANNIKA
ANNIKA HELD DANIEL’S face in her hands. She used her thumbs to wipe away residual wetness as she held his gaze. The green she loved so much in his eyes was flecked with brown and even black.
He had been holding this inside him for five years. Trying to will it away, forcing normalcy into his life where there simply could be none.
This was why he had held her in the ER. She knew it, as if she’d always known it. He understood her pain. She had felt so empty, so lost after losing her baby. People had expected she would get over it and move on—after all, her baby hadn’t even been born. But she had still felt the loss. Her heart ached for Daniel—he had actually held his child and watched her grow. He had seen himself in her.
“Who took care of you, Daniel? Who was there for you?” A day’s worth of scruff was rough against her hands.
He shook his head, looked away from her and shrugged as if he didn’t understand the question.
“You took care of Sheila.” She couldn’t move her hands from the curve of his jaw. They belonged there.
He nodded.
“Made all the...arrangements, handled the well-wishers. Made sure she ate?”
“That’s what...men...do.”
Realization hit her like a brick. “That’s what your father says.” Anger toward the older man flashed through her, followed quickly by pity, then sadness.
All this time, Daniel had kept his loss to himself. Provided and cared for someone else, never succumbing to his grief.
Until now.
His lips parted. “I’m sor—”
She stopped his apology with her fingers. “Don’t.” His gaze shifted to her mouth. Without thought, she straightened so she could reach him and gently placed her lips on his.
He moved slowly at first. Small tentative kisses, as if unsure what she wanted. She leaned closer to him, opening her mouth to him. His response to her invitation was immediate and frantic. His hands on either side of her head were strong yet gentle, and he pulled her close, moving his mouth on hers as if he were parched and she was water. He tasted smoky like the bourbon and smelled of leather and the outdoors. When he moved his body closer to her, she met him halfway, so not even air could get between them.
He released their kiss and placed hot full lips on the cool skin of her neck and she shivered, a small moan escaping her. She was losing herself in his touch. He pulled back, and Annika had to suppress a whimper. She opened her eyes and found him looking at her, his eyes hooded with desire. He touched his lips to hers again, gently to start, but Annika wanted more, and within seconds her need took over and she took his mouth with hers.
Daniel responded in kind. Every kiss, every touch was fueled by his passion and his grief. She recognized his need to feel something again as it mirrored her own need. She did not resist. She did not want to.
He stopped, resting his forehead against hers, his fingers in her hair, his breath coming hard and fast. “Tell me to stop.”
Without breaking her gaze, she reached down, grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and yanked it over her head. “I don’t want to stop.” All of her fears and sorrows were at the surface. She wanted this. She needed this man.
This man, who not only had his sorrows but understood hers, and looked at her like she could fix everything. Maybe she could.
Her breath came heavy as she leaned toward him and slipped her thumb just under his shirt, rubbing his skin. She captured his groan in her mouth as she kissed him again. He reached over his head and pulled off his shirt, kissing her deeper and drawing her closer.
They were skin to skin, and she reveled in the closeness and the feel of hard muscle against her body. She drew her hand down his chest muscles, across his abs, stopping only to undo the button to his jeans. She looked him in the eye. “I’m not stopping.”
His eyes darkened as he ran his hands down her sides, grazing the sides of her breasts, enticing her yet closer. He bent slightly and lifted her, turning, so when he laid her down, her bare back found plush carpet and not cold tile. She could feel his restraint as he gently kissed her face and neck.
“Daniel.” She cupped his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “Don’t hold back.” Breath escaped him as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. When he opened them again, they were loving, but hurt and angry all at the same time. She felt his grief, and she saw his healing. She b
rought his face to hers and kissed him fiercely with all the love she had. As if she could infuse love and strength into him with her kiss, and his pain would go away.
He responded with his mouth and hands roaming her body. He kissed her face, her neck, and when he approached her ear, he whispered, “You make me feel like I can breathe.”
Annika gripped his bare shoulders, pulling him closer as she met his eyes once more. She’d never forget the way he looked at her right now. “So, breathe.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
DANIEL
WHEN DANIEL WOKE, it was to find himself pleasantly entangled in Annika’s arms and legs. At some point they had made it to her bed, and he was surrounded by her scent, fruity and bold, uniquely Annika. She held him with a fierceness he had never known, and when he turned to her, he was met with big brown eyes and that sassy mouth curved into a smile. “Hey.”
He turned and pulled her on top of him, where she leaned her forearms on his bare chest to look at him. “Hey, yourself.”
“You’re still here.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Do you want to leave?”
“Not really.”
“So, stay.” She smiled. And he melted. “Daniel?”
“Hmm?”
“What happened after all that?” She looked him in the eye. “Did you ever talk to someone?”
“No, I—” He looked past her, up at the ceiling. “Sheila couldn’t get out of bed for months. She stopped going to work, stopped seeing her friends, everything she loved.” Annika shifted so she was lying next to him. He turned to face her. “I was the husband, the fath—” He shrugged. “I took the job on the chopper. I cooked. Forced Sheila to eat. Paid the bills. That was my job.” That was what men did. They handled business. Right?
