SBC Fighter: Tails Of Love Part 24

At the time, he'd been too wrapped up in his own grief to see what was happening to Kathy. He'd overestimated her coping skil s, thinking because she went through the motions of their daily life that she was handling her grief better than he. As a result, he'd hidden his own misery, not wanting to burden her. And while he'd been doing that, she'd been building that wal he hadn't known how to get past. That impenetrable wal that had her always apologizing, always running.

It'd taken a counselor to identify it for him. Guilt. He should have seen it for himself. His Kathy had always had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, but he'd been too busy at the time blaming himself to see anyone else's guilt. In his selfishness, he'd thought he had a monopoly on the emotion. "Ah, Kathy, sweet, how did we manage to screw this up?"

She didn't move. He smoothed his thumb over her short pink nails. He remembered how happy she'd been when Danny had been born. How she'd cherished every day, her endless patience with him when he'd started teething, the way she'd greeted him each day at the door with something new Danny had done. Mostly he remembered how happy he'd been to come home to her.

How, when they'd needed each other the most, had they managed to lose the magic of a couple that had made them invincible? "I'm not giving up on us, sweet."

She stil didn't move. She looked so lost in the bed, her blond hair in a neat braid over her shoulder. She'd have something to say about that when she woke up. Kathy hated braids. She also hated hospitals, hated to sleep alone. The doctor didn't like that she was sleeping, but nothing they did could wake her up for more than a few moments in which she snapped at them to leave her be.

Kathy frowned, shifted, murmured. If they were home, he'd snuggle close, kiss her brow, and watch her drift back off to sleep. She'd always slept wel in his arms. She rol ed to the other side, her frown growing.

What the h.e.l.l. He stood, shucking his shoes. Very gently, he eased her over before lowering the bar and sliding in beside her. Nothing had ever felt so right as when he eased his arm under her head and tucked her against him. She moaned his name, al the longing he felt inside in that one syl able. It gave him hope.

He cupped his hand behind her head and kissed her brow. "Do you think I don't know why Sebastian means so much to you? He's the spitting image of the dog we dreamed someday would be Danny's best friend."

A little piece of the future they'd imagined come to life.

Not the biggest part, but a part. "I won't let him die, sweetheart. He brought you back to me."

A miracle in itself.

Slipping his hand under the end of her braid, he rubbed the ends between his fingers. They were dry. He frowned at the change. Kathy had always taken care of her hair. "Do you know how long I've been waiting for that? How often I drove by that hel hole you moved into and just sat outside watching over you? I almost broke that door down and dragged you home more times than I can count, but the counselor said you had to make the first move."

He brushed his lips over her lashes, smiling when her lids fluttered. "You're so d.a.m.n stubborn. I was beginning to think you never would."

But she final y had, and he was never letting her go again. He settled his head beside hers on the pil ow. He could just make out the sweet melon scent of her shampoo.

Such a smal thing, but the memory of how she smel ed had haunted his lonely nights, made his arms ache.

She stirred again. "Walt?"

"Right here."

She yawned and winced. Her hand came up. He caught it before it could reach her head, just holding it in his as her eyes opened, revealing the sky blue irises and the confusion.

"What happened?"

"You fel and hit your head."

"How cliche."

Another thing he'd missed. Her sense of humor. His smile was genuine. "Yeah, it was."

He knew the instant she realized where she was. Her eyes widened. "I'm in the hospital?"

"Just for observation."

The tug on her hand let him know other memories had resurfaced also. For a moment, he had the selfish wish she'd lost her memory. He hated the pain that fil ed her eyes, the immediate emotional withdrawal that put miles between them though their bodies stil touched.

"Sebastian?"

"Is fine. Jim took the crate out of your car and has him al set up in the living room."

Keeping her hand in his, he nudged her bangs off her face with his finger. She let him. When he was done, she said, "You can let go of my hand."

"No." He needed that connection. They needed it.

Immediately, her face closed up. He remembered what the counselor had said about that one-syl able answer and the way he used it could shut down communication. He hadn't believed her. At least when it came to Kathy. Kathy knew him. They'd been together since they were seventeen and sixteen respectively, but seeing its effect on Kathy now, maybe there'd been some truth in the statement. There had to be a reason she'd never come to him.

"It's been too long since I've held you."

Pain flashed over her face, old, pointless, debilitating.

"Talk to me, Kathy girl."

"Don't you think we've said enough?"

They'd said plenty. None of it relevant. "I don't think we've ever talked about a d.a.m.n thing that mattered."

She jerked back as if he'd struck her. He only let her go so far. "Hel , I'm no good at this Kathy, but I'm wil ing to try."

"Try what?"

"Talking about what matters. About Danny. About what losing him did to us."

She stared at him, her blue eyes defensive under the bandage covering her brow.

"There's nothing to say."

His first instinct was to argue. His second to withdraw.

The third was a smal voice in his head courtesy of his counselor. It didn't always need to be a battle. Words had power. Sometimes they just needed to be said to release it.

"Maybe not for you but I'm choking on a hel of a lot of things I want to say."

This time when she tugged on her hand he let go.

"I don't want to hear it."

Before he'd thought when that particular mask fel over her face that she was shutting him out, blaming him for not being there, but now he could see another possibility.

"I know, but I've been waiting six months to say this to you, and I can't go another six with it eating at me."

"So you're going to tel me now when I'm stuck in a hospital bed?"

"Pretty much."

Yet the words wouldn't immediately come. Looking down the barrel of a gun had never left him feeling so exposed.

Vulnerable wasn't a comfortable sensation. He could feel the anger build in reaction, the urge to close up increase. If he hadn't had the counselor's warning, hadn't had so much on the table, he would just have responded instinctively, hiding the weakness and letting the consequences fal where they may. Like he had when he'd gotten the cal about Danny. He'd rushed to the hospital, taken one look at the devastation on Kathy's face, recognized the pain coming, and simply shut down.

"I loved him, too, you know."

She stared at him like he was about to rip out her heart.

Like she deserved it.

"Losing him about kil ed me. He was our son, part of us, our biggest dream come to life and when he needed me, when you needed me, I wasn't there."

She blinked.

"I'm sorry for that, Kathy." He slid out of bed, unable to bear the weight of her silence. "I shouldn't have taken the overtime, should have been there to help you more. And afterward . . ." He shook his head, ran his finger down her arm. Some failures there was no getting around. "Ah, hel , afterward I should have let you scream at me. Whether I thought I could take it or not."

Two blinks this time and a tear he couldn't bear to watch fel . s.h.i.t.

"Scream at me, Kathy."

She shook her head. The tear started its downward slide.

His determination was nothing against that tear. He'd let too much time pa.s.s, too much pain build. Failed her that one critical time. He caught the tear on the edge of his finger before it could blend into her hair and get lost in the bigger distraction. The way they'd lost each other. He touched his thumb to the corner of her mouth the way he had since the day he'd met her, brushed his fingers over the bandage on her forehead, traced the lines of her frown.

So much hurt, old and new. But they'd had love, too. More than enough, and if she needed him to carry her for a bit, he could do that. He could be whatever she needed.

"You need to find a way, sweetheart. Kick, scream, shout, bring the house down, but find a way to talk to me."

"Why?"

It was a near soundless question. He stopped it with the pad of his thumb. "Because I love you, and I'm not letting us go."

CHAPTER FIVE.

Find a way.

Kathy lay in the hospital bed after Walt left, staring at the door, her mind whirling. Walt wasn't a begging man. He was too take-charge for that, but he'd been begging her there in those last minutes. Or as close as he'd ever come.

Begging her to yel at him.

She shook her head. He couldn't possibly think any of what happened was his fault. He'd been the perfect father, the perfect husband. She'd been the one home. The one he'd trusted. The one who hadn't noticed her son slipping away in his sleep.

I'm sorry, Kathy.

Walt didn't have anything to apologize for. He hadn't done anything wrong. But he'd apologized. She couldn't get past that. People only apologized when they felt guilty. She knew al about that. She'd been apologizing in a hundred different ways every day for the last one hundred and eighty days. Not that it seemed to do any good. Not that she ever felt better.

She put her hand to her head, pressing against the throb, wincing when the st.i.tches pul ed. A nurse came in the room.

Her name tag identified her as Patty.

"You've got quite the lump there."

"I fel down the stairs."

"So that s.e.xy man said when you came in. Raised a few eyebrows for sure."

"They thought . . . ?"

"That he beat you?" Patty checked her IV. "It was a possibility."

"No, it wasn't."

Patty smiled over her shoulder. "So we al decided after looking at the wound and the way he hovered. He loves you very much."

He couldn't. Not anymore. She plucked at a fold in the sheet. "We've had problems."

"What couple doesn't?"

"Not like this." She plucked harder. "Our son died. It was my fault."

The statement hung there in the silence. The nurse paused in checking her IV. "I'm sorry. Car accident?"

She shook her head. "He pa.s.sed in his sleep."

"Sudden infant death syndrome?"

"Yes."

"That's no one's fault. "

"I should have woken up for his three AM feeding but I was so tired when he didn't cry, I slept right through." She looked up. "That's when he died."

"How do you know?"

"I read the coroner's report."

"For heaven's sake, why?"

The sheet crushed unresistingly between her fingers.

"Because I had to know everything about his death."

Just in case there was something she'd missed.