The soft comfort of her words washed over him like the incoming tide. Not effusive or gushing. But genuine.
He regulated his breathing with the steady rhythm of toss, catch, toss, catch. "We'd been living together for about six months, had even started to talk about getting married."
Max shoved thoughts of the baby aside. He didn't want to open himself up to that much honesty today. Or ever. He pitched the shell into the ocean that had taken Eva as well as their kid away from him.
"How horribly unfair."
"Yeah, it was." He'd been the one who should have died. Survivor's guilt was hell to live with.
The normal constraints he kept on his emotions slipped. He'd channeled it all into revenge for so long, he didn't know what to do with the churn threatening to kick over him.
Why couldn't he just sleep with Darcy since they both wanted it? He could lose himself inside her for a few hours. He'd done so more than a few times over the past two and a half years. Except the women he'd chosen had been using him as much as he'd been using them. That wouldn't be the case with Darcy, and then he would have even more guilt heaped on top of an already weighty load.
Yeah, he wanted her all the way down to his waterlogged toes, but he wouldn't do anything about it.
"You're an..." He paused, brushing a thumb over a raindrop on her cheek and thanked God it wasn't a tear. He searched for the words to do her justice, but had to settle for, "an incredibly hot lady. But I'm not in a good place right now and the last thing I need is to drag someone down there with me." Understatement of the year.
"Incredibly hot?" She gently slugged his arm. "Well, Doc, you sure do know how to make a girl feel good when you're letting her down."
He wanted to tell her to shower her compassion on somebody else. He didn't need it or deserve it. He'd only told her the bit about Eva for calculated reasons, not out of any honest intent to share something from his past. Every inch of him wanted to shout at her to stop trusting him.
Raindrops picked up speed, pocking the water and offering a convenient excuse to run from a conversation that was shifting into dangerous territory. "We should head in before the clouds open up. Come on and I'll walk you to your quarters."
The words backfired in his brain as he faced another night of not sleeping while thinking of her two doors down. Just his luck, the Air Force had been accommodating in providing him and his assistant with VOQ rooms under the guise of accommodating the whole "free the dolphins" mission. Sure being on base offered additional security, but at a lethal price to his sanity.
Max stood, stomping sand off and extending his hand to Darcy without thinking. Until her fingers twined with his. Then he couldn't think of anything except the way she felt.
Max flipped her hand in his. An excuse to touch her a while longer? Maybe. A small white bandage glinted on her wrist, puckered from water but holding strong. "What happened here?''
"Spider bite. No big deal."
She shuddered, only a small tremble so imperceptible he wouldn't have known if he hadn't been holding her hand.
"There are plenty of those around here. Don't forget to shake your boots out before putting them on."
"I'm used to the buggers showing up in my room." A light laugh slipped free at odds with the tiny tremor. "But the ugly thing stowed away in my flight bag behind my lunch. Actually, that's why we landed early. Doc Clark wanted to make sure it wasn't poisonous."
Poisonous. The word twisted something inside Max, and he didn't like it. Damn it, it was just a freaking spider bite. The woman was a combat-ready military officer. She didn't need his misplaced overprotective urges.
He forced his thumb to still. Max dropped her hand, clearing his throat and thoughts as he stepped back. "I'm glad you're all right."
Thunder rumbled a warning just before the skies opened up in a tropical downpour. Darcy slicked back her hair, a full-out wicked smile on her lips. "Last one to the VOQ's a sea turtle. Ready. Set."
She shoved him backward into the surf and sprinted away.
"Go!" she shouted over her shoulder already halfway to shore as she splashed through the surf. Her laughs carried along the wind, whipping round him. Open, playful, free of concerns and full of life.
He intended to make sure that didn't change.
* * *
Screams swelled in Darcy's throat.
She jammed her face into the pillow to stifle the shout begging to burst free. The half-awake side of her brain struggled to smother nightmare cries with reason.
Spiders only crawled in her dreams now.
Snakes only slithered through her subconscious.