“I went up, safe and sound. When the basket got to the edge of the bird, I turned my head, looked down.”
“And you saw him drown.”
“No. I didn’t see him at all. We never did learn what made him lose his bearings and drown.” He was silent for a minute. “Probably, he’d taken a hit in the water and exhaustion did the rest, but all that wreckage swirling around down there didn’t help. I should have gone back down and dived for him.”
“You were injured,” she repeated quietly.
“I was the team leader. That was my job, my boy. Instead, Cal, the second swimmer, went down while I lay there in the basket in a daze, thinking about my leg and the pain and wondering when we’d get back to base. While Lars was down there and none of us could help.”
Her arms crept around him, pulling him in. “That wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”
“Maybe.” He wished he could go back. Do it all over again with a different outcome. “But I still did nothing. I didn’t even try. Instead, I lost a man and I won’t do that again.”
“Did anyone blame you?” Her voice was thick with emotion, but her arms didn’t let go. He let his head fall back onto the couch, and soaked in the heat of the fire and her tender hold on him. He didn’t know when he’d gotten so cold.
Finally, he shook his head. “It was ruled an accident, but I blamed me.”
“Would Lars have blamed you for what happened? No way. Would you have blamed Lars if your situations had been reversed?”
No way.
“You need to let it go,” she said. “When you jump, you can’t jump with this on your shoulders. An accident is just that—an accident. You learn from it, and you go on.”
“Maybe.” He wanted to believe her. Somehow, his cozy fireside seduction had turned into an honest heart-to-heart, with him spilling his guts. He didn’t know if she minded, but he was laying it on the line here. This was his dark side, and he didn’t like that part of himself, but she seemed to understand.
He wished he was that person, the one she was seeing when she looked at him, because he had a feeling the man she saw was a bona fide hero.
“When do you go back? Your R & R, when does it end?”
The answer to her question should have been simple. And yet, he was unsure.
“I was planning to return at the end of July,” he said finally. His CO was expecting him, and he’d made his short-term status clear to Cal and Tag. There was no reason to rethink his decision, although he’d take every minute he could get with Dani. “Where’s the jerk?”
“Excuse me?” She straightened up on him and he bit back a laugh.
“The guy you booked the room for. Where is he?”
He’d bet that business just about killed her. Dani didn’t like failure. Didn’t tolerate failure. She was like him in that regard.
“We broke up.”
“And?” It wasn’t that simple. Couldn’t possibly be, or she wouldn’t be hiding out here on the island, making erotic bucket lists. Since he’d shared, however, he figured it was her turn, so he made a “give it up” gesture.
“Rick and I dated for three years. He gave me a ring six months ago and we were planning on a June wedding.”
Huh. It was June now. She’d mentioned plans gone awry on the beach the day they’d reconnected, and he hadn’t missed the “romance or bust” message the cabin screamed, but hearing her say those words still packed a punch.
“Yes, you guessed it. Welcome to my honeymoon.”
“What happened?” He leaned forward, away from the temptation that was her body, and speared another marshmallow on his stick. He was certain her seduction scenario didn’t call for him getting his hands on her two minutes after he’d told her such a sad story.
She shrugged and snagged another marshmallow. “I caught him cheating,” she stated as if she were broadcasting the weather report. “I showed up at his condo and there he was, naked, with another woman. He claimed I wasn’t enough for him in bed, so I tossed the ring at him, turned around and walked out.”
“Did the ring hit him?”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Maybe I should have tried to fix things, but it was pretty clear to me that what we had was broken, Daeg. And I couldn’t fix it.”
“He was an idiot.”
“He was.” She leaned back, removing her marshmallow from the fire in order to inspect it. It was perfect, a toasty golden-brown. He eyed his own. His marshmallow was blackened and bubbling on one side—where he’d plunged his stick straight into the heat—and raw on the other. He liked it like that, so no worries. Or, he could steal hers. He liked that idea better, so he made a grab for her stick.