Declan

 

I never knew that something could hurt so damn much. Not my injuries from the accident—those were fairly minor—but watching Kristin and Lily walk out the door.

And not come back.

I kept thinking I was dreaming. Or at least in some pain-medication-induced haze.

But I wasn’t.

Kristin had walked out of my life and took everything—all of my hope, all of my dreams—with her.

A week later and it was still with me. And it still hurt.

I was released from the hospital the next day. Levi had come and picked me up since I wasn’t allowed to drive. At first I wanted to be pissed, but then I realized I also didn’t have my car with me since I had arrived at the hospital in an ambulance.

“A thank you wouldn’t kill you,” he said to me once we were in his car and leaving the hospital.

I knew what he was doing—he was trying to distract me because he knew I was tense and on edge. Maybe he didn’t know the exact reason for the way I was feeling, but he could sense it just the same.

“Thanks.”

We drove to my hotel in silence. Once we were in my room, he went for the small-talk approach.

“Cole and I took care of getting your car yesterday. I wasn’t sure if you saw it in the parking lot.”

I hadn’t, but I thanked him anyway.

I walked around the room, unsure of what to do with myself. I couldn’t drive, my whole body hurt like hell, and all I wanted to do was be at school and see my kids.

And Kristin.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Levi asked after a solid five minutes of silence.

“Not much to say.”

He sighed. “There’s no way you could have known that Mrs. Vanderhall would pull a stunt like that. It shows how unstable she is. The cops had no trouble finding her and charging her with attempted kidnapping, assault with a motor vehicle, leaving the scene of an accident. Trust me, she’s not going to be an issue anymore. You did a great job, Dec.”

I looked at him as if he were crazy. “You think I’m upset over that?”

Now it was Levi’s turn to look confused. “Aren’t you?”

And then I realized it was safer to just agree with him.

Nodding, I said, “I did what I had to do. I just hate that it had to go down that way. Jess is gonna be traumatized for a long time over this.”

“It could have been much worse. You realize that, right? If you hadn’t gotten to her first and her mother had? The scarring would have been way worse.”

“Yeah.” It still didn’t make me feel any better about that particular situation. I did my job and I kept my client safe and we got the outcome we all wanted.

Well, where the case was concerned anyway.

Carefully raking a hand through my hair, I walked over to the wall of windows and just stared out at the town.

“This isn’t about the case, is it?” Levi finally asked. He came to stand beside me. “What’s going on?”

For weeks he’d been the one I most wanted to talk to and yet our schedules never seemed to mesh and I ended up talking with Cole. Now here I was with his undivided attention, and I had no idea what to say.

“Is it Kristin?”

“Yeah.”

And still I didn’t know what to say beyond that.

Levi turned and walked over to the sofa and sat down. “Do you know how much Harper hated me when we first came back?”

Looking at him, I shook my head.

“She was hurting and pissed off that I was there and Gavin wasn’t. Hell, every time she looked at me, I was a reminder of that.”

My head was starting to pound, and my legs hurt, and I decided that maybe sitting down wasn’t a bad thing either. With a weary sigh, I joined him.

“It didn’t matter what I was doing,” he went on. “I could have brought her a basket of puppies, and she still would have looked at me with that hostile glare. It just about killed me every time.”

“Obviously she got over it,” I murmured. The mere fact that they were married now told me she had.

Levi chuckled. “Yeah but it didn’t happen over night. I had to hold my ground and prove to her that I was someone she could trust and how I was just as devastated as she was that Gavin wasn’t here.”

“It’s not the same thing, Levi. Kristin isn’t upset because I’m here and her husband isn’t.” At least, I hoped that wasn’t part of this. “She lost Nick in an accident. He was a SEAL but he wasn’t killed in combat. It really was an accident. Seeing what happened yesterday… it freaked her out. Knowing that the work I do will put me in danger. She can’t deal with it.”

Levi was silent for a minute before asking, “Can you?”

“Can I what?”

“Can you honestly handle asking her to deal with that? Asking her to learn to be okay with the possibility of you getting hurt?”

I wanted to argue that I wouldn’t get hurt again or how if I did it wouldn’t be anything that we couldn’t handle.

Then I remembered the look on Kristin’s face as she left yesterday.

And then I wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.

****

I went to the school and met with Chuck the next day. Another substitute—a real one—was brought in to take over my class. I know it sounds crazy, but I was kind of upset about that. Those kids had really gotten to me, and I hated the fact that someone else was in there, someone else was going to make sure they learned all their lines for the Christmas pageant.

Christ, I was losing it.

He assured me that I hadn’t done any permanent damage to the kids and that they’d easily catch up on anything that I might have missed—or skipped—curriculum-wise. That did little to make me feel better. I already knew that Jessileigh wasn’t in class that day, so there was no real reason for me to be there. Her father had kept her home due to the events of the previous day. Smart man.

I wanted to go down the hall and tell the kids goodbye. I wanted to thank them all for being patient with me and for being really good even when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And I wanted to see Lily.

After that I wanted to head farther down the hall to see Kristin.

In the end, I didn’t do either of those things. I shook Chuck’s hand and thanked him for his help and left.

“Oh, Mr. Curtis,” Rose said as I was walking out of the office. “Are you okay? That was so brave what you did yesterday! We all just couldn’t believe it!”

She was talking a mile a minute, and she looked flustered, but I also knew that she was genuinely concerned, and that made me smile. “I’m fine, Rose. Thanks.”

“Should you even be out of the hospital so soon?”

I nodded. “Just a couple of broken ribs and a concussion. I’ve had them both before, so I know to be careful.”

She stood there in front of me, her hands clasped and smiled. “Will you be coming back to teach?”

Shit. Chuck hadn’t ratted me out to anyone, so no one knew that I wasn’t really a teacher. I shook my head. “No. No, I won’t be back.” And damn if that didn’t choke me up. Before I did something embarrassing—like cry—I leaned in and kissed Rose on the cheek. “Take care of yourself,” I said. And walked out.

Out in the hallway, I stopped. It was literally like I was at a crossroad. If I turned to the left, I was heading down to the classrooms—toward Lily. And Kristin. If I turned around, I could go back into the office and ask Chuck about staying on until Christmas break. But if I turned right, I’d be outside. Away from the school. Away from the kids.

Away from Kristin.

The metal door slammed behind me as I stepped out into the sunlight. But it didn’t warm me. I felt cold. Empty.

This is the way it had to be.

***

“I bet you’re glad to be out of there,” Sebastian said that night at dinner. The guys had all converged on me to make sure I was doing all right—healing and whatnot—and to close out the case. “I would’ve paid good money to see you teaching a room full of six-year-olds!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. It was a riot,” I said dryly.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that,” Cole said with a grin. “You know you were out of your element there. There’s no shame in admitting that you’re glad to be done with it.”

But the bitch of it was that I wasn’t. I wasn’t glad. Sure, I was glad that Jessileigh was safe, but I still missed the kids. More than I ever thought I would. Me. The guy who pretty much never wanted to be anywhere near a person under the age of twenty-one, and I was missing a group of first graders. It was crazy!

“So I spoke to Mr. Vanderhall, and he said that you took care of having a case against his ex-wife. You were crucial to them being able to press charges and make sure that he got full custody of Jessileigh,” Levi said, bringing things back to business.

I nodded. “I was able to identify her and the car. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Hey,” Levi said. “To them, it was a big deal. If you hadn’t been there, that little girl would have been kidnapped or, even worse, badly hurt. You did good, Dec.”

I didn’t feel good. And again, not just physically. I knew that I had saved Jessileigh. I knew that I got her out of harm’s way, but to what end? She was most likely never going to forget that moment—the moment her mother tried to run us over or when I essentially threw her out of the way. Thank God, Kristin had been standing right there, otherwise I could have been the one to hurt Jess.

Just the thought of that made my stomach clench.

I know that I made fun of this case from the beginning, I bitched about it from the get-go and said that it was a bullshit assignment, but the truth was, it had messed with my head almost as much as being back in Afghanistan.

“You okay?” Levi asked.

I shook my head. These guys were my best friends, my brothers, if I couldn’t talk to them, I was screwed. “No. I’m not. I’m so fucking not.”

“What’s going on?” Sebastian asked.

Where did I even begin? “I got attached,” I said. “I don’t even know how or when or even why it happened, but I got attached to those kids. I never thought it was even possible and yet…”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Levi said. “That just shows that you’re actually human. If you had been able to just walk away from all of them without any emotion, I’d have to question whether or not you actually have a heart.” He took a pull from his beer. “Hell, I think that it’s not that hard to get attached when you’re on a case. I mean, it’s happened to all of us.”

“That’s different,” I said.

“How? How is it any different?” Levi asked.

“You fell in love with Harper,” I snapped. “And you!” I pointed at Sebastian. “You fell in love with Ali. It’s completely different.”

“And you fell in love with those kids,” Levi said simply and then shrugged. “It’s not a bad thing, Dec.”

“That’s not all he fell in love with,” Cole muttered and leaned back in his chair.

I glared at him, hoping to intimidate him, but all he did was glare back.

“What? Am I fucking wrong? It’s not just the kids, man. It’s the kids, and Kristin and her kid. Just admit it.”

“Don’t we have business to discuss?” I asked, changing the subject. I’d already talked with Levi about all of this, and I wasn’t looking to rehash it again. “What’s the next case? Please tell me that it’s something a little edgier than learning the words to Christmas songs.” Levi and Sebastian exchanged glances, and I had an idea that something was up.

“Actually… that’s something we need to discuss,” Levi began. “We’ve had a lot of great clients, and the business is definitely growing. Honestly, I cannot even believe how many potential clients we have. I can realistically see us having to hire more guys by the end of the year.”

“So that’s a good thing, right?” Cole asked.

Levi nodded. “Definitely. The thing is, we’ve had some tame cases and some not-so-tame cases. We’ve each faced danger on at least one job, and while we can argue that it all goes with the territory, I for one feel like I have too much to lose to keep taking those kinds of risks.”

Sebastian spoke up. “Levi and Harper are going to have a baby. He’s going to want to be based closer to home and not be traveling quite so much. Ali and I are getting married, and we want to have kids right away, and I know that I feel the same way. I’m not willing to be away from her for too long.”

“So you’re both a couple of pussies. How is that my problem?” Cole asked, sounding annoyed.

“Shut up,” Levi snapped. “I’m thinking that maybe we cut back on the amount of… dangerous jobs we take.”

“What difference will that make?” Cole chimed in again. “This job that Declan just finished was supposed to be a no-brainer, and he still got hurt. Shit can happen anywhere, at any time. You can’t know in advance exactly what’s going to happen.”

“While that’s true,” Sebastian said, “I think we just need to be a little more… choosy… about the jobs that we take.”

That all sounded fine and well to me. Maybe I’d actually get a say in future assignments and not draw the short straw and get something like Jess’s case ever again. If anyone would have told me that protecting a six-year-old at school was going to get me banged up, I would have laughed in their face. Ha. The joke was obviously on me.

“Declan? What do you think?” Levi asked.

I shrugged. “Yeah. That’s fine. Whatever.”

Levi sighed. “Okay, fine. Don’t have an opinion. That clears the way for us to talk about you and Kristin. To get everyone up to speed on what happened?”

I shrugged again, knowing that it was something that was going to keep coming up until everyone knew it all. “She’s scared. She lost her husband, her world got turned upside down. She doesn’t want to go there again. Seeing me get hit by the car freaked her out. I know it wasn’t easy, and she says that she doesn’t want to put Lily through that, and I can respect that.”

“So then this new solution with the business should work in your favor,” Sebastian said. “You should be a little more excited about it.”

“I don’t know,” I said miserably. “I don’t know if it’s too late. The damage may have already been done.”

“Only one way to find out,” Levi said right before he waved the waitress over to bring us another round of drinks.

***

I was a glutton for punishment.

I wonder if there was a group for that. Something like AA where you go and sit around with other people as twisted as you are. “Hello, my name is Declan Curtis, and I am a glutton for punishment.”

Maybe I should start that group myself.

It was a Saturday, and I was supposed to be moving out of the extended-stay hotel and heading back to my place in DC, but where am I? Standing in a park behind a tree, watching Kristin push Lily on a swing. I was no better than a fucking stalker, and I didn’t even care.

I was going to extend my stay at the hotel. I just couldn’t leave until I at least talked to Kristin and tried to see if she was open to giving me a chance. A second chance. Hell, a third, fourth or fifth fucking chance. I knew I was pushing my luck, but I didn’t want to just walk away. This was supposed to just be a fling— I’m good at those. But this? This was so much more, and it scared the shit out of me, and yet it was even scarier to think of it totally being over.

How fucked-up is that?

I stepped out from behind the tree to get a better look at them, and Lily instantly spotted me.

“Mommy! Mommy! Look! It’s Mr. Curtis, and he’s still alive!”

I almost choked when I heard that, but before I knew it, Lily was hurling herself into my arms and hugging me. I dropped to my knees and held on for dear life. I’m not gonna lie, it hurt like hell—my ribs were still bruised—but it was worth the pain.

“Mr. Curtis! Are you all better now? Is your head okay? Do your ribs hurt? Are you coming back to school?” She was firing questions at me a million miles an hour, and it was the absolute greatest thing I’d heard in over a week.

I pulled back and looked down at her smiling face and felt my heart just kick. “Yes, I’m getting better. My head is fine, my ribs still hurt, but unfortunately, I won’t be coming back to the school. I hear you’ve got a really great teacher now.”

She nodded. “Mrs. O’Brien is really nice, and she always starts the day with math. I got a one hundred and a star on my math test!”

“Good for you!”

She beamed up at me. “I got to have ice cream for dessert that night. Mommy said it was my reward.”

“That’s because she’s the best, right?” Even as I said the words, I looked to where Kristin was standing—still too far away. I lifted Lily up and walked across the park, toward Kristin, and it didn’t take long to see the wariness in her eyes. “Hey.”

“Hi.”

I put Lily down, and Kristin immediately pulled her close. As if she were trying to protect her from me. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she said quietly.

“That’s good,” I said and smiled. It felt good just to look at her.

We were silent for a long time, and Kristin was the one to finally break it. “Um… we need to go. It’s… it’s getting late, and we have homework to do.” She looked at me sadly. “Take care of yourself.”

“Kristin, wait,” I said, reaching out and placing my hand on her arm. “Can I… can I see you again?”

She didn’t even think about it. She immediately shook her head no. “I’m sorry. We need to go.”

And then they were gone.

***

Glutton for punishment. Take two.

Chuck called me and let me know that the kids had prepared a thank-you gift for me. I asked him if he could just mail it, but he said no. It was important for the kids to be able to say goodbye—especially after everything they’d heard about my saving Jessileigh.

So now here I was, walking into the school and being forced to be so close to Kristin and Lily and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

“Hi, Mr. Curtis,” Rose said as I walked into the office.

I nodded and didn’t get to say a word because Chuck walked out at that moment. “Come on, Declan. I’ll walk down to the class with you. I know you’re anxious to get in and out as quickly as possible.”

That was both true and false, but I chose not to mention it. We walked silently down to the class, and Chuck knocked on the door before we walked in. Sandra O’Brien smiled at us and immediately called the kids to come and sit in a circle. She had a chair sitting at the top of the circle for me to sit in, and I almost turned and ran out.

“Okay, class. Let’s all say hello to Mr. Curtis while you take your seats!”

Sure enough, the entire group sat in a perfect circle while calling out their greetings to me. Jessileigh was sitting on my right, and she reached up and grabbed my hand and squeezed it. Lily came and sat to my left and did the same thing.

I felt it all the way in my chest.

Once everyone was seated, Mrs. O’Brien came and stood behind me and motioned for the kids to look at her. Then she held up her hand and counted to three. All at once, the entire class began to sing the song they had been learning for the Christmas pageant. They sounded so sweet and so wonderful that it brought tears to my eyes.

Or maybe I’m allergic to something. I’m not sure.

When they’d finished, I clapped hard and loud and told them how proud I was of all their hard work and how great they sounded.

“We made this for you,” Jessileigh said as she stood and released my hand only to pick it up again a moment later when she handed me a giant card. “All of us drew a picture in it and signed our names.”

Sure enough, the card stood about three feet tall, and it was brightly decorated with all kinds of pictures—animals, cars, Spiderman, rainbows—and underneath each work of art was the name of the artist. I almost felt like I couldn’t breathe when I found Lily’s name and saw that she drew a picture of the three of us—her, Kristin, and me. Like a family. I swallowed hard as I looked up at all their little expectant faces, my heart in my throat. “Thank you,” I said quietly. “This is the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

Fifteen minutes later, we left the room. I knew that the kids had music class to get to, and I didn’t want to disrupt their day more than I already had. I walked with Chuck back down to the office and shook his hand.

“I want to thank you for all that you did while you were here, Declan. I know it was way out of your comfort zone, but you did a wonderful job with those kids. If you ever decide to change careers…,” he said with a laugh.

I couldn’t help but join in. It felt good. “Thanks, Chuck. But let’s just say that I know my limitations.” We shook hands again, and I watched as he walked into the office.

And Kristin walked out.

We stood there, frozen in place. “Hi,” I said cautiously. This was so not the time or the place, and yet there was no way for me to just pretend that she wasn’t right there.

“Hi.” She looked around nervously and fidgeted with her hair and then looked down at the giant card in my hand. “You saw the kids.” It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded. “They sang for me. It was great.”

“Lily was really excited about it. They all wanted it to be perfect for you.”

“It was amazing. They’re going to be a big hit in the Christmas pageant,” I said with a smile. “They’re a great group of kids.” The small talk was killing me. “Listen, can… can we step outside for a minute? Please?”

At first I thought she was going to just take off, but she took a deep breath as if to steady herself. “Declan, I can’t do this. I can’t… I thought that I could do the casual thing. And then I thought I could deal with getting involved with someone again. It turns out, I can’t. I can’t go through what I did with Nick again. Not even for you.”

I took a step toward her and was relieved when she didn’t take a step back. “Kristin, there are no guarantees in life. No one is guaranteed tomorrow. Are you really willing to go through life—missing out on living—because you’re too afraid to take a risk?” I asked desperately. “What happened that day was a freak accident. Believe me, I didn’t sign on for that either. I took Jess’s case because it was supposed to be safe.”

“But what about the next case? Or the one after that?” Tears began to form in her eyes, and they almost killed me. “I wouldn’t survive it a second time. I can’t do that to Lily.”

“The guys and I talked. We’re going to do less risky and dangerous cases. We’re going to hire more guys. I… I’m trying here,” I said, willing her to believe me.

She was silent for a long time. And then she wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m really, really sorry.” And then she turned and ran down the hall toward her class.