CHAPTER 14
When you care for someone, Dan, it’s never a burden on either person. Remember that?
Those words broke Dan in a new way. He saw the grief, the love, and hope burning in Sloan’s eyes when she said this to him two days ago. It ate at him that night, and when he woke up the next morning, he remembered the discussion they’d had on the beach in Sudan.
All of it.
He wasn’t in a good mood that morning and had barely been civil to the male orderly who brought him his tasteless, uninspiring breakfast. Afterward, the man helped Dan out of his bed to walk up and down the halls, his slippers shuffling because of the gnawing ache in his side. The orderly stayed with him as he moved along, one hand gripping the IV pole so that he could walk in a straight line. Dan had been doing this every day since his surgery, and he was getting stronger. This morning, as he made his circuit around the floor, he realized Sloan would be doing this for him instead, starting today.
Dan craved the freedom of getting out of the hospital. He longed for Sloan’s quiet, steady presence, her laughter, her smile, and her teasing. More than anything, Dan needed to let her know just how much she meant to him. He’d been so closed up to her. Staying at her home was a one-time opportunity, and he swore he wasn’t going to screw it up this time.
Nearly dying had changed him. Sloan had saved his life a second time. He might not know what love was, but he knew that what he felt for Sloan was real—whatever the hell it was called it was real—and he wanted to pursue it to some conclusion with her. Dan had no idea what that meant, but he was damn well going to find out.
*
“Well?” Sloan asked, coming into her guest bedroom after the orderlies had gotten Dan situated in the hospital bed. “What do you think of your new digs?” She smiled. Dan looked exhausted from the transfer from the hospital to her home. He lay propped up at an angle in the center of the large, airy bedroom. The sun was shining brightly. The bedroom had two large windows, allowing plenty of light in. Before he arrived, she had pulled the sheer white curtains and the dark green drapes aside so he could see outside. The fall weather had cleared last night, and a bright blue sky had emerged. It was chilly and breezy, but Dan had been well wrapped in blankets for the trip.
“It’s a helluva lot better than being in that hospital,” he said gruffly.
“The worst is over, Dan. You look tired. Do you want to take a nap?” She saw the murkiness in his eyes. “You’re only seven days out of surgery, and your body needs a lot of sleep.”
“Just being here is helping. Thanks for opening up your heart and home to me. You have no idea how glad I am to be here.” Sloan’s eyes became sympathetic as her fingers curled into his.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Dan.”
He was exhausted, and the pain in his side made him feel weak. “I’m going to sleep,” he muttered. “I don’t want to, but I’m whipped.”
Gently easing her hand from his, she leaned over the bed and lightly kissed his wrinkled brow. “Go to sleep,” she whispered. “I’m going to leave your door open, and I’ll check in on you from time to time. I won’t be far away. Either in the kitchen or the living room. Call me if you need me?”
“Okay,” he rasped, giving her a grateful look. He’d lapped up her touch like the starving mongrel that he was, her lips warm against his damp brow. It all served to calm his anxiety. She looked genuinely happy to have him here and never had Dan wanted that kind of reaction from her as much as right now.
*
Sloan puttered in the kitchen, trying to keep noise to a minimum. Outside the L-shaped row of windows, the sky was turning a deep blue as the sun rose. The trees in the surrounding woods were now bare. All of the colorful leaves had fallen, leaving them naked to the coming winter. Her mind and heart centered squarely on Dan. Inwardly, she was relieved he was with her. It felt like the rightest thing in the world to her.
Needing Dan, she wiped her hands on a towel and padded to the opened door of his room. Her heart wrenched as she watched him sleeping. His face looked relaxed, lips parted slightly, his hands across his belly. She was glad that she could replace that blue hospital bedspread with a colorful afghan her mother had knitted for her years ago. Her favorite thing to do was sit out on the couch wrapped up in it, watching a TV program, and eating a bowl of almond marshmallow ice cream. That afghan reminded Sloan of her mother’s arms around her, holding her as she had when she was a child. She smiled faintly seeing that Dan had gathered up some of the afghan into his hands as if wanting the energy and love that her mother had knitted into that yarn for himself.
To Sloan, he looked like a lost little boy. Her heart tore apart as she remembered. That kind of blow at such a young age wasn’t something that anyone got over easily. She forced herself to leave and quietly walked back to the kitchen.
*
It was nearly three p.m. when Dan awakened. He heard music playing softly somewhere in the house. It was instrumental, reminding him of elevator music, but it was soothing. This was part of getting to know who Sloan was. Not the torrid, ongoing sexual affair he had with her at Bagram, but to know her as a human being. He moved his hand across the soft afghan, feeling warm and at peace. The sun had shifted to the south and rays were coming into the large room. He lay there appreciating the sense of calm and quiet that pervaded him. This was Sloan’s home. This was where she lived. The house reflected her.
His gaze moved across the lavender walls to the open drapes. One wall had tiny violets with green leaves. He wondered if the purple flowers were her favorite color. He didn’t even know that about her, and he’d spent a year and a half with her in his arms. What the hell? Dan was beginning to see how damned selfish he had been.
“Hey,” Sloan called softly from the door, “how are you feeling?”
He moved his head, seeing her standing with her hands on the jamb, studying him. The sunlight bathed her, and he saw strands of her hair glinting, a frame around her soft features. “Better,” he rasped thickly. “Thirsty.”
“What do you feel like drinking?”
“Water’s fine.”
“Sure? Coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”
Rallying beneath her tender look, he said gruffly, “I don’t want to put you out.”
She chuckled and said, “You’re not putting me out. Coffee sounds good? I’ll join you.”
That made his decision easy because he craved her closeness. “Sounds good…thank you…”
He watched her disappear and instantly felt as if the light surrounding him had left. Sloan meant that much to him. When she returned, she had two bright orange ceramic mugs on a small wooden tray. There was also a saucer piled high with cookies. She came over and set it on his rolling tray, bringing it up to his bed so that he could easily reach the coffee and cookies.
“Something smelled good,” he said, giving her a nod of thanks.
“I made some peanut butter cookies. Do you like peanut butter?” She sat down on a nearby stool, hooking the heels of her shoes on a lower rung and picking up her mug from the tray.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “My mom used to make them.” That memory brought back a wave of grief to Dan as he picked up his coffee and sipped it. He saw how relaxed Sloan was, the mug resting between her hands. The tender light in her eyes opened his heart even more.
“It sounds as if your mom tried to do some nice things for you.” Sloan knew the story. She wasn’t sure Dan remembered it yet.
He picked up a cookie, biting into it, a look of pleasure coming to his face. “You’re as good as she was at making them,” he said.
“What else did your mom do for you?”
He laid back, the coffee in one hand, a cookie in the other. “She had moments where she was between her up-and-down moods. When she was level, she made my father and me great meals and desserts.”
Nodding, Sloan asked, “Was that often?”
“No. Maybe once a month she’d come into what I called a quiet period, and she seemed connected to me and my father.”
“That had to be so hard on all of you. Even her because she had no way to control those ups and downs.” Sloan saw the sadness come to his face.
“As a kid, I never knew that my mother wasn’t normal. When you grow up in it, you think it’s normal, and every kid has a mother like yours.”
“Makes sense,” Sloan agreed quietly, sipping her coffee.
“I never blamed her for how she was,” he told her, frowning. “When she abruptly left us and divorced my father, I couldn’t understand it at all.”
“You were only nine, Dan. How could you?”
Shrugging, he muttered, “I wonder how she is today. Where she’s at.” His voice lowered. “I had a lot of years of anger toward her. And it has only been in the last couple of years that I’ve gotten over it. And then, I needed to know where she’d gone. I called my father to ask him, but he’d lost track of her, too.”
“Have you found her yet?”
“No. I began to try, but everything was a dead end.” He finished off the cookie and gave her a sad look. “I sometimes have these dreams that she’s dead. I dream of her in an alley, laying there, unmoving. When I found out from my father that she was diagnosed as bipolar, I tried to understand and read up on the condition. All it did was scare the shit out of me because I was trying to hunt her down and find her. All my dreams were about a drug overdose, her becoming addicted to drugs or trying to get better, but dying, instead.”
Reaching out, Sloan eased her fingers down his forearm. “Just because she was bipolar doesn’t mean she’d do any of those things.”
“Well,” he said, “I knew that, too.”
“But dreams often reflect our fears, whether they’re right or wrong.”
“I dreamt about her just now,” he admitted, looking away for a moment.
“Dan, you nearly died. It’s normal to have dreams of those you love dying. You’re in the midst of wrestling with your mortality.”
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “That’s exactly where I’m at. The last couple of days it’s really come home to me.” Placing the cup on the tray, Dan pushed it away, centering his focus on Sloan. He drew her hand between his. “I remember everything now. Our talk on the beach after we dived in the Red Sea. I want that second chance with you. Nothing’s changed. Has it changed for you since I got shot?”
Sloan released a long, slow breath, trying to gather her thoughts.
“I’m so relieved you remember our talk,” she began, her voice low. “Nothing’s changed from the moment we had that talk. At least, not on my end. Has it from yours?”
“No, it hasn’t,” he said flatly, relief sizzling through him. He tightened his hands around hers, seeing hope flare in her eyes. “I’m scared as hell that I’ll screw this up with you again. I want to try and be the man you need, not the one you got four years ago. I’m not sure I can do it. There’s so much I don’t know about you—about myself.”
Easing her hand from his, Sloan stood up and set her coffee on the other bedstand. She walked around to his right side and settled carefully on the mattress. Her hip rested lightly against his, and she framed his face with her hands, leaning forward, her lips brushing against his. The moment she skimmed his mouth, she heard a groan begin deep within his chest and felt his hands upon her face, drawing her deeply against him. The heat, the urgency and hunger all combined as he took her mouth gently beneath his own, his hands against her face, angling her, taking her deeper.
Sloan became lost in the promise as he worshipped her mouth. She knew Dan’s sexual hunger, knew the power of his dominating kisses from years earlier. But this kiss? It was so different. So…wonderful, that she moaned, leaning into his exploring mouth, desperate for his tenderness toward her, even if he didn’t call it love. This was the man she had always sensed but had never seen. Until now. In seconds, her lower body flared to life, and a deep, needy ache throbbed through her core.
Dan didn’t want the kiss to end. He wanted Sloan’s soft, full lips against his forever. It was the rightest thing in the world for him—for them.
How long Sloan had waited for just this moment! She didn’t care if Dan didn’t know what love was, that he couldn’t recognize it if it stared him in the face. He was showing her in the best of ways that he loved her whether he ever used the word or not. She had never felt so cherished as right now in this exquisite, unexpected moment. She tasted the coffee and the peanut butter cookie on his lips and allowed herself to fully open to him, to all possibilities. Sloan sensed he needed that kind of silent commitment from her. She knew how tentative, how scared he was that he’d screw up and chase her away once more.
If Dan could open up to her like this less than two weeks after nearly dying, she knew they had a real chance with one another. This was the man she’d starved for, the man she knew existed all along.
She silently promised him that she would help him and support him, but Sloan didn’t fool herself. She knew she was in a rough testing time with Dan. The wounds in his soul caused by his parents were deep and still open. But he was trying, and that’s all she could ask of anyone.
Slowly, he eased her away from him. Dan lifted his lashes, meeting her barely-opened eyes as she stared down at him. There was arousal in them. That was something he could read well. But the other feelings he couldn’t translate.
He moved his fingers through her silky hair and watched her eyes smolder with heat and need for him in other ways. “I want to get to know you. All of you,” he stressed in a rasp. “And I’m going to open up to you even if it kills me.” His fingers tightened against her face. “I don’t want to lose you again. I’ll do whatever it takes to win back your heart. I know I’m going to stumble. I’ll sure as hell fall and make mistakes with you, but keep giving me a chance? I’ll pick myself up. We’ll talk. We’ll figure out what’s going on between us. I know I’m no prize, but there’s something damn good and solid between us. Give me this last chance? Let me try to prove to you I’m not the bastard I was before?”