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Her eyes went wide. Surely he doesn’t still blame himself for that? “I don’t know how things are for you now, but back then two beers wasn’t even enough for you to catch a buzz.”
“I blew a point-oh-nine.”
“That doesn’t mean you were drunk.” She’d known he wasn’t drunk. In all the scenarios that had played out in her head over the years, she’d always comforted herself with the knowledge that Daniel had to know that that car crash was beyond his control. “It was raining like crazy and that truck lost control. You were trying to avoid a head-on collision.”
“Instead, I rolled the car, killed John, and crippled you.”
She jerked back, biting down on her instinctive response to that. This moment wasn’t about her. It was about him and the guilt that had been poisoning him for far too long. “No one could have done better. Everyone knows that.” Everyone except, apparently, Daniel.
But he wasn’t listening. He stared off into the distance. “How could I face you, Hope? We all loved John, but he was your big brother. He’d always suspected I wasn’t good enough for you, and that night I proved him right.”
“You’re rewriting history. Don’t you dare put the memory of John between us.” She drew herself up. “He might have been your best friend, but he was my brother. He wouldn’t have blamed you for the crash any more than I did. You made your intentions to marry me after I got through college pretty damn clear. He thought we were great together.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “There’s no way you don’t blame me for that. It’s impossible.”
“Well, then pigs are flying, because I don’t. I never have.” She waited a beat, silently debating just letting this go. But it was like lancing a wound—it was time to get it all out there. “I blame you for abandoning me afterward.”
“I couldn’t face you.” He shook his head. “I might not have taken off like Adam did, but it was everything I could do to go to the funeral. It was bad putting John in the ground, but it was almost worse seeing you in that chair, looking like you had one foot in the grave. I just…I thought you’d be better without me in your life.”
He’d been mourning, the same way she had. The difference was that he’d only seen what he’d lost, rather than what was still left. Mainly her. Because of her leg, apparently. “If you couldn’t handle the thought of being with a cripple, then just say it. It’s fine—you didn’t sign on for that when we started dating. But don’t try to pretty it up like you were doing me a favor.” Suddenly exhausted, she wobbled over to drop onto the step next to where he stood.
He sank down next to her. “I don’t think you’re a cripple.”
“You literally just said that.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Bully for you.” She didn’t really want to talk about her injury. It was just another opportunity for him to wallow in decade-old guilt instead of focusing on the current issues. “My point, which we’ve stampeded away from, is that you are the one who ended us. Not me. So you don’t get to just decide that you’re picking back up where we left off. That’s not how it works.”
“Do you still love me, darling?”
Her breath stilled in her lungs, and her eyes went wide. The world tilted crazily around her like it had last time she had the misfortune of being on a carnival ride. She hadn’t liked the experience any more then than she did now. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
His smile was the very definition of smug. “I thought so.”
God, the man was just infuriating. She threw up her hands, torn between strangling him and strangling herself. “Have you been listening to a single thing I’ve been saying?”
“Yeah. I did you wrong—in more than one way. I know I can’t make up for that shit, or ever really lay it to rest because it’s always going to occupy space between us, but I can start by doing right by you from here on out.”
He kept saying that. Do right by you. It was like he thought this baby represented a chance to balance out his karmic debt. Which was all well and good for him, but she wasn’t a debt and she didn’t want to be with a man who saw her as his burden to bear. “I swear to God, if you propose to me, I’m going to punch you in the face.”
Daniel stood and offered her his hand. “I lose my head around you. What we had…it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. So forgive the fuck out of me if I’m more than willing to play dirty to get you to stay. I know I’m screwing up, but I’m trying my damnedest.”
