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“I would never send you away from me,” he told her, suddenly desperate that she understand that. “You know that, don’t you? I couldn’t do that to myself, or to you and your mother. Tell me you know that.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “I know that, Daddy,” she whispered, her gaze moving to where Angel stood so still, so silent. And so alone. Suddenly Bliss threw her arms around his neck i
n a tight hug. “I don’t care if I’m fifty, Daddy, I still want you to pick me up and rock me when I hurt. Promise me you will.”
He had to close his eyes, swamped with emotion, uncertain how to hold it back. “I promise, baby.” He kissed her brow gently. “I promise.”
Pulling away from him, she glanced at her sister again then rushed off with Declan, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“Who held my baby when she cried?” Chaya sobbed in his arms, Duke’s file scattered on the floor where she’d thrown it in rage before he’d caught her to him. “Who rocked my baby, Natches?”
His head jerked up, certain he heard her, heard her whisper, her pain drifting around him.
He shook his head at the illusion and looked over at Angel again.
Duke had pushed her into the helicopter with him, Bliss, and Declan even as she reached for him, cried out for him. He’d promised to be there for her as quick as he could and told her to wait for him, as though he expected her to run off as she had before when she had to face the loss of someone she loved. Or something.
He’d reported that Tracker had told him that Angel had disappeared for a week when she was fifteen after the war dog that led her to their hut the night of the explosion died. No one could find her, and when she’d come back to the farm they owned, she refused to tell anyone where she had been.
Leaning forward, elbows propped on his knees, Natches wiped his hands down his face and stared at her again.
Like a sentinel standing there, staring straight ahead, waiting for a blow.
Until Duke, he doubted anyone had held Angel. He doubted she let anyone hold her, even as a child. And he doubted anyone had insisted on doing so.
“Who rocked my baby, Natches?” Chaya’s sobs echoed inside him.
If by some cruel twist of fate he lost the woman that held his soul, then when he met her again in the afterlife, he wanted her to know someone had cared enough about her child to rock her.
Getting to his feet, he didn’t question the impulse that had him striding to her or the instinct that assured him this was something that not just Angel needed, but something Chaya needed as well. And maybe it was something he needed.
• • •
Don’t leave me. . . . Don’t leave me. . . . Please, Momma, don’t leave me. . . .
The words were a chant in Angel’s head, a prayer she couldn’t keep from repeating. They were the same words she’d sobbed when her mother left her with her aunt the day she left.
She stared at the wall across from her, but the nightmare image of her mother’s eyes closing, the feeling that she was drifting away, was all she could see, all she could feel.
Where was Duke? She’d promised to wait for him, but she didn’t know if she could. The pain and coiling rage was tightening inside her, threatening to explode, and she couldn’t do that here. She couldn’t be weak. Not in front of so many people.
But what would she do when she couldn’t wait any longer? Would she finally just disappear inside herself where it would never hurt again? She’d done that after she’d lost Jenny, and again after Brutus, J.T.’s war dog, had died. Until the summer she turned eighteen, she’d just been hollow inside, trapped within herself. Until she’d been locked in the dark, trapped in that hospital basement, her screams echoing around her, memories pummeling her.
Memories were pummeling her now as well, raking through her soul with merciless claws.
Craig dying, blood easing from the corners of his lips. He said he was sorry for bringing her there, sorry about Jenny and Aunt Jo. But it didn’t matter that he was sorry because her momma never came to get her. If he hadn’t ever brought her to Iraq, he probably would’ve killed her momma. Because of his secrets. Because he’d lied. Either way, her momma would be dead and it would be all her fault.
She stared at the wall harder. If she concentrated hard enough, if she didn’t let herself feel too much, then the well of emotions threatening to boil over might ease for just a minute, just long enough for Duke to get to her.
As she focused on a single blemish in the wall, it disappeared, replaced by the bloodstained camo T-shirt Natches wore.
“Angel?” Natches demanded her attention, his voice soft. “Look at me.”
She forced herself to look up, to stare miserably back at the man that should hate her. She’d failed. She hadn’t protected her mother. She didn’t want to face him, to have him ask her why she hadn’t been smarter, why she hadn’t kept this from happening.
“Bliss lets me hold her when she cries,” he told her then. “That’s what dads do, you know?”
Confusion made it impossible to understand why he’d say that to her. Was it a taunt? Was this her punishment?
