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“The doctors warned us—Jack’s parents and me—that the traumatic brain injury he received in the crash could cause...mood swings. Depression. They warned us, Shane.” Her voice broke. “They told us what to watch for. They explained how critical it was for everyone around Jack to be on the lookout, especially that first year after the crash.”
Tears stood in Carly’s eyes, and the sight of them made Shane’s heart ache the way hers was obviously aching. She blinked rapidly to hold back her tears, as if she could hold her emotions at bay that way, too. “I should have seen the signs,” she whispered. “But I was so busy with the story I was working on...and so caught up in the preparations for our wedding, that I...”
Then it clicked for Shane. He remembered from the news clipping in the file Dee-Dee had compiled, that Jack, suffering from untreated depression the doctors theorized had been the result of the traumatic brain injury he’d received, had committed suicide. He’d jumped from the Eleventh Street Bridge into the Anacostia River three days before his wedding.
And Shane had suffered a TBI, too.
He shook his head vehemently. “There’s no parallel between Jack and me,” he began. “They’re two completely different situa—” Then he stopped cold. Yeah, he hadn’t been depressed—unduly depressed—after the explosion that had ended his career in the Marine Corps five years ago. And suicide was the last thing he could ever see himself doing. But...he had epilepsy. And one of the known side effects of many of the drugs used to control seizures was...depression.
Including the medication he was taking.
The words he’d intended to say died a quick death, and he alternately clenched and relaxed his left fist, attempting to come to terms with what Carly was trying to tell him without actually coming right out and saying it.
Bitter rage swept through him. Not against Carly, whose heart had been broken once and who never wanted to suffer that again. He could relate—he’d loved and lost before, too. Fifteen years was a long time, but he could still remember what it felt like.
No, his rage wasn’t externally directed, it was directed against himself. Against the traitor within his own body. Against the damned seizures he couldn’t even control without medication.
“I...see,” he said finally. He stood and walked slowly to the window. The curtain was drawn, but he pulled it back slightly to stare out at the DC skyline, bitterness still churning inside him. But instead of the lights of the city, all he could see was his own reflection, and it gave him pause. Because the man in the window was a stranger. A stranger who asked in a voice Shane didn’t recognize, “Would you rather we had separate hotel rooms?”
He had to make her that offer. If she said yes, that would be that. But if she said no, he still had a chance. A chance to change her mind. A chance to make her see they had something special, despite everything going against them. Something worth the risk. Not just sex, although they were incredible together that way, too.
She didn’t answer right away, and he turned to face her. “I hurt you,” she said at last. And some latent emotion in her voice gave him hope. “I didn’t mean to.”
He dug his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her and smiled faintly, forcing a lightness he was far from feeling. “I’m a big boy. I’ve been hurt before, and I’ve always survived.”
“Yes, but I hurt you,” she reiterated, placing the emphasis on I. As if it was important to her that she not hurt him, and Shane drew a small amount of comfort from that knowledge. He meant something to Carly, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
“No more than I hurt you.”
“You didn’t!” Her eyes flashed blue ice. “You never hurt me.”
He didn’t agree, but he wasn’t going to argue with her. “So what’s your answer? Would you rather we had separate hotel rooms?”
She shook her head slowly, then crossed the room to stand in front of him. This close he could see the fine tremor in the hand she placed against his chest. “But it has to be...just sex,” she reminded him.
