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“Carly!” He was on his knees in front of her in an instant. “Don’t cry, Carly. God, don’t. I can’t bear it.”
She raised a tear-wet face to his. “It’s my fault.” She sucked in her breath as tears continued to ooze out of her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. “There’s something wrong with me. That’s why you didn’t tell me. That’s why Jack didn’t tell me about his depression. About his thoughts of suicide.” She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, obviously trying desperately to hold on to her emotions, then she sobbed again as if she couldn’t help it. “That’s why he’s dead. Because of me.”
“No, sweetheart, no,” he soothed. “It’s not your fault.” The endearment slipped out and he didn’t give a damn if she later made the connection. Because all he cared about in this instant was letting her know it wasn’t her fault. Not what happened to Jack. And not what was happening to him.
He stood and scooped her into his arms, carrying her—still sobbing—into the living room. He settled into the recliner with her on his lap, his arms enfolding her. “Shush now, stop crying, sweetheart—you’ll make yourself sick. Come on, Carly.”
But it was as if she couldn’t hear him. This wasn’t like her tears of yesterday—unexpected, stress-induced but quickly over. This was as if she were locked in her own misery with nothing but self-recriminations tearing at her heart, as if the only words she could hear were your fault, your fault, your fault.
He cradled her head against his shoulder, stroking her dark hair, making soothing, wordless sounds. Wishing he had the words to ease her pain. Wishing with all his might he could go back to eight years ago and make Jack’s suicide not happen. Even though it would mean Carly would have married Jack and would have never been his, he would have done it in a heartbeat if it meant shielding her from this agony.
Eventually Carly cried herself out and lay quiescent in Shane’s arms. He blotted her tears with his hanky, then gave it to her. When she was done he said, “Keep it,” making her choke and laugh. Somehow, with her laughter, the words came to him. “You’re right, sweetheart. It’s not your fault, but you’re right. I didn’t tell you because I was ashamed.”
He breathed deeply and drew a measure of comfort when Carly’s hand moved of its own volition to stroke his arm in soothing fashion, the same thing he’d done to her a few moments ago. “It’s not easy for me to admit weakness. My entire life has been about control. I was the oldest child. The toughest. The strongest influence on my siblings—even more than our parents in some ways. And yeah, Niall and I competed, but I always won.” He brushed one knuckle against her now-dry cheek. “You were right. I always had to win.”
He paused for a second. “Even when Wendy and our baby were murdered,” he said, pain welling up at the memory, “I still managed to be in control—I tracked down their killers myself and turned the information over to the Belgian authorities. The terrorists chose to blow themselves up instead of being arrested, and that was okay with me because I had still won. Justice and vengeance were one and the same.”
Carly spoke at last. “So when you were diagnosed with epilepsy...”
“Yeah. I couldn’t accept it. I thought I had. I thought, ‘Okay, I still have everything under control. The medication will handle the seizures and my life will return to normal.’ Then you showed up in my hospital room, and because I was able to talk to you about it, I thought I was dealing with it. And doing the interview with you was more proof I was in control of my life—I was making the choice to go public.”
“Then you had that seizure in my house.” And from the note of understanding in her voice, he knew she’d connected the dots.
“Right. I had that seizure. Logically I knew it was too soon to expect the medication to work, but it bothered me because I couldn’t control it. It bothered me even more because you were there to witness my weakness.”
“Oh, Shane...” The hint of chiding in her voice made him smile, because this was more like the Carly he knew.
