AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her gaze softened. “It was never your fault . . . and it wasn’t his either.”
He sucked in the chilly night air as once again, his wife disappeared.
Mason sunk to his knees, pulling the hair at the top of his head. Images of her broken body in that hospital bed flashed in his mind. He’d been three days too late coming home from his mission. Fear had strangled him as he raced into the hospital. No one would tell him if his wife and daughter were alive or dead. Aspen had survived with barely a bruise, but her mother had not. Machines had pumped air into her lungs and kept her heart beating, but the Amanda he’d fallen in love with was no longer with them. He’d been selfish. He hadn’t listened. He’d not gotten her help when she’d needed it. And now it was too late.
He’d made the difficult decision to donate her organs. She’d have wanted that. To help someone else. Mason had vowed that day to do whatever it took to keep Aspen safe and never be so selfish again.
Mason had pored over the police report. Roy Davis had been the one to hit her car. He’d killed Amanda and left his little girl without the most important woman in her life—her mother. All his grief turned into anger for the one man who’d ruined any chance Mason had of fixing things. The only thing that tethered him to reality was that little girl with strawberry curls who looked just like her momma.
And then I fell in love with the daughter of her mother’s killer. Why did he think for one second he would get a second chance at love when he’d blown it so epically the first time? How could he be with Pippa without betraying his daughter?
Pippa loved her dad, idolized him. And I exposed him for the monster he is. And hurt Pippa in the process. Pippa was a casualty like Aspen. And he wouldn’t risk putting her through any more pain because of the sins of her father.
This was the moment he’d seen coming from the beginning. When he’d have to choose between his daughter and Pippa. Being with Pippa would be selfish and a betrayal to Aspen. His daughter always came first, which meant Mason would stay away from Pippa for good this time.
It was never your fault . . . and it wasn’t his either.
His wife’s words came back to haunt him, whispered in the air.
No. It was Roy’s fault. He’d taken Amanda from Mason before Mason could get her the help she needed. If he couldn’t blame Roy, that would mean it was all Mason’s fault for not seeing the signs sooner, for not acknowledging her disease.
Emotions swirled in his chest. His mind spun, reeling with that statement. He wouldn’t blame Amanda; she was the mother of his child—and she’d been sick. Should he blame her commander, who’d taken advantage of her in basic training and inflicted trauma? Or the war she’d seen and the people she’d killed, all in the name of patriotism, that had left her with lasting emotional scars? Where did the buck stop? Someone was to blame. And the only one who had actually taken her life was Roy.
Pippa shouldn’t have to choose between him and her father any more than he should have to choose between the woman he loved and his daughter. He’d do the right thing and make the choice so she didn’t have to. He’d let her go for good.
