LITMIR.BIZ

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figured as much. The one time he’d met Kevin’s family, they’d come across as self-absorbed, more into their vacation than their son. More likely they were ignoring Max because he interfered with their retirement plans. “At least Max has his father’s life insurance money.”

      She stayed silent. Her fist unfurled to flick the gold fringe on a throw pillow.

      Damn. He sat up straighter. “They did give him the money, right? Or at least some of it?”

      “Kevin didn’t know Max existed.” She folded her hands carefully on her knees. “Kevin’s parents were listed as his beneficiaries.”

      “I’ll speak to them. And if they don’t come through it shouldn’t take much to contest—”

      “My son and I are getting along fine,” she interrupted. “We don’t need their money.”

      Prideful? Needing to forge your own path? He understood that. Which made him the perfect person to help her. “You’re doing an admirable job by yourself. I didn’t mean to insinuate otherwise. I only meant that it can’t be easy.”

      “That’s an understatement.” She smiled wryly.

      “What about your parents?”

      “Hello? I thought we already settled this. I’m fine.”

      “No one should have to carry a load like this by themselves. I recall from Kevin that your parents are good people.” Although they lived an ocean away, in Germany.

      “They are, and I did consider going home right after I found out I was pregnant. But I was already knee-deep in my graduate studies when I found out about Max. Sure, things are tight now, but I need to finish my degree, my best hope for providing a good future for my son.”

      “About those dark circles… ?”

      “I’ll sleep after Max has his surgery because he won’t be hungry all the time. He will feel happy, content… .” Unshed tears glinted in her eyes. “I have to believe he’ll be okay.”

      Her tears undid him now just as much as they had a year ago. He shifted from the sofa to crouch in front of her. He took her hands in his, her soft hands that had once tunneled into his hair, then down to score his back. Except now those nails were chewed with worry.

      And he had to fix that. He couldn’t let her go on this way alone with no one to help her. Staring at her bitten-off fingernails, he knew exactly what he had to do.

      “That’s the reason you’re staying here rather than going to your parents, isn’t it? Once you found out he was sick, moving to another country… ”

      “I couldn’t start the medical process over again and waste precious weeks, days even. We’re here, and we’ll get through it.”

      He squeezed her hands. “But you don’t have to go through it alone. I’m on leave for the next two weeks. I’ll stay in New Orleans. I owe it to Kevin to be a stand-in father for Max.”

      A stand-in father?

      Gabrielle froze inside. Outside. She couldn’t move or speak. She’d barely gotten over the shock of Hank showing up here unannounced and now he’d said this? That he wanted to be some kind of replacement for Kevin with Max?

      There had to be something else going on here. She’d heard of survivor’s guilt. That wasn’t healthy for him—or for her. “Hank, I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here. But Max already has a father, and he’s dead.”

      His grip tightened around hers, almost painful. “Believe me, I know that better than anyone else.” His throat moved in a slow swallow. “I was there.”

      Oh, my God. “When he died?”

      “Yeah… .” His grip loosened, his thumbs twitching along her palms.

      His head dropped, and he looked down at their clasped hands, the strong column of his neck exposed. Her eyes held on the fade of his military cut. And strangely, she ached to touch him there, to stroke and comfort him. To hold on to him and let him hold on to her, too. They’d both suffered the loss of Kevin, and right now that pain linked them so tightly it brought the crippling ache rushing back full force.

      Please, don’t let her reach for him, which would have her crying all over his chest. The hint of tears a minute ago had brought him here in front of her… and when she’d cried before, they’d betrayed a man they both cared so much about.

      So she gathered her emotions in tight and focused on him, and what he was saying.

      “I tried to call you afterward from overseas, a couple of times, but calls out were few and far between.”

      “I got the messages,” she whispered.

      He looked up fast. “And you didn’t write back? Email?”

      His voice on those recordings had poured alcohol on her open grief. “It was too painful then.” And his presence now? She didn’t know what she was feeling. “I figured hearing my voice would hurt you as much as it hurt me to hear yours.”

      “Do you still feel that way?”

      His deep blue eyes held hers, waiting, asking. She didn’t have the answers and her life was scary enough just dealing with Max’s surgery. She looked down at their joined hands and, holy crap, how long had they been holding each other like that?

      She snatched her arms back, crossing them over her chest. “What are we doing here, Hank? Are you here to pick up where we left off after that kiss, now that Kevin’s gone? Because you have to realize that was a mistake.”

      A dark eyebrow slashed upward. “If you have to ask that, you don’t know me at all. I mean what I say. I just want to be here for Kevin’s kid.”

      “But you didn’t know about Max when you arrived.” And why hadn’t she thought of that until now? “What are you doing here?”

      He shoved to his feet and paced in the space she’d decorated with such hope and plans, a blend of her dual roots. Then she’d met Kevin and thought, finally, she had found roots of her own, a sense of belonging.

      Hank’s powerful long legs ate up the one-room apartment quickly, back and forth in front of the nursery nook before pivoting hard to face her. “Kevin wanted me to deliver a message.”

      “A message?” A burn prickled along her skin until the roots of her hair tingled.

      “I meant it when I said I was with him when he died.” His body went taut, his shoulders bracing, broadening. “I was right beside him until the end.”

      She eased to her feet, steeling herself for whatever he had to share, for words that could haul her back into the agony she’d felt when Kevin died, when she’d given birth to their child alone. “What did he say?”

      “He said he forgave us.”

      Three

      Gabrielle looked every bit as stunned as he’d felt when Kevin said the words to him, that he forgave them. The memory blasted through him of that hellish night at the checkpoint when they’d been ambushed, the smell of gunfire and death. Then Kevin spoke and said the unthinkable.

      That he knew Hank and Gabrielle had feelings for each other.

      Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but no words came out. She pressed her palm to her lips, turning away.

      He wanted to reach for her, to comfort her. Do something—since he couldn’t seem to scrounge up the right words. He wasn’t much of a warm and fuzzy guy. He was a man of action.

      A squawk from behind him stopped him short.

      “Max,” Gabrielle gasped, rushing past him.

      She swept aside the gauzy curtain and lifted her son out. Damn, the boy was so tiny. Scary small. The enormity of that little being going

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