“Yeah, yeah, now give me back my niece.”
Reid’s jaw dropped. “Your
what
?”
The three other guys caught up, arranged themselves around him. He recognized one of them. “Lucas.”
Luke’s jaw tightened. “Reid.”
At the sound of his name, the other men coiled like snakes about to strike and Reid’s stomach fell to his feet. “Guess Kara mentioned me, huh?”
“Yeah. She did.” Jake crossed his arms, looked down at Reid.
“Reid?”
Reid jerked at the sound of Kara’s voice. She was wearing those short pants things with a flowy top that hinted at the curves he knew were under it. The purple circles were back under her eyes and she wore no makeup that he could see. And still, everything inside him lit up like a night on Broadway at the sight of her.
He took a step toward her and another and just as he was about to touch her, she stepped back and all the pain hit him again.
“Eed. Kiss.”
Jeez, he almost forgot Nadia on his hip. He turned and Nadia pressed a loud kiss right on his mouth and he couldn’t help it. He laughed. “How is she, Kara?”
Kara looked away, her mouth tight.
No. God, no. The blood in his veins turned to ice.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Son of a—” He shifted Nadia’s weight. “Here. Take her. I’ll call Tully myself.”
“You don’t—”
“I told you his bedside manner kind of sucks.” Reid pulled the phone out of his pocket, scrolled through his contacts. “He doesn’t get how worried we are…yeah,” he snapped into the phone. “This is Reid Bennett. I need to talk to Dr. Tully right away…yeah. I’ll hold.”
“Reid.”
Impatiently, he paced in a circle, shot up a hand when Kara tried to stop him. The big hockey player stared at him like he was a few Fruit Loops short of a bowl and Lucas kept conferring with his buddy, a guy with a wicked scar on one cheek. The fourth guy, a scruffy rocker type, had his arm around Kara and if Reid didn’t have a phone to his ear, he’d have tried to tear it off.
He waited, paced some more and decided he didn’t like the way all four of these guys were looking at him. “Tell the guard dogs to stand down, Kara.”
The rocker snapped up straight but Kara held him back with a raised hand.
“What are you doing, Reid?”
“Eed, Ma.” Nadia patted Kara’s face.
“Yes, honey, it’s Reid.” She humored her daughter but never took her eyes off his. “You left us. Without a word, you just walked out.”
“Yeah. I did. And we’re gonna talk about that as soon as this mother—Yeah. Tully. This is Reid Bennett. You got results yet for Nadia Larsen? Everybody’s worried here—”
“Yeah.” He sank back to the bench. Kara’s face lost its color. He held out his other hand and she took it, sat beside him with the baby on her lap. “Yeah. You sure? Okay. Tell her in plain English.” He gave Kara the phone and took Nadia from her.
“Dr. Tully, this is Kara Larsen.”
He sat with the baby on his lap, pressed her head to his heart and shut his eyes.
“Is she okay, man? Tell us.”
He couldn’t speak. He could hardly breathe. All he could do was nod.
“Yes.” Kara was crying. “Thank you.” She dropped the phone and just stared at her baby. “No sign of coarctation. No high blood pressure.”
“Kara. What about the murmur?” Luke crouched down in front of her, one hand protectively on Nadia’s chubby leg.
“He spoke to the surgeon and they’re sure it’s an innocent murmur. The harmless kind.” She pressed both hands to her chest and took a deep breath. “She’s fine, guys. She’s fine.” And then she burst into sobs of relief.
All four guys surrounded her, tried to soothe her. Nadia began to whimper in his arms and Reid rolled his eyes. “Okay, that’s it. Here you go, little miss. Uncle Lucas wants to hold you.” He all but dumped the baby into Luke’s arms and scooped Kara into his arms. “Listen to me, Kara. The baby is fine. Did you hear me? She’s fine.”
Kara trembled but nodded. “Yes. I heard you. Let me up.”
“Uh uh. Not happening. Not until we talk.”
“You had nothing to say yesterday.”
“I know it and I’m sorry for it. That’s why we’re gonna talk.”
Her four guard dogs were holding themselves a little conference. “Guys. Can you take Nadia for a while? Give me and Kara a few minutes?”
The hockey player took a step forward but Lucas and his buddy shook their heads.
“It’s okay, guys. Go find the girls, give them the good news.” Kara waved them off.
“Ya got ten minutes,” the rocker told him with a hint of Ireland in his words. “Make her cry again, and we’ll want a word of our own.”
Reid glanced from man to man. “So, I’m guessing now wouldn’t be a good time to ask you for your autograph,” he said to the hockey player. “Maybe a quick selfie? Yeah. Didn’t think so.” He ignored them and looked down at Kara. “I flaked out on you yesterday and there’s a reason. I’d like to share it with you, if you’ll let me.”
Lucas adjusted the baby on his hip, picked up their ball and started walking away, two of the guys flanking him. With one last glare over his shoulder, the hockey player followed.
“Let me up, Reid.”
“Uh uh. Kara, I’m never letting go of you again,” he blurted. “I’m sorry for hurting you, for walking out yesterday and for the pain I put in your eyes. I’m sorry.” He held her face in his hands, forced her to look at him, to see his sincerity but she wasn’t buying it. She looked up at him, brown eyes flat and swimming with tears.
“So why did you?”
It wasn’t the words that slashed him. It was the tone. Arctic cold and lifeless and he knew he’d done that to her.
“I was scared.”
She sent him a look so derisive, he felt his balls shrink.
“We were all scared.” It was subtle, that inflection she put on the word
all
, but it told him what she really thought of him.
He shook his head. Damn it, this was killing him. “You know all that stuff you told me about the signs from your mom?” He didn’t wait for her to reply, just pushed it all out before she could stop him. “I believe in that stuff. Hundred percent. I go down to the Memorial all the time to talk to Kyle and I swear to you, he talks back.” He slid her off his lap, got up to pace again. “He tells me when I’m being an ass, he tells me he misses me and he tells me I’m a good person even though—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat, swallowed hard. “Even though I’m a dick most of the time.”
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t dare. “I was twenty years old when Kyle died. He was twenty-four. Just landed his first job with the NYFD and had the world in his hands.” He held up his empty palm, let it fall. “I was so lost, Kara. I have two older sisters but we’re not close. Kyle and me? We were like this.” He held up two fingers, twisted together. “I spent a long time just…just existing, you know? Going through the motions, waiting for my life to end so I could be with my brother again. I didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to wake up, didn’t want to do anything. I just…marked time.”
He sat back down, scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck and stared at the ground. The park was crowded today—not unusual for a warm day at the end of June in New York City. He was only dimly aware of joggers passing by, people walking dogs or pushing strollers. All he could see was Kara.
“I kept coming down here. Even when it was just a pit, I kept coming down here. It made me feel close to him. The first sign he ever sent me, it was a few months after the attacks. New Year’s. I came down here during this icy sleet deal that damn near froze my nuts off. I’m walking along and I see this flyer and I pick it up because it’s dry, you see? It’s dry in the middle of this ice storm. I mean, what are the odds? Turned out it was a recruiting thing for the fire department. They were, uh, you know…low on crews.”
He glanced over at Kara, wondering if she understood the significance of that. Her eyes squeezed shut and he nodded to himself, satisfied.
“I signed up and became a paramedic and I know, right here,” he said, thumping his chest. “I know it was my brother who guided me.” Reid sat back, stretched a hand over the back of the bench. “I finished the training, landed an assignment, and the days got…” he trailed off, trying to find the right word. “Not easier. But somehow, I got stronger. I could cope. I met Lynn. One day, she told me she loved me and to my total shock, I realized I loved her back. So we did what people are supposed to. We got married, we had a kid and—God.” A sob tore from him and Kara’s lip trembled. Her hand came up to soothe and that encouraged him.
Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“We named her Erin. I wanted to name her Kylie, after my brother, but Lynn hated it so we named her Erin.” He shoved a hand in his pocket, took out his wallet, and handed her a picture of all three of them taken at Erin’s third birthday. Kara took it, smiled sadly.
“She looks like you.”
He nodded, feeling the punch of that right in the throat. “She had hair the same color as Nadia’s, and my eyes.” He took back his wallet, snapped it shut, swiped a knuckle under his eyes. “She, God! She…
died
about three months after this was taken. And it was my fault.” He took a deep breath and let the pain shatter him.
Tears fell from his eyes, embarrassment burned his cheeks and the chronic ache he’d lived with for years became acute agony. Since his baby girl died, he never talked about her, never looked at pictures of her, and every time he thought of her, he shoved those thoughts into a dark corner of his mind and chained the door. “I never talk to her the way I do Kyle. I don’t visit her grave. I don’t look at pictures. I don’t even think about her if I can avoid it because I’m—God! I’m too damned scared, Kara. I don’t want her to tell me what I already know.” He slapped a hand over his heart again.
She shook her head, inched closer to him and put her hand over his. The gesture broke him.
“Kara. Oh, God, baby, I’m so sorry.” He clutched her tight and when her arms came around him, vowed to never let her go again. “When Nadia… Jesus, I couldn’t do it again. I wouldn’t survive it a second time.”
She went still, but he wouldn’t let go of her.
“Lynn thought
I
was watching her. I thought
she
was watching her. I can’t even remember what we were doing that was so goddamn important but neither of us were watching her and she escaped. She got out of our apartment and out to the street. A car hit her and—and she bled to death in my arms. All of my training. And I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save her.”
His entire body shook in her arms and she didn’t let him go. Her hands stroked his back, his hair, soothing him, calming him. He wanted to sink into her and never surface again.
But he had to finish it.
“I shut down. Shut everybody out. Eventually, Lynn left me. I was damn close to losing my job when Kyle sent me another sign. Know what it was?”
She shook her head.
“Infant and child CPR classes.”
Kara almost smiled.
“Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. I hate doing them. I was sitting in the conference room when my captain asked for volunteers and next thing I know, the gig is mine. I don’t even remember putting my hand up.” He managed half a laugh. “Anyway, I did a few classes and then parents started coming to the fire house, telling us how the class saved their son, their daughter, their niece or nephew. I managed to hold on, stack up the days again. And then I met you and your daughter.”
Deliberately, he put her away from him.
“This is—
you
are the first time I’ve been happy since I lost my kid.”
She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears again. “Then why did you take off without a word?”
“Because of this.” He opened the bag beside him on the bench, took out a book.
“The Velveteen Rabbit?”
“This was my daughter’s favorite story. I was at the Memorial, talking to Kyle and I saw this image. It was a woman reading this book to my daughter. I’ve never seen any pictures of your mother but I
know
it was her. Kyle told me to help you, but you said—”
“You were my sign.”
“And I believed it. It was so easy to believe it. Until Steve showed up, put the fear of hell in you. All I could think was I’m going to lose another child. I can’t do that again.” He shook his head slowly, hypnotically. “I took that call, sitting in that waiting area and there was a book on the floor. This book.”
He took out the second copy of The Velveteen Rabbit from the bag, waited for her to say something. To tell him if he was bat shit crazy or not.
“It’s a sign, Reid.”
“Yeah, it is. I thought it was a sign telling me to run—fast and far. So that’s what I did. But I think that was a mistake, Kara.”
“Oh, you think?”
Her biting tone cut him to the bone, but he was determined to finish this. He laughed once at her impatience, a tiny huff of air. “I started wondering, what if I’m wrong? What if the book isn’t a warning, but an invitation? So yesterday, I went to Erin’s grave, Kara.”
Kara pressed both hands to her mouth, cried for him.
Encouraged, he rambled on. “For the first time since she died, I visited her grave, I read her favorite book to her. And I cried, Kara. I cried like a two-year-old and the whole time I was there, I didn’t feel guilt or blame. I felt…kind of lost. And so alone.”
He laughed once, a rasp of breath on a raw throat. “When I thought of you and Nadia, I swear to you, I heard a voice say
Go
.”
She didn’t say anything and Reid sighed.
“I can’t spend another minute away from either of you. I love you, Kara. I love you both.” Her mouth fell open at those words, but he took her hands in his before she could say anything. “I spent all night trying to figure out how to make this right and I don’t know if I can, but please,” he begged with a squeeze of her hands. “Please believe that.”
Kara shook her head. “Reid. I do believe it. And I’m in love with you, too.”
The lead weight in his gut eased.
“But I don’t know if that’s enough.”
And just like that, it crushed him again.
“Reid, I was happy, too. The happiest I’ve ever been in my life. I had you and I had my daughter and I was learning to be a good mother and then you left us.” She waited a beat but he said nothing. There wasn’t anything he could say to make this better.