After we hung up, Beckett insisted I eat. When I could barely push my spoon through the broth, we both gave up, and he pulled me to the couch, tugging me up against him. Vader leaped up next to us, pressing against my opposite side and resting his head on my thigh. I petted him, trying to soothe us both as Beckett flicked through channels on the television.
The ring on my finger grabbed my attention. I twirled it around. I’d felt elated, on top of the world last night. I hadn’t dreamed the words he’d given me, right? I hadn’t made up the “I love you” he’d whispered in my ear as I’d come apart?
Yesterday, I’d been determined to fight for forever with him, all the while having no clue he’d already taken the leap all on his own. When had that happened? When had he decided to unlock his heart and hand it to me for real?
But in taking it, was I risking doing exactly what he’d always feared? Would I hurt him? Abandon him? Not of my own free will but because someone ended my life the way they’d been determined to end my father’s?
I blinked furiously, fighting the tears that rose again. As if he’d read the quagmire that had become my emotions, Beckett slid a finger over my cheek and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’ve worked too hard to get here, my Maisey-girl. We’re not letting some bastard take it away from us.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
“For years, I thought opening your heart, letting someone in, was the most foolish thing anybody could do. That love was a weakness. Something that doomed you to pain. But I was wrong. Love makes us stronger. It’s mademestronger.”
“Beckett—”
“I love you,” he said firmly, resolutely, and the tears could no longer be stopped. “But I swear on my life, if you ever do something that stupid again…”
I bristled at the word stupid, and he saw it.
“Wrong word choice,” he amended. “You’ve never been stupid. So, tell me why you thought you had to go to the watchtower alone. Tell me why you thought we shouldn’t face the danger together after you let me slide that ring on your finger, after we’d spent hours merging our souls and our bodies together, and after you’d whispered ‘I love you’ back?”
“I knew Fallon would use the Find Family app to locate me. I trustedyou both to come after me.”
His brow raised. “You knew we’d come?”
I nodded, and for the first time since we’d woken up to our phones going off, Beckett leaned in and kissed me. It was slow and sweet and full of the overwhelming emotions we’d had beating through us all day, and it temporarily thrust aside the numbness to write itself on my heart in a new and almost impossible way. It was a brand that wove onto the very fiber of my being.
“I’m scared,” I told him. “Scared for everyone I love. Scared of staying and you being hurt. Scared of leaving like they want and destroying us both.”
He tugged me closer, stroked my back, kissed my forehead. “You’re not leaving, Maise. We’re not letting them win. We’ve got something they don’t.”
I just looked at him in confusion.
“Family and friends looking out for us. People willing to battle at our sides.”
It reminded me of what Andie had said about trying to fit our wedding in Beckett’s backyard. We did have family here. Maybe more than I’d ever realized. Family were the people you could count on to show up when you needed them most. It was the people who’d shown up for us today. The ones who did the unfeasible on your behalf when the people you shared DNA with couldn’t or wouldn’t.
Like my father might not ever be able to show up again.
The pain that ripped through me at that thought left me raw and exposed. After last night, I should have spent the day reveling in the pleasure of having gotten what I’d always dreamed of having. Instead, I was grappling with the potential loss of another parent. All the things I still wanted to say and do with Dad, that I might now miss out on, cut like a knife, slicing me in ways I wasn’t sure I could handle at the moment. So I welcomed the numbness back. I’d let it shelter me for a while longer, at least until I could handle the full brunt of these new cuts to my soul.
? ? ?
Amazingly, I’d actually fallen asleep for a few hours tucked up next to Beckett. And when I woke, groggy and somehow impossibly still cold, Beckett insisted on making us dinner. Neither of us ate much, and I cleaned up, storing the leftovers while he went to check with Sweeney and Parker’s friends, who were holed up in Dad’s house.
I used Beckett’s phone to check on Dad. Wylee and the hospital administrators had transferred him to the county hospital under a fake name.He was still in a coma, but he was breathing better, so they’d removed the ventilator. It was progress. But not enough for my worry to ease. I wished desperately I could be with him. I knew if he heard me there, talking to him, telling him how much I needed him, it would increase his chances.
It hit me how true my thoughts were. I did need him.
Maybe not in the way I’d once needed him as a child for food and shelter. Not even for the emotional support he’d failed at giving. But I did need him. He loved me in his own, incomprehensible way, and he was trying to make amends for how he’d checked out on us—on me. We had a chance to build a relationship we’d never had before, and I needed a relationship with my father that would bring back those early childhood memories of laughter and games. We’d eased toward that while staying at Beckett’s, and I wanted it to continue so if and when he did pass away, I’d have a host of good memories layered over all the bad.
Beckett returned from checking in with the SEALs, saying they had nothing new for us. No one had showed up on any of the cameras they’d installed. No one was physically lurking in the shadows.
And yet, I still felt them there. I could almost feel their breath on my shoulder.
When we headed for bed, Vader followed us with his tail down, and I realized it wasn’t just the emotions he felt zipping through the air. He whined as he sniffed at the blankets where Dorothy had been.
“He misses the cat,” I told Beckett.