Part of her wanted to apologize. She wanted to wipe out the blackness that had permeated his gaze while he listened to the torrent of accusations. She wanted him to explain the sadness she had seen for a terrible second before he turned from her. She wanted to know if he really had suffered or if he’d just forgotten about them until it was convenient to come back.
She placed a hand against her chest and wondered if she was having a heart attack and if she wasn’t, then how could the pain be so great. She thought again of the sad expression in his eyes. She sniffed twice and pulled herself together with an effort.
Maybe someone needed to invent a Richter scale to measure who suffered the most in marriage.
She couldn’t find a laugh, not even a cynical one, anywhere inside her at the thought. Sighing shakily, she wondered why he hadn’t explained or at least tried to defend himself during her tirade.
Because there was no defense for abandoning your family. It was a thing beyond understanding, beyond forgiving. But there was an answer: Because he hadn’t cared enough to stay. If he had loved her…
She pressed both hands to her chest and waited for the ache to subside.
Chapter Three
Danielle frowned at the racket coming from the attic when she returned to the house after walking Sara to school the next day. What the heck was Kyle doing up there? She kicked off her boots in the mudroom and went to investigate.
She found him in the attic bedroom, dismantling the old brass bedstead in there. “What are you doing?”
“Taking the bed apart.”
“I can see that,” she stated impatiently. “Why?”
“I’m moving it downstairs to the bedroom across from you and Sara.” He pushed a lock of dark hair off his forehead and straightened. “With your permission.”
She wanted to say no just to be obstinate, but that would be petty. She nodded. “I’ll help.”
Gathering the six slats into a stack, she carried them downstairs and into the bedroom across the hall from hers. Kyle followed with the railings. Then she hefted the foot railings while he carried the headboard. Together they assembled the bed and aligned it against the wall.
“The mattress and springs aren’t very good.”
He nodded. “I thought I would pick up a set in town this morning. Is that okay with you?”
“For a two-month stay?”
“Sara will need something bigger soon. She’ll outgrow the youth bed within another year.”
“Yes. She’s sprouting up so fast.” Danielle started to tell him about how fast the girl outgrew her clothes. She closed her mouth on the words.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“Nothing. Just…she’s growing….”
“I know.” He took two steps closer. “Next thing we know she’ll be putting on lipstick and heading off on her first date. And then to college.”
Danielle tried to smile, but her lips trembled.
He reached over and ran a finger along her bottom lip. “Does that bother you?” He dropped his hand.
She shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. “I want her to have a normal life, but I also want to protect her from ever getting hurt.” She stopped, afraid she would reveal too much.
“The way you were hurt?”
Her gaze flew to his.
“Don’t you think I know?” He shook his head. “I wanted to protect you and Sara from harm.”
“Is that what you told yourself? That you were doing it for our own good when you didn’t contact us for two years?”
She thought of the nights when she lay in bed alone and wondered if he was dead or alive. She had agonized over him as much as she had during the fourteen days Sara had been missing. “I don’t think so. I think it was a convenient way to forget we existed. Your career was more important.”
Kyle grasped her shoulders and felt his wife steel herself, as if expecting him to do violence. It hit him—really hit him—his wife thought him capable of hurting her. He was a stranger to her as well as to his daughter.
After getting the letter, he knew he had lost his family, but he had never thought Danielle would distrust him, not his levelheaded Dani, who had matched his passion with her own, whose calm center had soothed his soul after his dealings with the harsh underbelly of society.
Her hazel green eyes continued to watch him warily. Her face was pale, the tiny freckles across her nose and cheeks visible as she waited for whatever he would do next.
“Two years ago,” he said bitterly, “I was assigned a case that seemed simple enough. The man I was after had no conscience. He would have gunned down his own mother if he’d thought she’d crossed him. If someone had followed me home or traced a call to you, if the gang had discovered I wasn’t who I said, they would have wasted you and Sara without a thought. I couldn’t take that chance.”
Her gaze didn’t soften. “You made a decision that important to our marriage without consulting me. Do you think I have so little courage?”
She pulled away from his hands and bumped into the wall. The dull clunk he heard reminded him of something he’d noticed yesterday. He slipped his hand between her and the wall. The gun was tucked into her waistband. He pulled it out. A .38 semiautomatic.
“Are you licensed to carry concealed?” he demanded, worry eating at him. Danielle was obviously determined to defend herself and Sara, but would she use the weapon if she needed to? It could mean the difference between life and death. With no idea how ruthless the criminal mind could be, she might think she could scare the kidnappers away.
“Are you going to report me if I’m not?”
She returned his glare without blinking. A standoff. His Dani was a match for any man. He smiled. “I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t get shot when I turned up on your doorstep in the middle of a blizzard.”
She retrieved her weapon and tucked it under her shirt once more. “If Sara hadn’t been present, I might have considered it.”
A tendril of auburn hair had escaped the band she wore around her head. He fought an urge to brush it off her forehead. Where his wife was concerned, he had forfeited all rights to them as a couple. He wondered if he had been wrong not to tell her of the danger and to let her make the decision regarding their safety. But it was too late for that. He’d done what he thought was right. Why did it suddenly feel as if it might be wrong?
“You were right,” he said slowly. “It was easier to forget you and Sara existed than to think about you during the dark hours of the night. When this is over, I’ll get out of your life forever, if that’s the way it has to be.”
“How? You’re Sara’s father. Are you going to abandon her completely?”
“When did you develop that razor tongue?” he asked quietly, then continued before she could come up with a retort, “I’ll expect visiting rights to Sara.”
He headed for the kitchen, needing to put distance between them and the desires that raged through him. Only Dani could make him lose control, and he couldn’t afford that. He was pushed to the limit as need and futility knifed through him. He wished he could go back….
Danielle stared after him. The fact that he had offered any explanation at all on his absence stunned her. Why, she thought in frustration, couldn’t he have explained himself two years ago? She would have accepted his decision for Sara’s sake. But he hadn’t even asked her. Maybe the danger had been a ready excuse because he’d been bored.
She went to her