Damn Wright (The Wrights 2)

The phone rang somewhere in the house and Jack exhaled. “Duty calls.” He leaned toward Miranda for a kiss. “I’ve got to get back to work.” He stood and offered his hand to Dylan again. “Looking forward to getting to know you better.”

“Same. Thank you.” Once Jack disappeared into the house, Dylan looked at Miranda. “Seems like a great guy.”

She sighed and smiled, that stupid-happy smile. “I never imagined I’d find a guy like him. Every day I wake up and think I’m still dreaming.”

A bittersweet sensation settled in his stomach. He’d once had that dream. And he’d fucked it up, big-time. He was thrilled Miranda had found someone special. After her childhood, she really deserved happiness.

“How long have we got you here?” she asked.

“It’s a little up in the air right now. I offered to help Emma renovate her aunt’s house. I don’t know if she’ll take me up on it or not, but probably a month at least. Longer if we renovate.”

A lot longer if he could work things out with Emma.

“Tell me about her. She’s come into the bar a few times, but I’ve only talked to her in passing. She’s really beautiful.”

He smiled. “Always has been, inside and out. We met in Germany when our fathers were stationed together. Started dating at sixteen. Got married at nineteen. Sometimes it seems like a different lifetime; sometimes it seemed like yesterday. We were only married six months when I had my accident.”

“Yeah, Gypsy told me about that just recently. I didn’t know anything about it. What happened?”

A weight pushed the air from his lungs. Dylan cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts. It was painful to think about. Not because of the accident or even the recovery, but because of all the pain he’d caused Emma. Because of the way he’d lost her.

“In Gypsy’s defense, I didn’t tell her how bad the accident really was until much later. And even then, I minimized the whole thing. I was in bad shape for a long time, and not just physically. I was depressed and angry and self-pitying. Even in the midst of it, I recognized how ugly the emotions were, and I was ashamed of both feeling them and not being able to control them. Retreating and maintaining radio silence was my coping method.”

Miranda’s gaze was steady, a frown creating vertical lines between her eyes.

“I was working as a freelance writer at the time,” he said, “and I got a gig with the German tourism board. They were working on a promotional piece for the popular tourist destination of Berchtesgaden.”

“Wow, that’s a mouthful.”

Dylan smiled, but it faded instantly. “It’s a town in the Bavarian Alps. The alpine views are breathtaking. And there’s so much history—museums and five-hundred-year-old salt mines. There were incredible hiking trails and ski resorts. Anyway, they hooked me up with three other guys—photographers and videographers—and we took the trip together.”

He leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands together. “On the way home, the guy driving fell asleep, and the car went over a cliff.”

Miranda pulled in a sharp breath. Dylan was used to these kinds of reactions to the story and went on.

“The SUV rolled down the granite face of this massive boulder, finally landed on a ledge, and caught fire.”

Miranda rested her elbow on the table and her head in her hand, her face tense. “Oh my God, Dylan.”

“The guys I was with didn’t make it. They died on impact. I was airlifted to the closest trauma center. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the accident. I was asleep in the back, then knocked unconscious. I do sometimes have nightmares or flashbacks, but nothing as bad as you might expect from something like that.”

He sighed and sat back. “I was in a coma for three weeks. Wasn’t expected to live. When I regained consciousness, the prognosis was bad. Really bad. They said I’d never walk again. Never write again. Broke my pelvis, my femur, ribs. I had a severe concussion, was burned over thirty percent of my body, mostly in my midsection.”

Miranda’s face had gone pale. “I wish I’d known about it at the time. I would have found a way to get to you.”

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things over the last decade. Not staying in better contact with you and Gypsy is one of my biggest regrets.”

She reached over and curled her hand around Dylan’s. “That ends now, yeah?”

“Yeah.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “Emma… God, Emma was beside me the entire time. She was at my bedside, holding my hand when I came out of the coma. She took a semester off school and stayed with me in the hospital night and day. When she did go back to school, she brought her work and did it at my bedside. She never left until I was asleep, and she was always there when I woke—”

His voice cracked. Tears stung his eyes. Miranda reached for his arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

He cleared his throat. Blinked back the tears. “She borrowed money from her parents to bring in specialist after specialist for second, third, fourth opinions. Researched my issues relentlessly. She never lost hope, even when it was nowhere in sight. But over time, it became crystal clear my future would be short, painful, and extremely limited.”

“Jesus Christ,” she murmured.

“Once I saw the writing on the wall, I knew I had to let her go. But I didn’t know I’d be in for such a fight. She was determined to stand by me, no matter what. And I was determined not to chain her to my bleak future.”