The SEAL's Secret Heirs

Comprehension slowly leached into her gaze as Hadley finally caught her husband’s drift. She started shuffling toward the exit. “Well, if you’re sure. We’ll be a phone call away.”

And then they were gone, leaving Grace alone with Kyle. There was still tension between them but for now, the focus was on Maddie. This was the part where they’d be adults about their issues, just as they should have been all along, and get through the night.

“Guess they thought they’d leave us to our romantic evening,” Kyle commented wryly as he nodded after Hadley and Liam. “I’m pretty sure that’s why they went to Vail. To give me the house to myself for the weekend in hopes that I’d call you.”

Not to get him to step up for his girls. That wasn’t even necessary, probably hadn’t been from the beginning. Liam and Hadley had gone to Vail for her benefit. Hers and Kyle’s. And it would have been perfect if she and Kyle had only hashed out their issues before getting involved again, instead of hiding behind their defense mechanisms.

That’s why she couldn’t give him the slightest false hope that she was here because she wanted to try again. The problem was that she might have given herself that false hope.

For all her conviction that she’d made the right decision to walk away from him, something inside kept whispering that maybe it wasn’t too late to take a step toward talking about their issues.

“Will you go with me to see Maddie?” Kyle’s eyes blinked closed for a moment. “I’m not sure I can go in there by myself.”

He’d been stalling. How had she missed that? Because she was busy worrying about what was going on with the state of their relationship instead of worrying about the reason they were here: Maddie. Some support system she was.

Grace smiled as she took his hand again, holding tight. “I’m here. For as long as you need me.”

When his eyes opened, he caught her up in that diamond-hard green gaze of his. “Grace,” he murmured, “come sit with me.”

Meekly, she complied, following him into the hospital room where Maddie lay asleep in a bed with a railing. It looked so much like her crib at home, but so vastly wrong. Machines surrounded her, hooked to wires and tubes that were attached to her tender skin. Grace almost couldn’t stand to internalize it.

Clare was checking something on one of the machines and smiled as they came in. “She’s doing okay. Worn out from the tests. That couch against the window lies flat, like a futon, if you plan to stay. I have to check on some other patients but we’ve got Maddie on top-notch monitors, and I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Press this button if you notice any change or need anything.”

She held up a plastic wand with a red button at the end.

Kyle nodded. “Thanks. We’ll be fine.”

Then Clare bustled out of the room, leaving them alone with Maddie.

“I would trade places with her in a New York minute,” Kyle said softly, his gaze on his daughter. “I would pay if someone would let me trade places. She’s so fragile and tiny. How is her body holding up under all of those things poked into her? It’s not right.”

Grace nodded, her throat so raw from holding back tears, she wasn’t sure she could speak.

All at once, he spun toward her, catching her up in his desperate embrace, burying his head in her hair. She clung to him as his chest shuddered against hers while they both struggled to get their anguish under control.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, forcing the words out.

“Thank you for staying with me. My life was so empty, Grace,” he murmured. “For so long, I was a part of something, and then I wasn’t.”

“I know.” She nodded. “You told me how much the military meant to you.”

“No. Not that. You.” Fiercely, he clasped her face in both palms and lifted her head and spoke directly to her soul. “Grace. Please. We have to find a way to make it work this time because I can’t do this without you. I need you. I love you. I always have.”

And then he was kissing her, pouring a hundred different meanings into it. Longing. Distress. Passion. Fear.

She kissed him back, because yes, she felt those things, too. He was telling her what she meant to him, first verbally and then through their kiss, and she was finally listening. But this was how it was with them. She got her hopes up and he dashed them.

What could possibly be different this time? She took the kiss down a notch, and then pulled back. “Sit down with me and let’s talk. For once.”