Damn Wright (The Wrights 2)

He released her hand to pull food from a takeout bag. “I’ve got ribs and brisket and cornbread—”

“What’s this about demolition?”

He set all the food on the floor, and Emma noticed that stiffness he’d admitted to. “What are you doing?”

He moved back down the hall toward the bedrooms. “Be right back.”

She dragged off her jacket and laid it across the bar. Then Dylan was back with cushions, a sleeping bag, and a bottle of wine.

“Where’d you get those?” she asked.

“The front porch and a closet.” He tossed the cushions down near a wall in the living room, and Emma recognized the faded floral fabric as part of a sofa Shelley had once had on the deck. “Decided to keep them so I’d have somewhere to sit when I took a break. Found a few other things I kept for you. Photo albums, letters, knickknacks. I’ll show you later.”

He unzipped the sleeping bag and tossed it across the dirty cushions. Then he grabbed the plans from the counter before sitting down.

Emma sat next to him, legs stretched out, her back against the wall.

He pulled out his key ring and used a penknife to open the wine, then passed it to Emma. “She had a whole case of red in the coat closet. No glasses, but I happen to know you do just fine straight from the bottle.”

She hadn’t drunk straight from the bottle since she was nineteen. The drinking age in Germany was just sixteen, so she and Dylan had done their share of experimentation. “Remember our first bottle?”

His eyes went soft. “One of the best nights of my life.”

They’d been seventeen when they’d crept to the top of one of the buildings on base and lay on their backs, gazing at the stars, dreaming of their future as they drained the bottle.

Only this wasn’t what either of them had dreamed of. And most definitely not what she’d signed up for.

She tilted the bottle back and took a long drink. It was a smooth red blend that went down easily.

“What made your day so rough?” Dylan asked while putting food on a plate for her.

Emma’s mind drifted back over the early morning gore of a car versus pedestrian. Then jumped to the infant that had reminded her too much of Cooper. “Two deaths. Two unnecessary, senseless deaths. One just a baby.”

Dylan turned his undivided attention on her. His gaze was dark, his expression grave. “It’s all senseless, isn’t it? I’ve seen so much senseless death, I’m ashamed to say I became at least partially numb to it. It took coming home to realize that.”

Emma swore some of his internal scars floated so close to the surface, she could see them through his skin. “I can only imagine.”

“What happened to the baby? SIDS?”

“No.” She took a deep drink of the wine. “His stepfather was high on meth, got pissed he was crying, and shook him. He was brain dead by the time he reached the ER. The mother was so high, she almost overdosed. She was in ICU at a different hospital. They’re harvesting the baby’s organs tonight.”

Dylan lost some color.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I forget that not everyone can talk about this kind of thing.”

“I can.” He curled his hand around one of hers. “It’s just a shock to hear a child died at the hands of someone who should have been caring for him. I’m more used to the news of babies crushed in the rubble from a bomb.”

Now some of Emma’s color drained, and her face turned cold. “I wish…”

She sucked back the useless words, averted her gaze, and shook her head.

“You wish what?”

She lifted a shoulder and used her toes to push off her running shoes. With her gaze on her crossed ankles, she admitted her deepest hurt. “There’s no good way to experience death, but I wish I could have been there with you. For you. The way it was supposed to be. You can’t continually experience that kind of tragedy and not be affected by it. You need someone to talk to. Someone who understands.”

“Did Liam do that for you?”

She cut a look at him, surprised he’d brought Liam up. When she found him compassionate and sincerely interested, she thought about it a second. “No. He’s more matter-of-fact about death. He accepts it as a part of the equation, the profession. I’ve never been able to do that. I take every loss—no matter how inevitable—personally.”