Chapter 7

“Hey, come swim with me.”

Kit watched as Danny walked into the ocean, the wave meeting her and enveloping her. She giggled and waved at him. Kit ran into the water and picked her up in his arms. She locked her hands behind his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, home.

“I love you,” he whispered against her lips as he kissed her.

“Come home, please.”

Kit startled awake from his daydream. When he looked around, he wasn’t at the beach in Hawaii, not even close to that. Kit took in the rehab centre and all the wounded soldiers. They all seemed to be missing a piece of their limbs. Kit was whole, physically. But then they all had bleeding wounds and festering scars that the person next to them couldn’t see. Kit had been at the regional medical centre in Germany for almost a year now. He was aware his family had been told he was missing in action and presumed dead. He’d heard people talking about it in the hallway. When Kit had first realized he was the only one in his unit who’d survived, he’d thought the honourable thing to do would be to die with them.

“Mr. Smith.”

Kit snapped out of his daze and looked up at the blond nurse with the thick, German accent. The perplexed look on her face told him that she had probably been calling him for a while. Slowly, a smile spread across her face. Here we go, Kit thought. She was a nice girl, but she was all too obvious when she flirted.

“Yes, nurse?”

“Could you help me please? Mr. Blake Johnson…” her voice trailed off.

Kit got to his feet and headed over to a marine. Blake was the only other living member of his unit. He hadn’t been taking his injuries as passively as Kit had. Sure, Kit’s scrapes and bruises didn’t count much. Neither did the long scar he now had across his left cheek. Blake had lost his leg and his PTSD was getting to be too much for the nurses to handle. So once in a while, Kit would sit next to him to talk him down or restrain him from doing anything dangerous and suicidal.

Kit led the way to Blake’s private cubicle, allocated for high-risk patients. He was lying on his bed in a foetal position, his usually pale face now bright red. His jaw clenched, veins popped in his neck and forehead from the strain. Phantom pain was what the doctors called it. For a man who didn’t have anything below his knees, it didn’t make any sense for him to feel pain in his toes. Kit didn’t understand what was happening to him medically, but he knew what desperation looked like. Every morning when he woke up and looked at himself in the mirror, the frantic gaze with the numb look hidden behind it, mirrored that of Blake’s. They were both lost in their own memories and nightmares. Kit could relate. It was that final moment he probably couldn’t get out of his mind. For Blake, it was watching his brothers being killed one by one as he watched helpless, trapped under their Humvee, wishing the final bullet the militants had saved for him had actually killed him, and not left him with a new scar.

In Kit’s case, it was Brody’s laughing face he couldn’t get out of his mind. Not the happy look, but the fact that it had been replaced by a wide-eyed look of shock. Kit woke up to find Brody staring straight into his eyes, his body covering Kit’s. He shook his head, trying to rid the mental picture from his mind. Kit crouched next to Blake and held his hand. He let his tears flow free when the man began to wail, calling out the names of his fallen brothers.

It was in the middle of the night when Kit heard the rushing footsteps go past his room. He got up and saw the nurses and doctors run toward Blake’s room. It wasn’t difficult or impossible to imagine what had happened. Was it terrible of Kit for hoping, silently praying, that this time, Blake he had finally succeeded in making his one wish come true? Kit sat up on his bed and let the dark embrace him as he waited for confirmation. It didn’t take long for defeated footsteps to walk past his room. Kit looked up at the ceiling and wished Blake Godspeed. Then he lay back down on his bed and made his own decision.

***

Waves crashing against each other and the scent of the warm, ocean breeze woke Danny up. Her eyes cracked open and immediately she shut them. It was too bright. Nothing about her surroundings screamed “New York”. The air was too clean, and there were no traffic noises. The last thing she remembered was passing out in Reno’s arms. Danny shot up straight from the bed. Reno. No, he didn’t. He couldn’t have. Not twice in one lifetime.

Danny jumped out of the bed and tried the door. It opened. She chewed on her lower lip as she tried to figure out what exactly was going on. It didn’t seem like she was in a rehab centre. It was too quiet, and there were no nurses buzzing about.

“Hi!”

“Ah!” Danny stumbled back when Sarah jumped in front of her. She laid her hand on her heart as it thumped wildly from the shock. “Why are you here?”

“Your brother asked me to watch over you for a few days. Until he comes back, that is. He is yummy.” Sarah helped Danny to her feet.

“He brought you to New York?” Danny sat back on the bed, trying to figure out what Reno’s plan was. Wasn’t it embarrassing enough for her own family to watch her unravel? Now he’d brought her only friend to be an audience to it?

“No, he brought you here.”

“Here?” Danny shrugged her shoulders at Sarah’s perplexed look. “The Hamptons.”

“The what?”

Danny looked around the room. Nothing about it reminded her of her room in the mansion. Her mother had probably redecorated. She went into the drawers and, finding all her clothes, started picking out something to wear. Danny pressed her fingers to her temples when a sharp headache came over her. I need a drink.

Danny didn’t expect Reno to have left a drop of alcohol in the house. And it was obvious Sarah was here in the nanny capacity because everyone else was too busy living their lives.

“You are not on the mainland, Danny.”

Danny’s hands froze for a moment, then they trembled above her clothes. Reno wouldn’t dare do that to her, she thought. Her eyes closed as the familiar scents filled her with nostalgia. When they opened slowly, Danny saw her reflection in the mirror. But it was what was behind her that grabbed her attention. The ocean, the sandy white beach and the faraway palm tree. Danny had promised herself not to come back to Hawaii, not without Kit. There were too many memories of them together; they suffocated her.

Danny ran out of the room, through the living room, out the sliding glass doors and onto the beach. All strength fled her body as her knees crashed into the sand. Sober now, all she had managed to numb with the alcohol flooded back, and her heart bled anew. All the emotions and feelings she’d tried to drown in alcohol woke up within her: desperation, hate, pain, and love. Danny pulled at her T-shirt as a suffocating sensation came over her. It felt like her lungs were shutting down on her, one by one.

“Danny, I need to tell you something.” Sarah’s voice sounded like it was in a tunnel.

Danny gasped as tears clouded her eyes. She never thought looking at something so beautiful would cripple her with pain. How could she not think about the first time she met Kit? Danny had spent the better part of the year trying to avoid anything that could remind her of him. The memories gave her comfort and hope. It was that hope that was slowly destroying her, the expectation that if she held on to a little bit of faith, Kit would walk in and hold her in his arms. He would tell her he loved her and promise never to leave her side again. But that was never going to happen. Although in denial, part of Danny had already accepted that horrible reality. So, she’d become everything Kit wouldn’t want her to be, so that wherever he was, he could hate her and himself a little. She wanted him to know she blamed him and needed him to bear the guilt and the weight of the result of his death. She wanted him to be just as miserable as she was.

Hate had kept her going for so long. That was why she was going to marry Chris. She wanted Kit to have a front-row seat at her revenge. This was her betrayal, being with his brother and making their married life the best it could be.

Danny beat her chest with her fist when the pain from her shredding heart got to be too much. She stumbled to her feet and dragged herself into the water.

Maybe it would be better not to feel at all.

***

Kit had returned to Hawaii, not sure what he was expecting from his return. He expected to find Danny sad, just as every wife would be when their husband was missing. But then, she wasn’t at home. He had run into Sarah that morning, as he was about to head off to the airport to go back to Hawaii. She’d told him that Danny was there, and he’d rushed to the cottage to be with her. He had been nervous about her reaction to seeing him, so he excused himself to go to the restroom to straighten himself out. He thought his scar would be the biggest shock between the two of them. He hadn’t expected Danny to fly past him, crying.

She’s so beautiful.

He watched her on the beach. When she fell to her knees he wanted to run to her side and pick her up, into his arms. There were so many things he wanted to do, and yet his feet were cemented to the ground, as he stood in awe of how beautiful she was but heartbroken to watch her pain. What exactly was he supposed to say? Sorry I couldn’t come home sooner. If I knew you loved me this much, I wouldn’t have stayed away so long. I was afraid to let you near me because I’m not your Kit anymore; I’m a shell of a man, afraid of living. There were no right words that could express how sorry he was for causing her so much pain.

There were so many things Kit didn’t think he would be able to get over. His PTSD was one thing. He couldn’t subject Danny to the danger of being with a man whose wounds made him unstable. How was he supposed to sleep next to her if his nightmares drove him to fight with ghosts in the dark? His survivor’s guilt had left him empty inside. For a long time, he hadn’t thought he would be able to love Danny, or their child, because of it. Fear of not being able to be who she needed had kept him away from her. Now she needed him more than he needed her, and the weight of that only made him more afraid. Being next to her, even though it was a hundred meters away, made him feel better. She was like his little sun that shone through the dark clouds, warming up his heart.

Kit took a step forward as she rose to her feet. He was glad he couldn’t see her face, but he imagined it. Her olive skin was probably pale, with tears running down her face, her red, swollen eyes in hurting. Her finger would probably be fisted on her chest, where her broken heart beat. Right now, she would probably be desperate to see his face, and hear his voice. She would want to ease her hurt in his embrace. But he couldn’t move. Kit didn’t know if he could love her the same way he had before, because he wasn’t himself anymore.

Thinking of Danny had kept him alive when he was staring into his dead friend’s eyes. When he’d felt his life float out of his body, he’d fought the pain because he knew he couldn’t leave Danny behind. It was incredible because he had left her, not once, but three times. He had turned his back and walked away to follow his brothers to do their duty. He couldn’t leave with his brothers even though he’d wanted to.

And now, Danny was waiting for him, just like she had done all three times.

Kit’s feet moved on their own, mirroring each step Danny took. She had just made it waist deep into the ocean when the waves enveloped her, and she disappeared. Kit didn’t know how long he had been standing there, staring at nothing, waiting for her to come up from the blanket of the water. It was Sarah’s screams that snapped him out of his trance. Kit ran and dove in, and didn’t come up for air until he found her. What he saw in the water shocked him even more. Her limbs floated lifelessly. She wasn’t trying to survive, and she didn’t put up a fight. Her eyes wide open, their gazes met, and she smiled.

She smiled, and he smiled back.

***

It was a dream, a beautiful dream that she never wanted to wake up from. Kit was here with her. Her eyes closed, her hands on his warm chest and rested just over his heart. She listened to its sweet thump and smiled. Who said the afterlife was so bad? Danny knew she was dead. She could still remember the pain as her lungs struggled to take in a breath, could remember the smile Kit had for her when he’d come for her. She was happy being here with him and only hoped that her family would be happy for her. Danny frowned when she found that there were more bumps on his flesh than she remembered. She opened her eyes and examined him. There were long, angry scars marring his body. She looked up at his face and gasped in shock. Her trembling hands traced the yellowing mark on his cheek.

His hair.

Danny knew that Kit never kept his hair long. He liked looking the part. But there were sometimes that Danny thought Kit was a little stick-in-the-mud. What’s this? An afterlife makeover? Danny held the white bed sheet over her chest as she sat up. Heartbeat. She looked him over once again, then gave herself a once-over. Nothing about her had changed. Minus the clothes, she looked the same s she had when she’d stepped into the water. But Kit looked like he had been in a fight for his life.

For a moment, she thought she had gotten drunk again and ended up in bed with Christopher. But she and Chris had an agreement that they wouldn’t sleep with each other. However, Danny didn’t always have control of her own—or anyone else’s—actions when she was drunk. Danny hadn’t paid much attention to Chris. She couldn’t even remember how long his hair had been the last time they had been together. And Chris was a little too vain and cared too much about his appearance to let his body scar like that.

Danny was just about to shake him awake when he began to tremble. His head whipped from side to side and his once-rested body began to sweat and shake.

“Brody!” he called out.

“Kit?” Danny shook her head. She was sure that this time she had lost her mind.

“Danny!” He called out once more as his body shot off the bed, knocking Danny to the ground.

She tightened the covers around her body as she pushed back away from the bed. He turned to look at her. It was his eyes that told her the truth. Albeit haunted, the way he looked at her—it was Kit.

“Kit…” She breathed out the name through trembling lips.

She reached for him, kissing him, desperately needing the validation that he was there with her. A furious coupling followed the kiss and soon they were both spent and asleep in each other’s arms.

***

Kit sat up on the bed, his chest heaved and his lungs ached at being so overworked. He wiped the sweat off his face as he tried to calm down his panicked body.

“Kit.”

He felt his whole body go still. How could he forget, and fall asleep next to Danny? He wasn’t thinking at all. Kit’s one desire was to be with Danny, to make love to her and hold her in his arms, and he did. It was understandable that he had let his guard down. But why was she on the floor? Kit moved to get off the bed buckling his pants up, as Danny pulled her dress down and scurried away from him. With wide eyes, she stared at him in complete shock. He didn’t understand her reaction. When she had come to, she had been more than happy to see him back. Now she reacted as if she was seeing him for the first time.

“Danny?”

“You are Chris, right? And you are playing a trick on me.” Danny visibly trembled as she spoke.

“Danny, it’s me, Kit.”

Danny shook her head in response, her now long hair flying over her head, covering her face. “They said you were dead. Chris—”

And just as if the sound of his name had summoned him, Chris angrily burst into the room. Kit waited for the happy, excited welcoming hug, but didn’t get it. Instead, Chris snarled at him, walked over to where Danny was, pulled her to her feet with her arm, and dragged her out of the room.

“What the hell?” Kit yelled. He pulled on his trousers and followed them out. But by the time he got outside, all he saw were taillights as the car skidded off.

Kit jumped when he felt a warm hand on his arm. He turned to see Sarah, a concerned look on her face.

“I guess she didn’t tell you. She’s marrying him the day after tomorrow.”

Numb. That was the only word Kit knew to describe what he felt. He waited for betrayal and anger to set in, but they never did. On the drive to the airport, Sarah explained to Kit everything that Danny had been going through. He couldn’t help but blame himself for it. If only he hadn’t stayed away for so long. What he didn’t understand was his twin brother’s reaction at finding him alive. It was as if he’d already known.

What he also didn’t understand was why Reno had gone out of his way to hide his sister away, days before her wedding. But what concerned him more was that Danny had gone back to drinking and Chris wasn’t doing anything about to stop her. Kit was well versed in Chris’ choices, and his antics to control people who rebelled against him. Kit hoped that letting Danny drink wasn’t Chris’ way to keep her by his side.

Kit had gone to the house and after twenty minutes of calming down a shocked housekeeper, he was able to get the location of the engagement dinner. He didn’t think about anyone else’s reaction when he went to the restaurant. He only had one thing on his mind and that was to take back what belonged to him.

He hadn’t prepared himself for the reaction his family would have to his return. He barged into the room, two waiters trying their best to dissuade him, but failing. When he walked in, they were all seated together, like one big happy family. The gasps, the cries and his name being called out as they hugged him didn’t distract Kit from his target. Everyone but Chris and Danny were on their feet, congratulating him for being alive again.

Chris had his hand over Danny’s, and she had her fingers curled around a glass of brandy. One look at Reno and DJ, and Kit could see that they were slowly defeated and about to give up. But then when they looked at him, he saw hope, as if their sister’s salvation had just walked in. Kit pushed his parents aside and with three strides got to where Danny sat. Chris stood up, blocking his path.

“What are you doing?” Chris asked.

“You don’t seem so happy to see me, considering I just came back from the dead.”

“You weren’t dead. You were in Germany, playing nursemaid to other injured soldiers,” Chris smirked.

“You knew!” Danny screamed.

It was obvious that she had already drunk one too many. Kit grabbed the glass in her hand and threw it against the wall.

“What are you doing?”

“You knew he was alive and didn’t say anything?” This time, it was their mother that asked.

Kit’s eyes were glued to Danny. She sat, her back straight and her eyes stuck to the wall in front of her. This was the behaviour that worried Kit most about Danny, when she was silent. He had yet to figure out everything that went on in her head.

“The only reason I found where Reno had hidden Danny was because I was tracking Kit,” Chris said to their mother nonchalantly.

Kit’s gaze didn’t waver, not even when he heard the sharp sound of flesh hitting flesh when their mother hit Chris. “Danny,” Kit called out to her.

“Danny and I are getting married,” Chris announced to the room, but Kit knew it was directed at him.

“You can’t,” Kit said.

“Why, because you said so?”

“No, because she’s, my wife.”

Kit felt the air shift as the whole room went silent and still. For a moment, he thought that the battle was over, that it was time to take his wife home.

“There is no baby. There never was,” Danny mumbled. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain. And you were so willing to marry me—”

“I don’t care,” Kit blurted out. He had wondered where their child could be when he and Danny were back in Hawaii. Sarah had gently explained that, as well. He felt like an idiot for not confirming the pregnancy before dragging her to the justice of the peace. “Let’s go home.”

“I care.” Danny stood up, and angrily pushed him. “I care that I almost died thinking that you were gone. I care that you decided to stay away instead of being with me. I care that once again, the SEAL code came before me.”

“She doesn’t want you,” Chris said as he put his arm around Danny.

Danny shook him off and stepped up to Kit. Kit saw it all now, what he had put her through. What he’d seen at the beach didn’t hurt as much as the look in Danny’s eyes: betrayal.

“Christian, my Kit.” He cupped her cheek and caught her tear with his thumb. “My Kit, I love him, I still love him.” Hope swelled in his chest only to have a pin stuck into it. “But he keeps leaving me.”

Danny was obviously mad that he was alive. After hearing what she’d gone through, he, too, was a little mad. If he’d actually been dead, then there would have been an actual point to all the pain she’d borne. Kit thought of giving her a chance to fall in love with Chris, just as her brother had requested. But that was too hard for him. She was the reason he’d come back to life, and he wasn’t willing to let go. He was just about to reject Chris’ request when Danny said something he never thought he would hear in his entire life.

“I’m leaving with Chris.”

***

I’m leaving with Chris.

“I must be stupid,” Danny mumbled to herself once she was in her room in Chris’ apartment. She was just so mad. How could he stay away for so long when he must have known she was desperate to see him? Danny had decided to leave with Chris as a way to punish Kit, but instead, she felt like she was punishing herself.

“What are you doing here? You are a married woman.” Danny grabbed her purse and slipped on her sneakers. She was impulsive and irresponsible. It was something Kit had grown to know about her. Turning up at his house hours after she had basically rejected him wouldn’t be surprising to him at all. Danny got to the front door and froze, her hand over the handle.

“I went to Hawaii for some time off, a boys’ trip. Do you think I expected to meet the only woman I would love?” Here she was, her father’s daughter, uttering the same words that he had almost eight years before, to her mother. However, she couldn’t lie. Danny loved Chris in her own way. As Kit’s brother. He was there when she’d needed Kit the most. His resemblance to the man she was in love with gave her comfort. But now, Christian, her Kit, was back. She couldn’t go on using Chris the way she had been doing for the past year.

“Danny, where are you going?”

Danny froze at the sound of Chris’ voice. He’d caught her trying to sneak out of their apartment again. What excuse was she supposed to use now? “I’m going to see my niece and nephew. I want to help Eve out. It’s the first night with little Dennis home.”

“Are you sure?” Chris walked out of the light of the bedroom and into the darkness of the living room. He looked so intimidating. “It’s ten o’clock at night. You are going to see my brother, aren’t you?”

Yes. “I don’t want to argue, Chris. I told you this before we got together in the first place. I will always love Kit.”

“I got that. Your outburst during our engagement dinner: ‘I love him, I still love him.’ It was ridiculous and embarrassing, considering everyone heard you.”

“I thought the love of my life was dead. Then in true Evie fashion, he walks in during our engagement dinner. You were trying to keep me from him.”

“You had sex with him that day I tracked you down, am I right?” Danny didn’t say a word. She knew it was better to be quiet when Christopher got this riled up. “Why won’t you have sex with me? I have been patient for a whole year.”

“Me too.” Danny shook her head, not quite sure what she was doing with Christopher, or why the wedding was still on. Their mothers had decided that they couldn’t take the embarrassment of disinviting everyone. She wondered if their shame would survive when she was being carted off to prison for bigamy. “I couldn’t be with you because I couldn’t cheat on my husband.”

“What!”

“Kit and I…we are married. I have to be with him.”

Danny’s phone shrieked from her purse. She wasn’t going to be rude and pick it up just as she was ripping Chris’ heart into shreds—although she wanted to. She intended to take any opportunity that would help her escape the tension in the room.

“Answer it. It’s probably your husband.”

“Hello?”

“Miss Kent?”

“Yes?”

“I have been trying to reach your father and your brothers, but I can’t seem to get through. I have some news. I found your sister.”

“Oh God!”

“What is it?” Chris asked.

“They found Rhyne.” Danny hugged him, her joy superseding her sensibilities. “I have to go see my brothers.”

“We can take the train. I’ll take you.”

“Are you sure?”