She put her fork down and sat back. “Tell me, please.”
“I was thinking of BUD/S training. He was struggling a little, not as much as most of the others, but enough to worry him apparently. For some reason, he made up his mind I was going to make it through and attached himself to me like a damned leech. Annoyed the hell out of me.”
He smiled as he remembered Evan’s words. “I can’t speak with his Texas twang, but when I tried to discourage him, he said something close to this: ‘Not going nowhere, Kincaid, not gonna ring that bell. You got a look in your eyes that says you’re gonna barrel your way through this, and I reckon I’m just gonna hang on to your shirttail and let you drag my sorry ass along.’ I don’t know how he managed it, but he got himself assigned as my swim buddy. Do you know what that means?”
Her lips curved in a fond smile. “Yeah, it means you couldn’t go anywhere without him, not even to the can. He probably drove you crazy at first, but then you couldn’t help yourself, you started to like him, right?”
“That I did. I’ll admit there were times I thought about killing him.” He loved the way she laughed at that, understanding how Evan could make him crazy even when he’d loved the man. “I loved him like a brother, Dani, and I miss the hell out of him.”
Tears pooled in her eyes. Why had he brought this up? They were both going to be bawling in a minute.
She placed her hand over his, something he’d noticed she did each time he wanted to climb out of his skin. “I know,” she said. “Thank you for sharing your memories of him. It means the world to me. I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I was mad at you when you didn’t come see me after you got out of the hospital. I had this idea we’d go out, have a few beers, and trade Evan stories. But you never came.”
Logan exhaled a long breath. Christ, how many ways had he failed her? “I couldn’t. I tried, but I just couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
Although he’d been one at the time, he refused to act the coward now. He met her eyes. “I didn’t keep him safe for you, and I just couldn’t face you. I was wrong not to come.”
“Oh, Logan.” Surprising him, she crawled onto his lap, rested her head on his shoulder, and laced her fingers through his. “I should have realized that was why. If I had, I would’ve come to you. You have nothing to feel guilty about. It was war, nothing more, nothing less.”
She’d said that before, said it to absolve him. Over and over again, she kept turning his world upside down. The feel of her, the scent of her, the warmth of her hand in his, her words that she would have come to him, all of it hurt because he wanted it so badly, wanted it forever.
“Before we left for Pensacola, you said something I didn’t understand, but now I think I’m beginning to,” she said.
He rubbed his cheek over her hair. It seemed this was another night for confessions, but he was almost afraid to ask to what she referred. In the last week, he’d bared his soul to her and wasn’t sure he could stand much more. He asked anyway. “What’s that?”
“When you said it was a matter of honor. You think I belong to Evan and that you don’t have the right to be with me. Am I right?”
“That’s a part of it. It was all mixed up with all that other stuff I told you about.”
She sat up and straddled his thighs. “So how is it different if I’m with someone else?”
A low rumble left his throat. There was only one man he would step aside for now, and that was Evan, if he rose from the dead. Unable to answer her question without giving himself away, he slipped his hand behind her neck and brought her mouth to his.
Sliding his hand down her back to the curve of her waist, Logan groaned when she pushed her tongue into his mouth. When she rubbed herself across his erection, he pressed his fingers into her skin. It wasn’t until she pulled away that he realized Regan was crying.
She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed herself up. “Sorry.”
No more sorry than he was. He leaned his head back on the couch and watched her through half-closed eyes. Her love and care for her daughter never ceased to fascinate him. Until now, he’d never quite understood just how much he and Maria had missed. If he somehow got very lucky and Dani fell in love with him, agreed to marry him, he thought he might want at least a half-dozen kids so he could spend his days watching her love them.
“She’s hungry and needs a bath,” Dani said, bouncing a teary Regan on her hip.
“Need help?”
“No, why don’t you find something on TV, and I’ll be back soon.”