Someone Like Her(81)

 “Ah, I’d appreciate it if you’d reconsider that particular threat,” Dani said, amusement in her voice.

 Maria stopped her pacing, giving her sister-in-law a sheepish shrug. “It was the best one I could think of. Make him tell me. I know you can wheedle it out of him if anyone can.”

 Dani blinked her eyes seductively at her husband. “Tell her, sweetie.”

 “He’s pitched a tent at St. George Island State Park. There, are you happy?”

 Deliriously. She glared at her brother. “You mean all I had to do was blink my eyes at you to get you to spill?”

 Logan snorted. “No, it only works when Dani does it.” He leaned his head back on the sofa and sighed. “Jake doesn’t want you to find him, but I think it’s time you did. Sit down and listen.”

 Maria pushed his feet off the ottoman and plopped her butt on it. “I’ve been wanting to listen to you . . . or Jake, anybody that would talk to me since everything went all wrong. What happened in Egypt?”

 Her brother exchanged a look with Dani, who nodded. That was what Maria wanted more than anything in the world, even more than passing the bar, which, until Jake, had always been number one on her list. The kind of silent exchange she watched pass between Logan and his wife—the kind that didn’t need words because they understood each other in a way no one else could. She wanted that with the man she loved and was prepared to fight for it with everything that defined her.

 As she listened to Logan, her belief that she could overcome anything Jake was facing fell. Because of the decision he’d made to come to her rescue, Jake believed—maybe rightly so—that he was responsible for Rick’s death.

 Because he hadn’t stepped off the plane with the rest of the team, their contact had spooked and it had all gone south from there. Worse, according to Logan, it had been Jake’s decision not to call off the mission when he realized Rick wasn’t ready to be back in the field. If it hadn’t been for her, Jake would’ve been on the plane with his team. Stupid, stupid Maria. Why did she have to go searching for a father who’d never tried to find her?

 The guilt of what Jake was going through because of her, the memory of Fortunada’s hands groping her, and the too-peaceful face of Rick lying in his coffin while his father stood over him and wept, leveled a hard punch to her abdomen. Her stomach heaved and she ran out of the room, barely making it to the bathroom before losing her lunch into the porcelain bowl.

 “It’ll all be all right, sweetie. There now, let me help you.”

 Maria lifted from her bend over the toilet and leaned into Dani’s warmth. “It’s my fault. Oh, God, Dani, it’s my fault Rick was killed. How can Jake ever forgive me or himself?”

 Dani brushed Maria’s hair from her face. “No, you can’t think that way. Let me have Mrs. Jankowski bring us up some tea, and we’ll have ourselves a little talk about men and why they get these notions in their heads. Okay?”

 Maria nodded. “Okay. I’ll wait for you on your deck.” Logan and Dani had a deck outside their bedroom with a beautiful view of the Gulf, and Maria stretched out on a chaise. Shaded by the deck’s roof, she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the waves hitting the shore as a soft, warm breeze blew over her. She hadn’t slept well the past few nights, and as she felt herself dozing off, she realized she should have come out here to sleep.

 Yawning, she opened her eyes to find Dani in the opposite chaise, nursing baby Evan. On the table between them was an empty mug and a glass of red wine. She sat up and stretched.

 “I thought we were both having tea.”

 Dani chuckled. “That was three hours ago, sweetie. It’s wine o’clock, and although I can’t have any while nursing my little man here, no reason you can’t.”

 “Wow, three hours? I didn’t mean to do that.” Dani called both her and Logan “sweetie,” but when she used the endearment with her husband, there was a different sound to it. More intimate, softer. It was wrong to envy their love for each other, but she did.

 “I’m guessing you needed it. Haven’t been sleeping too good, have you?”

 “No, I’m so worried about Jake, and wish I hadn’t gone looking for a father, and . . . and stuff.” She’d almost said, “And if I hadn’t been so pathetically needy wanting a parent who loved me, Jake would have been on the plane with his team when he was supposed to be.” Everything might have gone down the way it was supposed to then. Nothing could change the fact that the blame for the screwed-up mission pointed right at her.