“I knew you could protect me. I knew you could help me but I came to you for a different reason.”
“What was that?”
Steady, determined, she held my gaze. “Do you remember the first time we met?”
“Kinda hard to forget.” She was beautiful then and she was beautiful now. She’d stood out that night but I didn’t poach.
“Do you remember what you said to me that night before you left?”
“I told you good night.” What was she getting at?
“You said, ‘Good night, beautiful. I hope I see you again.’”
I smiled. “You are beautiful.”
“You said it like you meant it.” Her voice turned quiet. “And I felt like you really did want to see me again.”
I was missing something. “I did.”
She averted her gaze. “No one’s ever said that to me.”
I closed my eyes a moment, feeling the weight of her admission.
“Maddie was missing,” she went on. “I was drowning…you made me feel like I wasn’t invisible.”
My heart hurt. “Siren, if I’d known—”
“I know.” She nodded quickly then glanced down at Maddie. “She wouldn’t have been gone this long.”
Damn fucking right but I couldn’t make her feel worse. I tipped her chin and waited till her eyes found mine. “It’s over now.”
“I’ve been thinking about something you said.”
“I said a lot of things.” I stupidly wondered how much more she could gut me.
“Maybe if you hadn’t lost your wife and Maddie hadn’t been taken, we wouldn’t be here.”
I didn’t deal in what-if’s. Life wasn’t a hypothesis or a test run but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about how death came to both of us. “We’ll never know.”
She smiled sadly. “No, I suppose not.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not grateful as hell for where I’m sittin’ right now.”
“Me, too.” Her soft voice settled around my heart and I relaxed for the first time in days.
The plane made a noticeable drop in altitude and Maddie stirred. Siren casually reached for the cup Neil had bought and held it to Maddie’s lips. Eyes closed, her small body looking relaxed in sleep, Maddie’s mouth attached to the cup’s spout and sucked.
“She didn’t even open her eyes,” I whispered, in awe of this little girl’s adaptability.
Siren stroked her hair. “She’s too tired. She’s been through a lot.”
Understatement of the century. “So have you.”
Siren shrugged, not showing an ounce of the anger I was sure she’d be harboring. “If I teach her nothing else, I want to teach her to be resilient.”
I reached out and ran my thumb over Maddie’s tiny foot. “I think she’s got that one covered, darlin’. Her mama’s the strongest woman I’ve ever met.”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “Why do you have two accents?”
Taken off guard by her abrupt change of subject and the question, I joked, “Where I’m from, you’d be the one with an accent.”
She didn’t comment and I took a deep breath, because I knew I was about to explain to her another part of myself I didn’t share. With anyone.
“I used to try and hide where I came from. I thought success meant losing the accent. Medics with a Southern twang aren’t taken too seriously in the Marines. Half the time I got accused of fakin’ it and the other half, I got relentlessly hazed so I worked at droppin’ it. Took a couple years but I could talk like a born-and-bred Yankee. Then I met my wife. She was cultured and poised and I thought she deserved a man who held his own in her world.”
Siren turned and looked at me with wide eyes. “How you’re speaking to me now, you didn’t speak that way to her?”
“Nope.” Not even once.
“But I love your accent,” she blurted.
I grinned, liking the sound of that way too much. “Back atcha.”
“I don’t have…” She caught herself and smiled then her features turned serious. “Did you nickname her?”
“Why all the questions?”
She turned back to Maddie and fussed with her blanket. “I’m just curious.”
“LeighLeigh,” I answered, waiting for an ache in my chest to blindside me that never came.
“She wasn’t a siren?” she half joked.
“I don’t compare her to you.”
“I wasn’t asking that,” she said quickly.
“Yes, you were.” And I didn’t blame her. I had skeletons, same as her.
She brought her gaze back to mine. “Do you miss her?”