In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)(61)

Daisy stared at the screen as the attackers fled and Taylor threw herself on her boyfriend’s limp body. Normally, this was the point where Daisy mocked the woman’s lack of first-aid skills and ranted to Chris about how her clutching the semiconscious man had probably just aggravated a spinal injury, but Daisy wasn’t seeing the movie anymore. She was sixteen and huddled in the corner of Miller’s Convenience Store, trying to hide behind a display of individually wrapped Little Debbie snack cakes.

“Dais.” Chris must have moved, since he was right next to her. Cupping her face with both of his hands, he tipped her head so she had to look at him. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

“No. You’re right. I just sat there and did nothing to help her.” It was too hard to keep eye contact when Chris looked at her like that, with so much kindness and sympathy that she didn’t deserve. Her gaze shifted to his left eyebrow. “I even screamed at exactly the wrong time. I wasn’t just useless like Taylor; I was destructive.”

Despite her effort to avoid his eyes, he moved his head slightly so she couldn’t help but meet them. His fingers tightened, not quite enough to hurt. “Your mom was just shot in front of you. I think you’re allowed to scream.” His voice was rough, as if something was caught in his throat.

“No.” Since he wasn’t letting her dodge his gaze, she closed her eyes completely. She’d held these words inside of her for eight years and, now that she’d started letting them out, she couldn’t seem to stop. “It was a second before he pulled the trigger. I startled him. I screamed, and he shot, and she fell. That’s how it went.”

“No. No, that’s not how it went. Daisy, look at me.” Although she really didn’t want to open her eyes, it was hard for her to deny him anything, especially when he was being so serious, so intense. She met his gaze. “I was there, Dais. I was there, and that’s not how things went down.”

A remote part of her brain was touched that Chris would lie to try to make her feel better, but she couldn’t duck the responsibility of what she’d done. “It was, Chris. I see it happen every night.”

“Oh, Dais.” It was Chris’s turn to close his eyes, and when he opened them again, his expression was fierce. “You’re not the only one watching the reruns. I was the first deputy on scene after the call went out.”

“Did someone outside see what was going on?” she asked. “I always wondered how you got there so fast.”

He frowned. “Didn’t anyone tell you what happened?”

She tugged on his wrists, and he released her. It felt good to be touching him, though, so she shifted her hands and tangled her fingers with his. “I never wanted to discuss it—or even think about it. Besides, people probably figured I already knew, since I was there.” There in the corner, screaming at just the wrong time.

Her explanation didn’t seem to placate him. “I’m sorry, Dais. I should’ve told you a long time ago, but you always used to walk away when I tried to bring it up, and I…well, I hated talking about it, too. I didn’t realize you were blaming yourself all these years. The clerk pushed the emergency button under the counter, and Dispatch sent out the call that an alarm had been triggered at Miller’s Convenience Store. I was only a block away, so I was the first deputy on scene. Almost all of those types of calls end up being false alarms, but I’d only been working as a deputy for six months, so my heart started beating fast. I’d been on my own for just three weeks after finishing my probationary training period, and I hadn’t had time to get bitter and jaded yet.”

As he paused, she watched the muscles in his jaw work. Listening to him tell the story made her feel disconnected from it, as if everything that had happened that day had ruined someone else’s life, not her own. It was completely different from her nightmares, which allowed her to say fairly calmly, “I can’t imagine you ever getting bitter and jaded.”

Chris smiled, but it was faint and disappeared quickly. “Miller always had those promo posters hanging in the windows, so I couldn’t see what was going on inside. I had my gun out, and I was worried that would scare people in the store if it was just a false alarm. As soon as I entered, though, I saw him, saw them both…him and your mom.”

“You yelled, ‘Sheriff’s department! Drop your weapon!’ over and over.” She squeezed his hands. “I was so relieved to hear that. I hadn’t thought that help would ever come, and then there you were.”

His lips pressed together until they almost disappeared. “I didn’t see you at first. All I could see was a man with a gun pointed at a woman’s skull. She looked so scared.”

“Yeah, she did.” The story had become hers again, and tears rushed to fill her eyes. Daisy clenched her teeth to try to hold them back, but there were too many, and they flowed over her cheeks and dripped off her jaw. Chris’s eyes focused on her face, bringing him back from that convenience store eight years ago, and he tugged his hands free from her grip.

“I’m sorry, Dais.” He wiped at her cheeks with the backs of his fingers, but tears just kept coming.

“Not your fault,” she said, hating the hiccup that interrupted her words.

Apparently giving up on drying her face, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into him. Daisy rested her forehead against his shoulder and tried to concentrate on how good Chris smelled, like wood smoke and brownies, rather than remembering the acrid tang of urine when she’d wet herself in fear. Even dumb and useless movie-Taylor hadn’t peed her pants like a baby.