What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(9)

“What do you want? I am trying. I have been trying. I simply don’t know how to form that kind of bond with her. With any child.” When she looked at Rae, when she felt twinges of affection, she was transported to that terrible moment in Afghanistan when—

The smell of charred wood and burned flesh. A metal coil melted in the dirt and the knowledge of young lives ended too soon.

He sensed nothing of her terrible memories; instead, he smiled as if bitterly amused. “That’s part of the problem. If you’d hidden in a day care instead of the Army, we’d have somewhere to start. But when Rae hugs you, you flinch.”

There weren’t enough pain relievers in the world to get Kellen through this conversation without anguish. “It’s not that I don’t want to be part of Rae’s life. I do. But I have never loved anyone without grief.” God. Had she really said that?

He focused on her so sharply she would have scampered backward if she could move. As it was, she could only stare back and wish she could pass out.

No such luck.

He leaned forward, put his hands on either side of her hips and spoke right into her face. “I’d tell you not to worry about the pain, but that would be lying. Being a father is the most excruciating torture I’ve ever endured, and that includes losing you. Being a parent is worrying every time Rae leaves my sight. I want to wrap her in Bubble Wrap, and instead, when she falls out of a tree and splits her chin open, I have to tell her to shake it off and admire her stitches. When she gets bullied, I hurt for her, and I want to step up and tell that little girl to knock it off or give her and her mother a good thump on the head. Instead, I have to read up on techniques to handle bullies and discuss them with Rae. I worry about her math skills, her reading skills. When she’s five minutes late, I remember how kind she is and hope to God some pervert doesn’t tell her he needs help, because no matter how clearly I tell her she has to be careful with strangers, I know she would go to help a stranger with a good story and I’ll never see her again.”

“Dear God.” Kellen pressed her knuckles to her stomach.

Max continued, “She’s going to get older, she’s going to go through adolescence and be miserable, because that’s what adolescence is. She’ll have pimples and braces. She’ll date the wrong guy. She’ll be hurt every day and she won’t admit it to me. I’ll do the wrong thing. Say the wrong thing. I know these are the good times. I know it’s going to get worse.”

Kellen was horrified. “Why does anybody want to be a parent?”

He thought about it, grinned. “Well. When I was sleeping with you, becoming a parent was the last thing on my mind.”

Kellen remembered only fragments of the times she’d spent with him, but somehow the moments in his bed were imprinted on her mind; the hours when he lingered over body, the deep kisses that tasted of wine and passion, the weight of his body covering hers, the way he taught her to pleasure him. She hadn’t brought out those memories, but now, here they were, dusky with sunset and bright with sunrise. “Right,” she whispered.

He seemed unaware, sounded matter-of-fact. “But I did always want to be a father. Didn’t you ever want to be a mother?”

“Yes, but I thought it was impossible and...”

“And?”

She rocked back and forth, caught herself and stopped the betraying gesture. “I didn’t think I was fit.”

“Why not?”

“I did such a lousy job of...of becoming an adult. Of picking a partner.” She was skittering around a truth she didn’t want to discuss, not with Max. Not with anybody. She had a victim’s mentality. Somehow, even now, she felt guilty about her husband’s abuse. “While I was living on the streets, I almost got killed and raped. I was such a disaster.” She didn’t remember over a year of her life. Why did she have to remember all the bad stuff?

“While you were in a coma, I kept your papers in a locker close to you, in your hospital room. You had been so protective of those papers. They’d seemed to give you a sense of safety. That turned out to be not so smart, since when you woke, you got dressed, took them and joined the Army.” He was getting to the meat of the matter. “But in the meantime, I used them to research you and your family.”

Just like that, everything got complicated. “You did? Of course you would. That’s fair.”

“Your cousin was Cecilia, married to Gregory Lykke, and they were involved in an infamous murder/suicide.”

Kellen breathed slowly, trying to slow the spinning of her head. “That’s right.”

“You’re Kellen, Cecilia’s cousin, and you witnessed the deaths. The police wanted you for questioning.” Max spoke slowly, as if trying to find the right path through a minefield of personal information.

“That’s right, too.”

“When I met you, you told me your name was Ceecee.”

She wet her lips. Ceecee, her childhood name, short for Cecilia.

He tapped his blunt fingers on the blankets and watched them. “I suppose you didn’t want to talk to the police? You were keeping a low profile?”

“Yes.” That made sense. It was even true.

He nodded, but he stared up at her as if he didn’t believe or didn’t understand or something equally uncomfortable. “You look very much like your cousin Cecilia.”