Page 25 of Deadly Past

“Is that coffee I smell?” she asked in a less-than-steady voice.

He seemed to realize the need to shift the conversation to safer ground. “It is. And I made waffles.”

Wynona realized she was hungry. “What can I do to help?”

Declan pulled out one of the kitchen chairs. “Nothing. Have a seat.”

She slid into the chair, conscious of his every movement. Declan had left two plates warming on the stove. He carried both over and then poured coffee.

Once they’d prayed, Wynona cut off a piece of the waffle and popped it into her mouth. “This is delicious.”

He dug into his. “Thanks. I’ve become pretty good at waffles, believe it or not.”

She held her hand over her mouth as she chewed the bite. “I do believe it.”

He chuckled.

Curiosity about his life since they parted arose. “You said that you and JT and Eli founded the Hope Island Securities team. That must have been challenging.”

Declan grabbed his coffee and took a sip. “It was. Thankfully, we all had a military background, so we were able to handle ourselves against anything, and JT was a former police officer. In the beginning, it was hard. Most of our cases ended up being finding a lost relative or worse, watching a cheating spouse.” He grimaced. “But slowly, we’ve grown and are taking on more challenging cases. We’ve added Janine, a former FBI agent. We get a lot of different clients now who have one thing in common. They all come to us for help. We’re a Christian-based business, and we do everything we can to find answers for our clients and to give them hope.”

She smiled at his convictions. “That’s nice. I’m happy for you.” And she was. Yet she still wondered what might have happened had they both been able to talk about what stood between them.

“Thanks.” He watched her over his coffee cup. “I’m really sorry, Wynona.”

She swallowed several times before looking up. “For what?”

“For not being the person you needed me to be. For withdrawing into myself after that last tour of duty…” His voice trailed off. He had her full attention. “It’s still hard to talk about, but I should have been able to tell you.”

She reached over and clasped his hand. “What happened?”

He stared at their joined hands for a long time. “It wasn’t so much what happened, but the fact that it was the final straw. We’d been fighting the Taliban for weeks, and we’d finally pushed them back.” He paused for a breath. “There was this small village—” His voice broke, and she braced for what was to come. “They’d killed everyone, Wynona. Women. Children. Old people. All because the village had helped us out in the past.”

Wynona sprang up from her chair and went around to him. She put her arms around him and held him close. She could feel the quaking of emotion and realized she’d failed him. Instead of sticking around when things got hard, she’d bailed.

“I’m so sorry, I let you down.” He glanced up at her with tears in his eyes, and her heart broke.

“You didn’t let me down, Declan. Just the opposite. I let you down. And for that, I’m sorry.” She gave him another hug and then returned to her chair.

“It’s hard for soldiers to talk about what they’ve seen. We’re supposed to be strong, yet we see things that threaten to crack most of us.” He wiped a hand across his eyes. “JT and I started a support group for veterans on the island so we’d have a safe place to talk about it.”

“That’s wonderful.” He was taking charge, and she was proud of him.

“Thanks. That’s enough about me. How have you been really?”

He’d known how hard it was for her losing Lacey. When her father left, Wynona had stuffed the pain down deep and had thrown herself into first school and then her military position. Though she’d loved Declan, she kept so much of herself from him. Wynona hadn’t really told him how devastating losing her sister had been. She wanted to change that now.

He was waiting for an answer. She swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“Truthfully, barely keeping it together. I need to apologize to you, too, Declan. I was a mess most of my life. Running from one thing to the other while trying to shut out what happened to Lacey. I went into our marriage thinking loving you could fix what was wrong with me. That wasn’t fair to you, and for that I’m sorry.”

He winced as if what she’d said hurt. “I guess we both had things we didn’t want to talk about.”

Their eyes met and held. Her heart broke over what might have been. If only Lacey hadn’t been taken from her. If only she and Declan had met under different circumstances.

Someone knocked on the front door. Wynona sucked in a breath. “Are you expecting someone?”

He shook his head and scraped back his chair. “Stay here.” He grabbed her weapon and placed it on the table beside her—a reminder of the danger that could be standing on the opposite side of that door.

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