Page 77 of The Art of Loving Lacy
“I feel a little better having talked to the kids,” Sheila said. “My parents should be here in half an hour. Did he move at all?”
Lacy barely registered her words. Tears tumbled down her cheeks. She felt sick to her stomach.
“Lacy?” Sheila said.
Lacy didn’t respond. She couldn’t. What if it had been Dane? What if it was Dane tomorrow or next year?
“Lacy? Honey, are you okay? Should I get the nurse?”
She felt Sheila’s arm around her shoulder, she heard her voice, but she couldn’t process the words she was saying.
“What are you going to do?” The words came out as a whisper, without thought, without inflection. Flat and dry.
“I’m going to stay right here until Rob wakes up. And if he doesn’t wake up, I’m going to sit here some more. I can’t lose him, Lacy. I have to believe he’ll be okay.” Sheila touched her arm. “Honey, are you okay?”
Lacy managed a nod.
“Dane said Rob told him he was quitting, and he’d offered Rob a job driving the boat and helping in other ways, not diving, not tagging. I think Dane’s still in shock. He’s having a really hard time.”
Lacy shook her head.
“Lacy?”
“Huh?” she said.
Sheila looked at Rob, then back at Lacy. “Lacy, why don’t you go be with Dane? He needs you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AFTER SHEILA’S PARENTS took the kids home with them to Connecticut and Sheila assured Dane and Lacy that she’d be okay staying with Rob, Lacy drove Dane back to the marina in silence. When they arrived at Treat’s boat, Lacy followed Dane down to the cabin, clutching her keys and unable to think past the accident. She couldn’t get the image of Rob out of her mind, and Sheila’s words pummeled her mind over and over until she felt like they were coming from her own lips.For all these years Rob has done what he loves doing with little regard for what it does to the people who love him.
“Lacy, we should talk.” Dane’s eyes were full of sadness, but the rest of his face was emotionless. His mouth hung slightly open, and there were tension lines across his forehead. He looked as though he was still in shock.
Lacy was unable to concentrate or even think past the new worry that had taken over her mind.
He sank onto a cushioned bench. He didn’t reach for her hand; he didn’t pull her close. He didn’t look into her eyes the way he always had. Dane folded his hands in his lap.
“My job is risky,” he said.
“It is,” she said robotically.
“When I held Rob’s lifeless body in my arms…” Tears sprang from his eyes. “I was sure I’d lost him.”
Seeing Dane cry tugged tears from her eyes, too.
Dane stared at the floor. “He might not wake up. Sheila and the kids might lose him tonight. Lacy, he quit before we dove. He was giving up diving, and now…now he might never wake up again.”
“Yes.” Lacy’s mind was impotent. She couldn’t form a coherent thought. She felt reality staring her in the face. Dane could have been the one who was hit. Their conversation came rushing back to her.What if something happened to you? What if I gave up everything and, I don’t know, you get eaten by a shark or something?He’d answered her so easily, like the risks associated with his job weren’t real.Lacy, that’s not going to happen.She held on to the wall for stability.
“I can’t do it to you, Lacy. I can’t ask you to be with me knowing the reality of what could happen,” Dane said. “I can’t live knowing that you could end up in the same place that Sheila is right now.” His voice was cold and hard.
“I know.” Fresh tears sprang from her eyes. She clenched her keys so hard they cut into her skin.
Dane shook his head. “I promised not to fall in love with you.” He raised cold eyes to her, and when he spoke, his words came out hot and mean. “I lied. I love you, Lacy. But I love you too much to let you be with me.”
“I understand.” Lacy couldn’t feel her face. Her lips were numb.
“You should go. It’s too hard to see you, knowing we shouldn’t be together.” Dane looked away then, his hands fisted by his sides, his teeth gritted. “Leave, Lace. Please leave. You deserve a life with a man who will come home every night in one piece. Alive. Please, just go.”
