Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [1030]
“It’s okay,” Brock said, reaching up to sweep aside a loose tendril of her hair. “You all right?”
She gave him a wobbly nod, even though inside she was hardly all right. Her chest was raw with anguish and guilt, her eyes burning with welling tears. “Mitch and I argued the whole time. He thought the roads were too bad for travel. They were, but another storm was on the way, which would only make things worse. I didn’t want to wait out the weather because I needed to report in for my shift the next day. So we headed home. Mitch was driving the Blazer. Libby was in her car seat in back. A couple of hours onto the highway, a tractor trailer carrying a full load of timber crossed into our lane. There was no time to react. No time to say I was sorry, or to tell either of them how much I loved them.”
“Come here,” Brock said, and gathered her close. He held her for a long time, his strength so comforting and warm.
“Mitch accused me of caring about my career more than I did him or Libby,” she whispered, her voice broken, the words hard to get out. “He used to say I was too controlling, too stubborn for my own good. But he always gave in, even then.”
Brock kissed the top of her head. “You didn’t know what would happen, Jenna. You couldn’t have known, so don’t blame yourself. It was out of your control.”
“I just feel so guilty that I survived. Why couldn’t it have been me who died, not them?” Tears strangled her now, hot and bitter in her throat. “I never even got a chance to say good-bye. I was medevaced to the hospital in Fairbanks and put in a coma to help my body recover. When I woke up a month later, I learned they were both gone.”
“Jesus,” Brock whispered, still holding her in the caring shelter of his embrace. “I’m sorry, Jenna. God, how you must have been hurting.”
She swallowed, trying not to lose herself in the agony of those awful days. It helped that Brock was there to hold her now. He was a rock of strength, keeping her grounded and steady.
“When I got out of the hospital, I was so lost. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t want to accept the fact that I would never see my family again. Alex and my brother, Zach, had taken care of the funerals, since no one knew when I might come out of the coma. By the time I was released from the hospital, Mitch and Libby were already cremated. I’ve never had the courage to go to the cemetery where they are interred.”
“Not in all this time?” he asked gently, his fingers stroking her hair.
She shook her head. “I wasn’t ready to see their gravestones so soon after the accident, and every year that passed, I never found the strength to go and tell them good-bye. No one knows that, not even Alex. I’ve been too ashamed to tell anyone just how weak I really am.”
“You’re not weak.” Brock set her away from him, only enough that he could bend his head down and stare her solemnly in the eyes. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jenna. Everyone has regrets and guilt for things they should have done differently in their lives. Shit happens, and we do the best we can at the time. You can’t blame yourself forever.”
His words soothed her, but she couldn’t accept all that he was saying. She’d seen him grapple too much with his own guilt to know that he was only being kind now. “You’re just telling me this to make me feel better. I know you don’t really believe it yourself.”
He frowned, a quiet torment passing over his face in the darkness of the Rover.
“What was her name?” Jenna touched his now rigid jaw, seeing the remembered pain in his eyes. “The girl in the old photograph in your quarters—I saw how you looked at her picture last night. You knew her, didn’t you?”
A nod, barely discernible. “Her name was Corinne. She’s the young Breedmate I was hired to guard back in Detroit.