More than anything, she prayed to just forget about it.
Wrapping her arms around herself, Alani sought to stifle her reaction. She drummed up a pathetic smile. “It’s old news, Dare. No reason to rehash it.”
“You know, hon, Molly has told me everything.” He bent to meet her averted eyes. “It’s important to talk about it. I know you’re doing okay now, and I know you’ve moved on. Trace and I are both proud of you.”
Absurd. She’d given neither of them reason to be proud.
“But it stays in here.” With one finger he touched the center of her chest above her breasts. “And here.” He brushed that same fingertip to her temple. “Until you share it.”
“I have shared,” she tried to say with a straight face. “With you and Trace.”
Too astute for his own good, Dare shook his head. “I got you out of there. I understand why talking to me would be too much. And with the way Trace reacted, I know you never wanted to burden him more.”
And it would have been a burden. In some ways, though he hid it well, her abduction had been harder on Trace than on her. “He was so distressed that you had to come after me.”
“He’d have had a hell of a time keeping me away.” Dare cupped the back of her neck, waggling her head in a familiar, friendly way. “But I know what you mean. He wanted to be the one handling things, and if he hadn’t already been known to the bastards who took you, he would have been.”
But since they had known Trace, the odds of him reaching her had been diminished. Sending Dare had upped her chances of being rescued, but had been oh-so-much-more dangerous for Dare.
Alani swallowed. “If I’d been paying better attention that day at the beach—”
“Then you might not have been taken. And God only knows what would have happened to Molly.”
She jerked her head up to stare at him. Solemn, serious, gaze direct, Dare stared back at her.
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
He gave one small nod. “No way in hell did I ever want you to go through all that, hon. You know that. But sometimes things happen for a reason. I like to think I was there for you so I could get Molly out, too.”
Her eyes burned. She threw her arms around Dare and squeezed him tight. “Thank you, Dare.” In his simple, caring way, he’d just lightened her burden.
Hugging her right off her feet, Dare kissed the top of her head and said, “Anytime, sweetie.” He levered her back, grinned suddenly and then actually laughed.
A little affronted, Alani frowned at him. “What’s funny?”
“The look on Jackson’s face.”
Oh! She turned—and there Jackson stood, his reddened eyes burning with an excess of emotion, his shoulders bunched, his jaw taut.
Trace stood behind him, his mouth twisted with irony. “I told him to stay put, but he didn’t listen.”
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