coma after taking you out of the field, Dan.” She saw his eyes grow to slits, felt the shift of energy around him. He remembered the firefight. She could sense it and see it in his wrinkled brow, the hardness coming back to his gray, murky eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Ben didn’t make it...but you did.” Cait swallowed and fought the tears flooding her eyes. “You’re alive, Dan. And you’re going to live...”
At that moment he jerkily lifted his hand, his roughened fingers weak but still able to lift and capture her hand.
“I tried to save him, Cait...God...I tried...”
“It’s all right.” She wobbled, heard the grief and guilt in his gruff voice. “No one’s told us what happened...only that he died in a firefight.”
Dan closed his eyes, fingers tightening around Cait’s slender hand. She wore a hospital uniform of blue scrub pants and top. Her beautiful red hair was up on her head in a loose, askew topknot. She wore pink lipstick, but the flush across her cheeks was natural. Her scent, the cinnamon shampoo she used, the steadying firmness of her warm skin beneath his cold fingers, helped him focus. Hearing the stress, the grief in her low, tortured voice, brought up his own anguish over Ben’s death.
Dan stared up into her green eyes glistening with unshed tears. She was fighting back those tears, and it ripped into him. He’d never had any defense against Cait. He was vulnerable to her at all times. His fingers tightened around hers.
“He didn’t feel any pain, Cait. He got hit in the neck.” He stopped. His voice had become harsh with agony. “I—I tried to save him... I’m sorry... I wanted to so damned bad but...” Dan choked, tears burning in his eyes. He turned away, embarrassed that tears ran down his face. He released her hand but Cait caught it, wrapping her fingers tightly around his.
“It’s all right, Dan. I know you did everything you could. God...I’m so grateful you’re alive...” She choked back a sob.
Just having Cait’s strong hand around his helped. Dan couldn’t stop the tears and finally pressed his face into the pillow. He couldn’t bear to look at her since he knew grief was written in her features.
Finally, as he got a hold of his floating, amorphous emotions, Dan forced himself to turn and look into her shadowed green eyes. “I—I’m so damned sorry, Cait...”
“Hush,” she whispered, lifting her hand, gently smoothing out the wrinkles on his tanned brow. “It’s all right. Ben died doing something he loved, Dan. And you were with him.” Her eyes grew misty. “At least he died with you there. That had to be a comfort for him.”
Dan shoved the grief down deep inside himself. “Yeah...I was there. I tried.” Her fingers trembled slightly as she continued to graze his brow, his cheek, her touch so featherlight. Dan felt like a dying man who was being given absolution by a saint. He lifted his lashes, staring into her warm, anguished gaze—Cait had never looked so beautiful, so fresh and alive, as right now.
“Are you in pain?”
Yeah, his heart felt like hell, writhing with anguish. “A little,” he mumbled. “I’m on morphine. I can feel it dialing back the pain.”
She smiled a little. “Yes, you are.”
When she continued to hold his hand, Dan felt a gratefulness he couldn’t give words to. How like Cait to intuitively know he needed her right now. She wasn’t a physical therapist for nothing. At Tripler she was considered the best of the best. And she’d been helping soldiers recover from lost and wounded limbs since she was twenty-two and now she was twenty-eight.
“You’re an angel,” he rasped, holding her eyes, watching her pupils enlarge. “You’ve always been my angel.” Dan forced himself to stop. He was blithering because the morphine had loosened his closely held emotions for her. He saw surprise on Cait’s expression and then the joy that suddenly shone in her pale green eyes.
“I like being your angel,” she managed shyly, her voice strained. “In fact—” she squeezed his large, rough hand “—I’ve been assigned by your ortho surgeon to help you through recovery, Dan. I’ll be with you all the way...”
Oh, yeah, his leg. He’d forgotten about it until just now. His emotions, his mind and heart had been on Ben dying and how it was affecting Cait. She took his hand and laid it against his belly and he squeezed her fingers in return, a little of his strength returning. This was the first time there had been any real intimacy between them, man to woman. Dan tried to ferret out the unexpected joy he saw banked in her eyes. Did Cait want his touch?
Maybe it was his opiate-drenched mind, Dan told himself. Cait had had other relationships over the years, all with civilian men, who’d come and gone. What on earth had he just seen in her eyes? She kept grazing the flesh of his hand and lower arm, as if wanting to touch him. It felt like more than a medical touch. But was it just her normal bedside manner? Dan didn’t know, and he was too drugged right now to think two coherent thoughts in a row.
“Are you thirsty?”
He nodded. “Thirstier than a camel.” When Cait released his hand, he wanted to reach out and capture it once again. But he didn’t. Dan ached for continued contact. Wanted so much more of it—and her. Even now, he could feel himself stirring beneath the blue blankets across his lower body. Even on morphine. He had it bad for Cait. Dan savagely suppressed his sexual desire.
Cait rolled the tray over to his bedside, filled a glass of water and placed a straw in it for him. She lifted the straw, placing it between his lips. The gesture was so damned sensual Dan felt his body respond again. He drank the entire contents of the glass. He ended up drinking one more glass before he was sated.
After pushing the tray aside, Cait sat on the side of his bed, her hip inches from his. Dan could see a tent of covers over his lower legs from his knees to his feet. “How are your parents doing, Cait?” His voice was stronger now. His brain was actually functioning up to a point.
Cait’s expression saddened. “They’re suffering, Dan. If you’ll allow me, I’ll tell them what you just told me. That you were there with Ben when he died.” She reached out, fingers skimming the hand resting on his belly. “It would help them so much.”
“Yeah, go ahead.” Dan saw moisture in her eyes again, her grief on the surface. “His last words,” he rasped, “were about you. Ben asked me to take care of you.”
Her fingers closed around his, and he saw how badly Cait needed to be held and comforted. She would have to be the strong one for her devastated parents. Who was there to comfort her? He wanted to be the person to do that. But Dan could barely do anything right now. He was so damned helpless trussed up in the bed, not to mention physically weak. It took every bit of his strength to speak, to squeeze her fingers. Wanting to do more, unable to, he saw her strength, saw her swallow back the tears and give him a tremulous smile of gratefulness.
“Ben was always overprotective about me.” She shook her head.
“Because he loved you.”
“I know.” Cait closed her eyes. “I miss him so much. I was so looking forward to you two coming home.”
It felt as though a knife had sliced open his heart. All Dan could do was cling to her fingers, somehow convey his guilt. “I’m sorry, Cait. You can’t know how much...”
She sniffed and sat up, pushing red tendrils behind her ear.
