Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 by Laura Scott (free e reader .TXT) 📕

saved. After Danny died, she was never the same. I lost my son and my wife that day.” He covered his face with his hands, and his thin shoulders heaved with a gut-wrenching sob. “Nothing was ever right again.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Howard,” Liam said and stood. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Danny’s death had weighed heavily on Liam. It still did. His friend had been in the back of the bus, along with Brett, two of the cheerleaders, Rosemary and Torrie, and Liam’s own girlfriend, Marie. Though Liam had made repeated trips back to the bus, swimming through the murky river water, he’d been unable to reach them. And they’d refused to leave Rosemary behind to save themselves.

Whenever he was in the States in between deployments, he made a trip to the cemetery on the anniversary of the accident and laid flowers on the graves. He tried to time his visits when no one else was there. The last thing he’d wanted was to run into grieving family members.

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“Do me a favor and get out. Don’t come back. For both our sakes.” For a moment, his gaze softened and he resembled the easygoing, kind man Liam had known so many years ago. “Please.” The plea in his voice nearly ripped out Liam’s heart.

Paige remained silent as she and Liam returned to the car. “I’m sorry,” she said when they reached the vehicle.

“For what?”

“For what he said to you. He didn’t have any right to say what he did.”

“He has reason to hate me.” Liam unlocked the car but didn’t get in. He braced his hands against the car door and stared into space. “If I’d been faster, stronger, smarter, maybe I could have saved Danny, Marie, Brett, Rosemary and Torrie.”

“And maybe you wouldn’t have been able to save someone else. Mr. Howard’s wrong. And so are you if you keep blaming yourself.” She wet her lips, working to find the courage to say what she wanted to, needed to. “I lost my brother in the accident. I know what grief feels like, but I never blamed you.”

She didn’t open the car door immediately. Instead, she folded her arms across the roof of the car. “You have to know that you did everything you could. I could see it in your face at the funerals.”

On the other side of the car, Liam mirrored her.

She remembered the funerals. Five. Four friends and one very dear brother buried. Five lives taken. Five families destroyed.

“What did you see?”

“Pain. Unspeakable pain. I knew at the service for Brett that you wished it had been you. I wanted to tell you then that it wasn’t your fault, but my parents needed me at their side.”

“And they wouldn’t have taken it kindly if you’d tried to comfort the boy who had let their only son die. They made their feelings plain to me that day.”

“They were so filled with grief that they were incoherent.”

“What about you? You were grieving, too.”

“I was. But it wasn’t the same as what my parents were going through. You have to understand. Brett was their golden child. The star athlete who went to state and was going to have a brilliant career as a pro football player after he graduated from college. After...after the accident, Mom put away all of Brett’s trophies. She said she was decluttering, but I knew she couldn’t bear to look at them anymore. Dad just stopped talking. Not to Mom. Not to me. Not to anybody.”

“They must have been proud of you, too. You weren’t exactly chopped liver.”

Her lips pulled into a self-deprecating line. “My parents loved me, but they never knew what to do with me. I was too different. They didn’t know what to make of a child who started high school at twelve and college at fifteen. If I had been athletic or popular like Brett was, it would have been better.”

“For who?”

“For them. They looked at me and saw this geeky girl who didn’t fit anywhere.”

“What about now? Do you see them often?”

“They each remarried, have new families. I have two half-brothers. My parents and I see each other once every couple of years or so. It’s not perfect, but it works.” She gave him a probing gaze. “Enough about me. You think those deaths were your fault. They’re not. They never were.”

“Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. You’re right—it wasn’t my fault, but sometimes it feels like it.” Another sigh that was more a huff of grief. “Like now.”

Paige made to speak, but he cut her off with a hard thrust of his hand. “Don’t. Just...don’t. When I was in the Stand, our unit took fire from enemy insurgents. We were outnumbered by a factor of two. Yet I sent three men, three good men, on a reconnaissance mission to scout out an alternative route. Two were killed. One returned with the information I needed. I sent those men to their deaths. Our unit escaped. Barely.

“Afterward, I was presented with a medal. I told my CO that I didn’t deserve it. I’ll never forget what he said. ‘Son, you’re not getting a medal for what you did but for having to live with it.’ I didn’t understand what he meant then, but, later, I did. It’s the same with the kids in the bus. I had to live with it. All of it.”

She leveled a steady look at him, telling him that she disagreed with his self-blame but that she wouldn’t argue with him anymore.

He turned the conversation back to business. “I think we can cross Mr. and Mrs. Howard off our list.”

Paige slid in behind the steering wheel.

Before she had even buckled her seat belt, she heard a distinctive click.

“Don’t move,” he warned.

Paige stilled. Didn’t dare breathe. Sweat slicked her forehead, gathered above her upper lip and dampened her underarms. But she was cold. So cold.

That was what intense fear did to you. It had you sweating bullets while, at the same time, turning you extremely cold.

Goose