Page 80 of A Beach House Beginning

Upset about what?she wondered a bit resentfully. His life seemed so charmed from the outside. He had fame, money, extraordinary good looks. What could possibly put those haunted shadows in his blue eyes?

Not her business. She had enough problems of her own without worrying about someone else’s. “Well, I appreciate your being there, whether Hank blackmailed you or not. Hope was a big pro-rodeo fan before her accident.”

He was quiet for a moment, his gaze on the backseat of the SUV.

“I don’t quite know how to ask this politely, but...” His voice trailed off.

“What happened to her?” she filled in the question she had been expecting, the one she dreaded most.

“Yeah. Do you mind my asking?”

She wished with all her heart she had the nerve to tell him that shedidmind, that she hated remembering the instant when her daughter’s world—and hers—had changed.

She didn’t want to answer, she wanted to climb into her vehicle and leave him behind in a cloud of dust and spewing gravel. But she thought of his gentle patience with Hope for the last hour, the care he had taken transferring her into the backseat, and knew his question wasn’t asked just to be nosy.

“She was hit by a car while she was walking home from school just before Christmas.”

The awful, familiar guilt burned through her.

Her fault, her fault, her fault.

Oh, she hadn’t been the driver behind the wheel of the truck that had been speeding far too quickly for conditions and had slid on black ice directly into Hope.

She hadn’t caused the accident, but she might as well have. If only she and Hope hadn’t fought that morning about the cell-phone bill and all of the excessive text-message overages. If only Hope had come to the store after school as she usually did instead of deciding, in her lingering pique over losing her phone for a week, to walk the mile home.

If only they had stayed in Austin instead of moving home after Christa’s father died to help her overwhelmed and grieving mother with the grocery store.

She pushed the futile speculation away.If onlysdidn’t do a damn thing to help with the day-to-day care of her daughter.

“She was thrown about twenty feet and broke both arms and her right femur. Worst of all, she suffered severe head trauma. She was in a coma for three weeks and things were...uncertain for a while. But she’s making an amazing recovery.”

They had miles to go, but every single step forward was progress, better than where they had come from.

That poor, sweet kid. Jace looked through the window, where Hope was curled up against the seat, then back at Christa. He had a wild, completely inappropriate urge to pull her into his arms to offer whatever small comfort he could.

“I’m so sorry.”

It seemed terribly inadequate, but he didn’t know what the hell else a guy was supposed to say in these circumstances—especially a guy as selfish and superficial as he was.

She shrugged. “Every day she regains more skills. The progress is slow but steady. Just today she was able to hold a fork on her own and eat three or four bites of her lunch by herself. I can’t begin to tell you how hard she’s worked to get to that point.”

He couldn’t even imagine it. Jace thought of his own nightmares, the cold sweats, the phantom screams and cries he heard at the oddest moments.

He was alive and in one piece. He hadn’t been through nearly the ordeal that Hope and Christa had endured. So why wasn’t he dealing better?

“You must be a strong person to cope with all this. The therapies and doctor appointments and the uncertainty and everything.”

How?he wondered.

She gave him a rueful smile that pierced through all his defenses.

“Who says I’m coping?” she murmured.

Again he had to fight the urge to pull her into his arms, intrigued that a woman who seemed so in control could be hiding such vulnerability.

She seemed to think she had lingered long enough, because she moved to the driver’s door and opened it, a clear dismissal.

“Thank you again for your help, Mr. McCandless. Both in the arena and out here.”

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