Page 40 of Operation Rescue
But she couldn’t deny he’d made her think. Hard. She’d never put what he did in that context before. And if she set aside the risking your life part—which was a darned big ask—she could see the similarities. She could have stayed with that accounting firm, endlessly, and it would have been steady work that she didn’t hate.
But she didn’t love it. Not the way she loved what she did now, not the way she loved letting her imagination—the same imagination that manufactured horrible ideas of what could happen to him—flow and come up with the perfect images for her clients, from logos to ad campaigns. Not the way she loved looking at what she’d built, from a small thing she did in her spare time to full time work she could live on, albeit it required some penny-pinching.
And more help from Blaine than he was legally required to give. Because he loved Ethan, just as much as she did.
She should have made it easier for him to see more of their son. Or at least not have made it more difficult by insisting on not being there. She should have done a lot of things differently.
And then there was the big one she maybe shouldn’t have done at all.
“I’ve been the worst sort of ex, haven’t I?” she said quietly, hating that two letter descriptor of what she was now.
“No. I’ve seen worse. One of the guys in my unit doesn’t even know where his daughter is. Her mother vanished with her, cut him off completely.”
That made her stomach churn, but she was still amazed that he was giving her any credit at all.
She heard a car start up outside. She turned her head to look, expecting to see the Foxworth vehicle pulling out. “Do you suppose he has to go get even more parts? I can’t do that, Blaine, I can’t—”
She stopped when he laughed. Her head snapped back around. “That’s your car, not his. I’d say he got the job done.”
Erin looked out the window again, staring now. She hadn’t heard her car sound like that in…she didn’t know how long. Smooth. Powerful. No clanks, no pops, no misses.
She watched as Rafe closed the hood, then stood as if listening just as she was. Then he nodded in obvious—and well-earned—satisfaction.
“Do you know what happened? With him and his girlfriend?”
“All I know is he blamed himself for something bad happening, overseas. While he was deployed. Something that wasn’t really his fault, but he didn’t—maybe couldn’t—see it that way.”
“Something to do with her?”
“No. Something that made him feel he didn’t deserve her.”
She let out a weary sigh. “Sometimes nobody’s harder on us than ourselves.”
“I don’t know,” Blaine said, his tone a little too casual as he stood up. “Sometimes the ones we love can sure as hell do a number on us.”
He was out the front door and headed toward Rafe before she could react to the bull’s-eye he’d just struck.
She guessed the truce was over.
She felt her eyes begin to sting. Remembered all the tears she’d shed, from the time she’d gotten word that Blaine had been hurt, throughout his long, hard recovery, until the day she’d made that fateful decision. The decision that had ended her life as she’d known it, and tossed her into the chaos of single parenthood. And the furious, understandable emotions of her son.
That had stopped the tears, for a while. She hadn’t had the time or the energy.
But nothing had ever stopped the pain. That she’d been the one to walk away didn’t make it any easier to bear. In many ways, it made it harder. Especially in one of those shouting matches with Ethan. She knew how selfish she seemed, given it was Blaine who had gone through the agony, Blaine who had fought so hard to get back on his feet, Blaine who had never given up, and never would.
And in that moment she understood exactly how Rafe Crawford must have felt. Because she didn’t deserve Blaine.
And he deserved better than her.
Chapter 21
“Just listening,” Rafe said as Blaine came up beside him. “Making sure I didn’t miss anything.”
“I doubt you did,” Blaine said. “That thing sounded like a berserk sledgehammer before.”
“A quick test drive and she’ll be mobile again.” Rafe glanced toward the house. “You two okay?”
“We had a fairly civil conversation, if that’s what you mean.”
