Catherine grinned. Not long ago she would have thought the same thing herself. But she'd seen Royce interact with his daughter, seen the love and pride shining through his eyes as he looked down at her. "She's ten and an absolute delight," Catherine said before she could stop herself. "So you've met her?"
"Ah...I ran into them at the mall a couple of weeks back," Catherine explained, returning her attention to the case she was reviewing.
"If you've met her," Elaine continued, emotion bleeding into her voice, "then you might be interested in knowing where Commander Nyland disappeared to. Apparently his daughter was hit by a car on her way to school. She's at the Navy Hospital."
Catherine swore her heart stopped in that moment. She went stiff with shock, then completely numb. Slowly she rose to her feet and blindly looked around her as if the air circulating the room would tell her it wasn't so.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Not Kelly. Please not Kelly, Catherine's mind chanted. The phrase kept repeating itself in her mind, a prayer, an entreaty to the heavenly powers to watch over the child Royce loved so dearly.
"Catherine?" She couldn't look at Elaine, fearing she would read the stark terror in her eyes and know how much Royce and his daughter meant to her.
"Did...what's her condition?"
"I don't know. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," she answered, reaching for her purse. "I'm...I'm taking my lunch hour."
"Sure thing," Elaine returned hesitantly. "I don't suppose you noticed it's only ten. It's a little early for lunch, don't you think?"
Catherine didn't bother to answer. She was already on her way out of the office. She rushed down the stairs and shot out of the building. It amazed her how calm she was. Outwardly, she was as cool and composed as an admiral. On the inside she was quaking with fear so stark and real the taste of it filled her mouth.
Please God, not Kelly. She must have repeated the phrase a hundred times as she raced across the asphalt parking lot to her car.
Catherine didn't remember any part of the fifteen-minute drive to the Navy Hospital in Bremerton. One moment she was at the Navy Base at Bangor, and the next thing she knew she was pulling into the hospital parking lot.
The emergency room receptionist must have recognized the urgency in Catherine's eyes, and after a few preliminary questions, directed her to the third floor.
She took the elevator up, repeating the room number over and over in her head as she raced down the wide polished corridor. The door was ajar when Catherine arrived.
Kelly, her face ashen against the sheets, was either asleep or unconscious, the metal railing around the bed raised. Catherine's heart, which had only recently righted itself, tripped into double time. Once more she prayed for the little girl who had come to mean so much to her in so short a time. Tears filled her eyes, and she bit into her lower lip in an effort to keep them at bay.
Royce was sitting in a chair next to the hospital bed, his face in his hands, oblivious to her presence. "Royce."
He lifted his head, turned and fixed his eyes on her. He frowned as though he didn't believe it was her as though he desperately needed an anchor. His face was ravaged with emotion, scored with myriad fears. Briefly he closed his eyes before he stood and walked over to her.
Thankfully Catherine had the presence of mind to close the door. No sooner had it swung shut when Royce hauled her to him, lifted her from the floor and locked his arms around her waist. A shudder ran down the length of him as he breathed in deeply and buried his face in the gentle slope of her shoulder.
Catherine felt the moisture slide down her cheeks and she held on to Royce with equal ferocity, her arms looped around his neck.
"She's going to be all right," Royce assured her several moments later, his words more breath than sound. As if he feared he was hurting her, he relaxed his hold and slowly, hesitantly lowered her feet to the ground. "She's asleep now. The doctor wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Oh God, Catherine, it was so close, so very close. A few more feet and I might have lost her."
His eyes continued to hold hers. The barriers were down now, and she understood so many things he'd never allowed her to see before. Though he wished she'd never been transferred from Hawaii. Though he wished she was in anyone else's command but his. Though he wished to hell she'd stayed outside his life. He needed her. He needed her because he couldn't endure seeing his only child hurt and stand at her bedside alone. He needed her then. He needed her tomorrow. The need wasn't ever going to go away.
Without thinking, Catherine did what seemed natural. She reached up and pressed her head to his chest, reassuring him the only way she knew how. His hands were trembling as his fingers tangled with her hair. Once again a tremor raced through his body.
"She's going to be all right," he said again.
"Thank God," Catherine whispered. She felt his heart pounding. Her breasts were flush against the hard wall of his chest, and it felt so incredibly good to be in his arms.
They might have remained like that forever if the sound from outside the room hadn't captured their attention. Even then neither one showed any inclination toward moving. Remembering all the unspoken promises they'd made to each other, Catherine gently broke away.
"Any broken bones?" was the only intelligent question she could think to ask. She ran her fingers down her cheeks, convinced her mascara was streaking her face. Using the back of her hand, she brushed the moisture aside.
"None," Royce said with a lopsided grin. "She was lucky that way. She has a bad concussion and plenty of scrapes and bruises."
"What happened?"
"One of the mothers was driving her kids to school when her brakes locked as she was coming to the school crossing. There wasn't anything she could do." Royce's eyes hardened as though he were picturing the frantic scene in his mind. The terror of the children helplessly scattering as the car slid toward them. The screams. The fear. The panic. "Gratefully the car hit the curb before sliding into Kelly and Missy. From what I understand both were racing out of the way and were knocked hard to the ground."
"Was Kelly's friend hurt?"
"Cuts and bruises. The hospital released her to her mother."
Pressing her hands against the sides of Royce's clean-shaven jaw, Catherine closed her eyes, grateful that the accident hadn't been any worse than it was. Now that she was assured Kelly was going to be all right, she was more concerned about Royce. At one time she would have believed nothing could disconcert him, but Royce's Achilles' heel was his young daughter.
"Are you all right?"
He nodded, and offered her a weak smile. "Now that you're here, I am." He covered her hand with his own and roughly drew her palm to his mouth, tenderly kissing the inside. "Does anyone know where you are?"
Elaine Perkins had probably figured it out, but Catherine didn't want to worry Royce. "No."
"Good." His eyes were dark and intent. "Go back to the office."
"But..."
"And come back later this afternoon. Kelly will want to see you." His eyes revealed he'd want to see her again, too.
"All right," she said, reluctantly drawing away from him.
Royce reached for her hand, momentarily bringing her back to him, and pressed her fingertips to his mouth. "Thank you." He didn't need to tell her what for, it was there in his eyes for her to read. The eyes that had once seemed so hard and cold would never look the same again.
No man is an island. Royce had never completely understood those words until Kelly's accident. He'd been numb when security had come to tell him his daughter, his only child, had been taken by ambulance to the Navy Hospital. Numb with shock and disbelief. His heart had pounded so loud it sounded like a hand grenade exploding in his ears.
He hadn't said a word, but simply walked outside to his car, climbed inside and drove with a security escort to the hospital, praying, pleading with God for things to be different this time than they had been with Sandy's fatal accident.
Security Police had come to him then, too. All he'd known was that Sandy had been taken by ambulance to the Naval Hospital. The details with Kelly had been the same.
Only Sandy had been D.O.A.
Kelly had been spared.
Royce had loved his wife, at least in the beginning. He'd sensed from the first that she'd needed more love, more of him than he could ever supply. When they'd first married, the idea of being an officer's wife had excited her, but that novelty had quickly worn thin. She'd needed something more.
A career, she decided. One in which she would be appreciated and admired. One that would make her the envy of everyone she met.
Royce had encouraged her, which was his first mistake, but he hadn't expected her to become more involved with fashion than their lives together. After two years as a buyer for a major Seattle department store, she let it be known that if Royce were transferred, she'd stay behind.
In his ignorance, Royce had thought a child would help. Sandy had never been keen on raising a family. Insisting she bear him the child she'd promised was mistake number two.
After threats, tears and countless arguments, Sandy had agreed, but she'd never wanted Kelly. In some ways, Royce doubted that Sandy had ever loved their daughter.
Sandy worked up to a week before her delivery date and returned two weeks afterward. It was Royce who walked the floors when Kelly developed colic. It was Royce who dropped her off at the daycare center and returned to pick her up after work. It was Royce who changed her diapers and sat in the medical clinic when she developed repeated ear infections.
As Sandy claimed, if Royce was so keen on having a family, fine. She'd done her part.
By the time Sandy had been killed, their marriage, indeed every aspect of their relationship, had long since died a slow, painful death. They hadn't slept in the same room for three years and hadn't made love in over a year. Their lives were as separate as they could make them and still remain married.
Royce hadn't asked for a divorce. He didn't know why Sandy hadn't. They rarely spoke in those days. Rarely communicated.
Nevertheless, when she'd died, Royce had suffered. With guilt. With regret. With doubts. He should have tried harder. Done something more to make her happy. Appreciated her more. Something. Anything. Everything.
He hadn't shed a tear at her funeral. Any emotion he felt for Sandy had long since been spent. He felt guilty about that, guilty enough to promise himself he would never make the mistake of falling in love a second time.
Then he'd met Catherine.
He cursed the day she'd been assigned to his staff. In the same breath his heart swelled with gratitude.
Royce had come to believe he was a man who didn't need anyone. People needed him. Kelly needed him. The Navy needed him. But he was an island, a man without needs.
He'd lived under that delusion until he'd seen Security approaching him that morning.
In that moment he'd needed Catherine. So badly that he shuddered at the memory of the way her name had raced into his mind. He'd sat in the emergency room, wanting her with him so much that he could feel himself start to unravel. A woman he felt closer to in little more than a month than he'd ever felt toward the wife he'd buried. He needed Catherine, the woman he'd never held. The woman he'd never kissed.