“I went to Sheila, because I couldn’t let her see—and I knew. I knew—” His voice failed and his body was too heavy and his knees finally gave way as he fell onto them to the cold tile floor. He pressed his palms to his eyes as if he could press away the memory of that vision. “I couldn’t let Sheila see what had happened to our little girl.”

Soft fingers threaded into his hair. Annika skimmed his face with her fingers. Then she was kneeling in front of him. He kept his eyes shut to keep the tears away. He couldn’t look at her.

She spoke so softly, her voice smooth, comforting. “Daniel, I’m so very sorry.”

She took his face in her hands, and at her gentle touch, he broke. He couldn’t fight the tears that he had kept at bay for five years. He kept his hands over his eyes as if he could stop them. But there was no stopping them now.

Annika pulled him closer to her. He rested his head on her shoulder as sobs racked his body. Visions of Sara’s life came at him. Her birth, Sara crawling, toddling, falling, scraping a knee, going to school. All that and now she was gone. He cried for all the things Sara would never do: play soccer, dance, graduate high school, fall in love, get married. His heart broke again for everything that Sara lost, and with her, everything that he had lost, too.

Annika’s fingers were soft and strong, offering soothing comfort. At some point, the waves calmed. Cool hands wiped his cheeks. Daniel hazarded a glance at her. Brown eyes swept across him like a comforting blanket, no accusation, no pity. It looked like love, but he couldn’t be sure.

No one had looked at him like that in a very long time.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ANNIKA

ANNIKA HELD DANIEL’S face in her hands. She used her thumbs to wipe away residual wetness as she held his gaze. The green she loved so much in his eyes was flecked with brown and even black.

He had been holding this inside him for five years. Trying to will it away, forcing normalcy into his life where there simply could be none.

This was why he had held her in the ER. She knew it, as if she’d always known it. He understood her pain. She had felt so empty, so lost after losing her baby. People had expected she would get over it and move on—after all, her baby hadn’t even been born. But she had still felt the loss. Her heart ached for Daniel—he had actually held his child and watched her grow. He had seen himself in her.

“Who took care of you, Daniel? Who was there for you?” A day’s worth of scruff was rough against her hands.