Page 11 of Shane

He couldn’t, didn’t dare lift his chin and look Stewart in the eye. Didn’t want to see the pain in those wicked blues. Or shit, the tears, if the man’s heart was breaking all over again. Shane’s was. But it should. He was the transgressor, would never be anything more. Not a day went by he didn’t wish he’d never been born. His heart couldn’t heal from what had happened that awful morning. What was one more blow to a pulverized organ that had been leaking blood for years?

But Stewart needed to know what happened from the man who’d been there, who’d stolen his family. So Shane continued. “I was the first at her side. Ah, your wife’s side,” he explained quickly, needing to get this done, his ass in his truck with his dogs, and his truck back on the road. “I’d already reversed my truck away from her car so I could reach her. But the driver’s door was mashed inward, and the passenger side had curled around the l-l-lamp post. I couldn’t get either door open. Not even Abby’s d-d-door.” Saying that little girl’s name would forever tear Shane’s resolve to shreds. “The things wouldn’t budge.”

How he’d tried! There was no reason to tell Stewart he’d bloodied his hands trying, or that he’d broken his knuckles when rage at his impotence took over and he’d punched the lamp post.

“Your van was a heavier than her son of a bitchin’ car,” Stewart said hoarsely. “She had to have that gawddamned car. They never stood a chance!”

There was so much rage and pain in those few words. So much hate. Shane would’ve agreed, but he knew who’d really killed Stewart’s family. Him. He was responsible. Blame him. Not the car. Only—him.

He closed his eyes, determined to weather this wicked storm from which there would be no relief. Not today. Not ever. He should’ve stayed home that long-ago morning. Sure as hell wished he had today.

“Your wife talked to me,” he explained quietly, the misery in his heart suffocating him all over again. “Her window was shattered, but I talked to her. I did. And she talked with me. I asked if she was okay, and she said she was, and then I asked your daughter how she was doing, but she wasn’t answering. I thought the crash just knocked her out. Your wife thought so, too. Sara kept telling me everything was going to be okay…” And there it was, another heartbreaking name that never failed to stab Shane again and again… “I… I wanted to believe her,” he stuttered. “She sounded so sure, but I was scared I was going to lose them both, and the cops weren’t there yet, and neither were the paramedics, and then it started to rain, and I—”

“They were never yours to lose!” Alex boomed. “They were mine, you asshole! They were all I had!”

I know. I know.God, I know.

Shane bit the inside of his cheek, wishing his mouth would stop with the running monologue. Because of that morning, Sara and Abby were not just names of people he’d never met nor cared about. They weren’t just light reading in the evening newspaper. Stewart might never understand, but because of that cataclysmic meeting, Sara’s and Abby’s deaths were just as real to Shane as his mom’s. They were his special angels, and he talked with all three of them every gawddamned day. They were inside his head and heart to stay, wedged in tight like their car had been wedged between his truck and that damned light post. Which was why Shane was here. Alex needed to know Shane loved his wife and daughter like the sisters he’d never had. They were part of him. Too. A devastatingly sad part, but a part nonetheless.

“I do know that, but Sara—your wife—she asked me to get Abby out first, and by then, some guy showed up with a crowbar, and we tried to open Abby’s door. Only it wouldn’t budge. No matter how much weight we put into it, we couldn’t make it open, and then the fire department showed and the cops, and she still wasn’t answering us or her mom, and we got pushed out of their way, and—”

“They used son of a bitchin’ jaws-of-life to get my wife out,” Stewart snarled, his voice breaking. “Son of a bitchin’ worthless piece-of-shit car!”

“I know, I know.”Because I was there and I watched everything until the ambulances arrived and took them away. Until I knew I’d killed them… That they were dead because of me…

Shane took a deep breath. There would be no forgiveness today. All he’d done was cause Mr. Stewart more pain, and that wasn’t what he’d wanted nor why he’d come here. “Anyway, you know the rest, I know you do.” Another dry swallow refused to go down. “I never should’ve come here today.” He licked his parched lips. “I’m sorry. I rescind my job application. I don’t want to work here. But honest, I only came because I felt I needed to face you, Mr. Stewart. To tell you that I’m so gawddamned sorry for what I did to you that morning. I’d do anything to change what happened. I am so, so gawddamned sorry.”

Blinking through the blur gathering in his eyes, Shane lifted to his feet, ready to escape, but intending to at least shake Stewart’s hand before he did. Lifting his arm, which felt like it weighed a ton, for the last time he faced the man whose life he’d destroyed. Shane stuck his hand out and said, “I appreciate you taking the time to at least see me. I’ll just go, and you’ll never hear from me ag—”

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened?” Stewart was on his feet now and fighting mad. “All you’ve shared so far is what’s in police and insurance reports. I already know that crap. I also know the lies the media spread that you were drunk, but you weren’t. I damned well know that, too! Why don’t you man up and talk to me instead of running away with your tail between your legs like a gawddamned coward?”

Shane blinked and stared into the pit of utter misery. His arm was still stuck out like the damned thing was frozen. It might’ve been, because Stewart’s eyes were glacial. But there was something else glimmering in them that Shane couldn’t quite define—or didn’t want to face. It was hard to see past the agony he’d created. Again. It seemed all he did was cause this man pain. What a stupid idea to think he could ever work here, for Stewart. Shane wished he were back in Kabul fighting assassins. Death there would be honorable.

He dropped his hand. Like a shot, Stewart squared his shoulders, immediately putting Shane on the defensive and blocking the only way out. Stewart was more formidable on his feet. His shoulders were broader, his chest was bigger, and his thighs were thicker. His top lip curled into a wicked sneer. His nostrils flared as if there wasn’t enough air in the room for both of them.

“Boss,” Mark said quietly.

“Stay out of this!” Stewart spat.

Instinctively, Shane’s fists clenched, but he’d never fight Stewart. Instantly, he relaxed his fingers and shook them to loosen the Devil Dog urge to strike first and hit hard. If Stewart needed to beat him to a pulp to feel better, Shane meant to stand there and take every last punch, kick, and slap. He deserved it. But he had no idea what the hell Stewart had meant or what he wanted. What else was there but facts?

“Your mother died that morning,” Stewart hissed. “Tell me about that, why don’t you? I want the gawddamned details, every last son of a bitchin’ one of them. Why were you even behind that wheel?”

“Boss,” Mark said again.

Stewart shut him down with a nasty, “No, Mark. He started this. I’m finishing it. I want to know every gawddamned thing, Hayes. Every detail! Answer me! You weren’t in a decent frame of mind to be driving. You couldn’t have been. You might not’ve meant to kill them, but you sure as hell shouldn’t have been behind that son of a bitchin’ wheel!”

Now he was getting personal. And mean. This wasn’t how Shane had seen this meeting going, not at all. Every protective instinct inside slammed the walls to his heart down and locked the sweet memories of his mom up tight, far away from this dangerous killer. Stewart had no right. Except he did, and Shane understood. Stewart was right to be angry. But he’d never gain access to the memory of Shane’s mom.

The nasty inquisition continued. “How gawddamned old were you? Fifteen? Sixteen? Did you even have a gawddamned driver license?”

“Almost eighteen, Mr. Stewart. I was nearly of legal age and I was gainfully employed and—”

“Alex! Stop calling me Mr. Stewart! Wake up and talk to me like a man. Really son of a bitchin’ talk, gawddamn you! Isn’t that why you’re here? To get everything off your shoulders and pile the shit you’re sick of carrying on mine?”

“No, sir!” Shane yelled back, his hands still at his side, but pissed at the pompous jerk squaring off with him. “I had a killer migraine that morning! I didn’t sleep the night before, because Mom…”Jesus, I don’t believe I’m going to tell him this, but… “My mom, my poor, sweet Mom, died at twelve-thirty-two that same gawddamned morning! I couldn’t close my eyes and sleep because all I saw was what I… Did. To. Her! I’m the one who let her die. She had breast cancer, or did you already know that, too?”You ornery asshole!“She thought it went into remission. We both did. But it came back, okay? It fuckin’ came back like fuckin’ cancer always fuckin’ does!”

Shane sucked in a breath to compose himself. He’d never used so many fucks in any conversation before. But he was running on adrenaline and there was no way to calm down now. Stewart asked for this and he was going to get it. All of it. “Only it came back in her brain, and by the time we found it, there was nothing anybody could do to stop it or keep it from spreading. So I stayed with her every minute of those last two weeks of her life, and I never left her side. I couldn’t,Alex.”He threw as much venom into the bastard’s name as he could. “I sang every last one of her favorite songs to her. I read the newspaper to her every morning.”And I cried my heart out the whole damned time.“She was blind by then, but she never—not once—ever complained. But none of that changed anything, did it? She still died—Alex!”