Page 38 of Rescuing Baylee
“Well, is there anything I can ease from your mind?”
She’d grabbed the carton of eggs to set on the counter, and her back was to him. “Not really.”
Landon wasn’t sure he believed her answer. Moving to the counter beside her, he leaned down enough to catch her gaze. “That didn’t sound very convincing.”
She shook her head, her hands pausing. “I think… I think yesterday was a lot. Between the anxiety of being here, and then telling you about the rape, it’s been a little overwhelming. A lot overwhelming, if I’m honest.”
“I understand that,” he said, reaching out to tug on the end of some of her hair. It was down right now, and he looked at the long lengths. “Why do you wear this up in that messy ponytail?”
Her eyes flicked down as he let her hair drift through his fingers. “Because it’s easy. And I don’t care what anyone thinks about it. When I went back home, I cut most of it off. It’s taken years to grow this long.”
“It’s beautiful,” he said simply. “The color especially.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking down at the egg carton. “I thought I would scramble some eggs.”
“You don’t have to cook for me,” he said, tilting his head to catch her eye again.
“I know, but I like to have something to do with my hands.”
“Okay. While you cook, why don’t you talk to me about what else you’re worried about.”
She huffed out a breath, pulling a bowl from the cupboard. Then she reached for a fork from the silverware drawer and started cracking eggs into the bowl. “Well, technically, I’m supposed to go back to work in three days, and I don’t know if this will all be over by then. There are two funerals that I really feel like I should be at…”
Her voice trailed away, and her eyes filled with tears. Landon set his coffee cup down. “I’m gonna hug you. Is that okay?”
Nodding, she let him wrap his arms around her, and he pulled her tight, their hips leaning against the counter. “You know there’s nothing you could have done to save them, right?You did more than any average citizen could ever be expected to do.”
“I know,” she breathed, “it’s just hard.”
He held her for a few minutes, stroking a hand down her back and across her shoulders. The silence stretched for a few minutes, but he was content not to move. She was a very nice armful. It was obvious she was hurting, though. “When I was on the road, I had a buddy work one of my shifts. My sister was coming in and we were going to a ball game. Anyway, my buddy works my shift and gets this roadside assistance call.”
Baylee drew back a little to look up at him. Landon had only told this story once before, to Cass when she’d been his partner.
“It was just some random call,” he shrugged. “Old people needed help with a tire. He was helping them when a guy doing ninety slammed into the ass end of his cruiser. It slammed into the broken-down vehicle, and my buddy was hit. He didn’t even make it to the hospital. Tony died on the side of the road.”
“I’m so sorry, Landon,” Baylee breathed, and she rested a hand on his chest.
Taking a deep breath, he looked down at her. “You can’t second-guess your actions over and over again. There’s no sense in it. It could have just as easily have been me, kneeling in the road, changing their tire when that truck hit. When fate says it’s your time, I don’t think it matters what you’re doing or where you are. That’s it. It took me a long time to get over feeling like I’d killed him.”
Baylee drew back, her eyes concerned and her face pale. “You know you can’t think like that.”
Landon gave her a pointed look. “It’s easy to tell someone that, but it’s really hard to put into practice. We’ve both dealt with situations like this.”
She was silent for a long minute, then she glanced up at him. “It was really hard when I came back from Nightshade,” she said,her eyes going distant. “There were ninety-six people stationed on Nightshade, including forty-one injured Marines. By the time it was all over, thirty-two of us survived.”
Landon remembered reading those numbers when he’d been researching Nightshade.
“The guilt that we felt was… massive. Of the thirty-eight that came home, six have taken their own lives because they can’t live with the survivor’s guilt anymore.”
A sudden flash of fear hit him, and he scanned her face. “You don’t feel like that, do you?”
She shook her head immediately and gave him strong eye-contact. “I wouldn’t do that. I was one of the lucky ones. My two best friends and I made it through together. I don’t have guilt for surviving. And I don’t think Olivia or Rex do either. They’re both in amazing relationships now, and I don’t see hardly any markers for depression. Actually, Olivia just had a baby.”
A beautiful smile flashed across her face. Her relationship with her friends was obviously very important to her.
“Good,” he said, voice firm. “Hang onto your friendship.”
“Oh, we do,” she said, her expression the most lighthearted he’d ever seen it. “I talk to Olivia weekly, and Rex almost as often. We survived hell together, and I’ll never let them go.”