Nobody's Perfect (19 page)

He knew none of them could come back, but still wished Mamá and Papá could have been here to share this birthday with him and see how his life had turned out, despite a few bumps along the way. He also wished they could have gotten to know their newest granddaughter, but they hadn't lived long enough to meet any of their grandchildren.

He glanced down at the pinky ring. Mamá's wedding ring, which had been passed down on Papá's side of the family to the oldest male, Damián being the third generation. He looked across the room at Savi and wondered if he'd ever see it on her finger.

But he'd already used up his quota of impossible birthday wishes for one day.

Marisol jumped off his lap and ran to help Karla serve the cake. She brought Damián the first piece with a huge scoop of ice cream, watching the plate intently and being very careful not to drop it. A lump formed in his throat, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to swallow past it. When she placed it in front of him, the triumphant expression on her face just about did him in.

"Hurry, Daddy! Taste it!"

He picked up the fork and took a big bite of the chocolate-on-chocolate cake.
How the…?
He tasted cinnamon. With some difficulty, he swallowed and looked at her. "How'd you know Daddy likes cinnamon in his chocolate, doll-baby?"

She shrugged, but beamed. "I just had a feeling."

Karla piped up, "I told her I'd never heard of putting cinnamon in chocolate cake, but she insisted that's the way it had to be."

Damián was speechless.

"Daddy, your eyes have tears. You don't like it?" Her little chin quivered with her distress and disappointment.

Damián blinked the moisture from his eyes and shook his head. "No, honey, it's the best cake I've had in a long time. Just like
mi mamá
made for me when I was your age." He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her cheek and whispered, "Thank you, Marisol. Daddy loves you."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, then whispered back, "I love you, too, Daddy."

He wasn't sure she was going to let him go, so he lifted her into his lap again and took another bite of his cake after Karla placed a plate in front of Marisol, too.

Thanks, Mamá.
He didn't know how she'd communicated his love of cinnamon in chocolate to Marisol, but he had no doubt that she had.

Damián looked across the table again at Savi and saw her cheeks had red splotches on them as she fought tears, too. As usual, none fell. She had an iron grip on her emotions most of the time. He wished he could wrap his arms around her and hug her until she let the tears spill, but she wouldn't stand for that, so he just smiled at her and mouthed a thank you to her, too. Even better than the birthday kiss, she'd given him Marisol.

No fucking way could he let either of them go. First, though, Damián had a confession to make. He should have said something sooner. He couldn't run the risk of her counting on him to do more than he was able to do if they were in a dangerous situation. What if he failed her or his baby girl when they needed him most? Sure, he could get all macho and promise to protect them from harm, but could he? Could he fucking protect them with his bum leg? She needed to know the score.

Yeah, it was time to come clean about who he was—well, that part of him, anyway. He hoped she wouldn't take Marisol and run. Not that she'd get far. He wasn't going to let her go back to California before they'd managed to neutralize the threat out there. But he didn't want to make her feel she was a prisoner.

He couldn't let anything happen to either of them. They'd quickly become a major part of his life.
Mierda
, they
were
his life.

He fought the urge to mouth "I love you" to her, but didn't want to scare her off. So he just mentally tattooed the words on his heart, instead.

* * *

Savi rubbed the towel over her hair as she came out of the bathroom, not paying attention to her whereabouts as she tried to sort out her feelings about what had happened at Marc's last night. She tried to think about what she'd do with herself again today while Mari was at school. Karla had gotten her addicted to reading again, but most of the books on Karla's e-reader were sexually explicit and about things Savi had no interest in—bondage, whips, and such. Savi couldn't imagine Karla being interested in such books. But she'd recently discovered the mystery series of a forensic anthropologist and had bought one after another until she'd run up quite a bill. She really should stop, but escaping into that world had helped fill her long days alone while Mari was at school and Damián at…

"Savi, I need to tell you something. About me."

She jumped, stilling the motion of her hands as she opened her eyes, surprised to find Damián sitting on the side of the bed in her room. Well, technically it was his room. His bed. She was the interloper.

She lowered the towel in front of her chest, as if it could shield her from his gaze. Thank the Lord she'd put on her robe rather than come out here naked. She didn't want him to see her arm.

Not just her arm, but her body. She'd fought to keep her body very thin, almost boyish, not wanting to attract any man's attention. Warmth suffused her face as she thought about Damián seeing her naked. Again. Would he compare her thinner body to Savannah's slightly more filled out one?

She held her breath. He seemed so serious, his jaw and body held rigid, guarded.

"Sit down."

Savi looked around. The only place to sit was on the bed. That didn't seem like a good idea.

"Sit. Down." He pointed at the bed, clearly upset with her. She wasn't sure why that bothered her so much. "Savi, I'm not going to…touch you. We're only going to talk."

Savi crossed the room slowly and sat on the same side of the bed, keeping a safe distance away. She wasn't sure what she was afraid of. Intellectually, she knew Damián wouldn't hurt her. He'd been nothing but gentle and supportive since she and Marisol had arrived here.

But he was still a man. Sometimes they changed into monsters.

He raked his hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face. She wondered why he hadn't tied it back. She didn't see his hair loose like this, except when he got up in the morning. What was it he needed to tell her that made him so uncomfortable? She didn't want to know anything bad about him.

"When I got out of Iraq, I was fucked up."

"Damián, that's not unusual. You saw horrific things. War is…"

He held up his hand and halted her string of words she had meant to be supportive. She supposed they sounded trite, but she hadn't meant them to be.

"Don't go into therapist mode on me, Savi." He grinned slightly, so maybe he wasn't upset with her for trying to put him at ease. He was such a gentle soul. Last night, when Marisol had surprised him with the cake, he'd had unshed tears in his eyes. Processing the horrors of war would be difficult for someone who was much better at making love than war.

Don't think about his lovemaking abilities
.

His grin faded and he looked down.

"I fucked up a mission."

Savi's heart went out to him. She knew how hard it was for Marine to admit failure concerning a mission.

"We lost our sergeant because I couldn't act fast enough…"

"Damián, you can't blame yourself for…"

He glared at her. "Hear me out. This is hard enough to admit as it is."

"I'm sorry. Go on."

"I still have nightmares about it, especially around my Alive Day."

"Alive Day?"

He looked down at his feet again. "That's the day I should have died, too. But I surv…I didn't die."

Savi knew not to interrupt anymore. He needed to talk and she needed to be quiet and listen. He held his body so stiffly, he barely breathed. She waited.

After several moments, he continued, "A grenade landed on the roof where we'd held our position all day. I saw the damned thing, but I froze until it was too late to get away. When it went off, Sergeant Miller was killed. He…" Damián's breathing became rapid and she scooted closer to him on the bed, laying her hand on his thigh. She squeezed, hoping to help him focus on the present and not get lost in the memories. She knew how much it helped to have someone keep her in the moment when the past threatened to take over. He placed his hand over hers and squeezed her back as if she were a lifeline.

"He died on top of me."

"Oh, God, Damián. I'm so sorry!" Savi shuddered. Beads of sweat broke out on her upper lip. What a sad thing to have in common, neither being able to stand having weight pressing on their chests, albeit for very different reasons.

"I'll never block out that image as long as I live. I could have saved him, but I…froze."

Hearing him take the blame for something beyond his control broke her heart. Not unusual for those in combat situations, though. They were trained to watch out for each other. Nothing she could say would help assuage his guilt that a member of his unit was killed, even if she could come up with the words to say. She just squeezed his thigh again, knowing there probably was more to come. She braced herself mentally.

"I came to in a military hospital in Germany. When I realized what I'd lost, I didn't want to go on."

"Lost?" She knew he wasn't talking about his sergeant now.

He avoided making eye contact with her, but nodded, his gaze remaining on his feet. Oh, God, no! In an instant, it became clear to her why she'd seen him limping so many times. She looked down at his feet. For the first time, she realized she'd never seen him without his boots on. Odd, considering they'd lived in such close quarters for two months.

Dread washed over her as she slid off the bed onto the floor. With shaking hands, she sat in front of his feet and reached out to touch his legs. Starting below his knees, which were flesh on solid muscle, she ran each of her hands down the backs of his legs until her left hand bumped into straps on his right leg. On the other leg she felt sinew and muscle. Unmarred.

She reached down to the hem of his jeans leg and folded up the right one. Damián reached out and halted her hand, but she brushed him away. "Please, Damián. I need to see what they did to you."

His hand went to her chin and he lifted her face to his. The pain—no, the torment—she saw there told her how hard this was for him. She needed to back off and give him time to prepare himself. This wasn't about what she needed. She had to do what Damián needed.

Savi held onto his wounded leg, wrapping both arms around it and laid her forehead against his knee. She wished she could shed tears for him, but she hadn't been able to cry in…forever. Her chest ached as she mourned the loss of his limb, but, even more so, the loss of the gentle innocence that had been the younger Damián. He shouldn't have had to go through that.

What if she'd found him again before he'd enlisted? What if she'd tried harder to let him know about her pregnancy? He might have made a different decision. He might not have joined the Marines.

He might not have been injured.

His hand stroked her hair and brought her back to him. She looked up again, seeing him through her own emotional pain.

"I need to see, Damián, but I think you need for me to see it. It's part of who you are now." A shadow crossed his face and she squeezed his leg above the straps of the prosthesis to let him know she wasn't afraid to touch him; to see him. "I'm sorry you felt you needed to hide this from me…" She pulled back. "My God! How did you wear this thing twenty-four/seven for two months straight?"

Dear lord, she and Damián were both so fucked up, to use Damián's expression, each hiding so much from each other. How could she push him to reveal his secrets if she couldn't tell him about her own?

"I found times to rest the stump. I didn't wear the prosthesis in the shower and usually found some time each day to lock myself in the bathroom and massage my stump."

Savi grinned, before catching her errant thought.

"What?"

Her face must be as red as a tomato. "I thought maybe you were massaging something else those times."

He smiled. "Well, that, too, sometimes."

Suddenly aware of how close she was sitting to Damián, and that her hands were touching his legs, Savi grew rigid, afraid to move. When she would have retreated, he put light pressure on her shoulders, and gently pushed her away from his leg. When he moved, she thought he was going to stand up and walk away from her. Instead, he reached down and pulled his pant leg up until he revealed the sock-covered prosthesis. She asked him with her eyes and a motion of her hand if she could touch him and he nodded.

With shaking hands, she reached up and pulled the black sock down. At first, she saw only the straps of the prosthesis. His calf and most of his leg was still intact and she breathed a sigh of relief.

When she rolled the sock down to where his ankle had been, she encountered where the prosthetic foot was attached to his lower leg. He'd lost his foot and ankle. Again, she experienced an odd sense of relief that it hadn't been worse, but she mourned the pain and agony he must have gone through as he'd learned to walk again and to live without such a vital part of his body.

His beautiful body. She remembered their time in the beach cave and how she hadn't been able to keep her eyes off him. He'd carried her down the stairs, across the sand and rocks. Oh, God. He'd never be able to do that again.

How many activities had he been unable to do since he'd been injured? Yet, he was still so strong and brave. She'd never noticed any fear or reluctance on his part to protect her and Mari, either.

Looking up at him, she thought he was even more beautiful now. Damián was still the gentle, caring man she'd known back in that cave. Only now he also was the father of her daughter. How could he have thought she would reject him because he'd been injured in the war?

Because she'd done nothing but push him away since she'd shown up here. Savi removed the sock and stared at the flesh-colored plastic prosthesis that had supported him so well all these years. Did he still have phantom pain? He'd said he had nightmares, but she hadn't witnessed any during the time she'd been with him.