The nurse studied him, her grey eyes intensifying for a moment. “I thought I recognised you. You’re part of that veteran charity, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Is this your wife?”
“No, just…just a friend. Her husband is deployed at the moment.”
“Poor thing.”
The room fell silent, and Logan watched as she wrote something down on her charts.
“Is the baby…is the baby okay?”
“She’s doing okay. In the NICU at the moment because we lost her for a while. By some miracle, she survived, though. They both did.”
He flinched at the word lost, the clinical detachment of it striking a nerve. He wanted to ask—how long? How long was the baby gone before they brought her back? How long had her brain been starved of oxygen? He knew the implications betterthan anyone. The brain was unforgiving, and even a few seconds could change everything.
“She might be out for a while if you wanted to shoot home and have a quick shower, maybe some tea and a change of clothes would do you some good.”
Logan looked down, suddenly aware of the dark blood stains clinging to his shirt and pants. He’d been so lost in the moment, in the fear and chaos, he’d forgotten.
“Go on,” she added. “If you go now, you’ll be back before she wakes.”
Logan hesitated and opened his mouth to decline her suggestion, but she had a point—he was a mess. And then there was the fact that, knowing Daisy, when she woke and saw his state, she’d begin to panic with guilt. So, he left, despite it going against every moral fibre of his being, telling him to stay.
XXI
DAISY
Memories tend to have a structure. Even when certain parts are missing, there is usually a vague sense of how events unfolded. One knows how to get from point A to point B, even if the finer details remain blurred. Yet what Daisy recalled from the days that followed felt less like a coherent story and more like a collection of fragments—images, sounds, and emotions she could not piece together.
What she did know was that he’d saved her life. Those four words were uttered too often, but in their case, they were true. Placental abruption, they called it; to her, it had marked the end of one of the worst and best days of her life.
By the time she regained consciousness, he’d already gone. The nurses told her he’d returned home to change and shower, given that she’d “made a right mess of his clothes.” When he returned, she was breastfeeding, a lactation nurse hovering at her shoulder. The woman assumed he was the father, and Daisy had been too exhausted to correct her.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” the nurse said to him. “She looks just like you.”
He smiled then, his gaze meeting Daisy’s. “I don’t know about that,” he replied. “I think she is more like her mother.”
The nurse had disagreed, insisting the baby had his nose and eyes. It was impossible, of course; they both knew that. When she’d finally left, neither could hold back their laughter.
“How are you feeling?” he asked once they had composed themselves. He was standing by, adjusting the sunflowers he must have brought while she was asleep.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, trying to get comfortable. In truth, it felt as though her emotions had shut down. He was there, the baby was there, and things were happening all around her, yet she felt more like a spectator than a participant. “Everything is still sinking in.”
She watched him fuss with the flowers as if to distract himself from her exposed breast.
“Do not be ridiculous,” she said. “I am sure you have seen plenty of breasts in your time.”
He laughed without looking at her. “A gentleman never tells.”
“Oh, please. I once lived in a house full of men.”
He shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “It is not that,” he murmured, his gaze flickering away. “Daisy, I—”
The words faltered, and he turned from her. He’d always believed himself unreadable, insisting that, even as a child, he’d learnt the world offered no safety to those who allowed themselves to be seen. But Daisy saw him. She’d always seenhim. Perhaps that was why they had become so inextricably bound, tied together by something neither of them could fully explain.
She watched as he moved to the window, his gaze fixed on the world below. A minute, perhaps two, had passed in silence. Then he sighed, bringing his hands to his face.
