She closed her eyes, feeling the familiar wave of guilt. “She hadn’t gone to Mom. She’d wandered off. I told my parents, and we turned back to the store. My father just… He sprinted. I’d never seen him run like that.”
Tears filled her eyes, a result of bone-deep fatigue and lifelong disappointment in herself.
Those were the longest minutes of her life. She’d never been more afraid.
“What happened?” Noah’s voice was gentle.
“Dad found Kenzie in the store, hiding in the middle of a round rack of sweatshirts. By the time we got there, he’d coaxed her out and was holding her tightly.”
He’d been sweet to Kenzie, but when he’d caught sight of Delaney, his eyes had hardened. He was furious.
“You said you were eight?” Noah asked.
“Yeah.”
“Obviously, nobody blamed you.”
“Dad did. When he saw me, he just…he lost it. He lectured me on every single thing that could’ve happened to her, right there in the store in front of everybody.”
Noah pushed off the counter. “That’s just…ridiculous.”
“I was supposed to watch her.”
“Yeah, but…” He took a breath, then studied Delaney for a long moment. “Have you ever nannied for an eight-year-old?”
She thought about it, then shrugged. “That boy down the beach was seven.”
“If you’d put that boy in charge of his little brother and something had happened, would you have blamed him?”
“I would have blamed myself.” As she said the words, she realized Noah’s point. “But Kenzie was my responsibility.”
Noah shook his head. “She was your parents’ responsibility.”
Delaney felt something shift inside, like a weight she’d carried for twenty years suddenly loosening. “But I was supposed to?—”
“You were supposed to be a kid. An eight-year-old kid who wanted to look at hair ties.” Noah’s voice was both firm and gentle. “Your father shouldn’t have put that on you.”
Maybe.
But Dad had started in on Delaney, listing all the terrible things that could’ve happened.“She could’ve been kidnapped. She could’ve been sold to the highest bidder. She could’ve been murdered!”
“Gavin, stop.”Mom had pressed her hand to his shoulder. Delaney could still hear her voice.
“Calm down. Everyone’s safe. It was our fault.”
Their fault?
“We should have checked to make sure Kenzie was with us. It wasourjob.”
Seeing the situation again in her mind’s eye, Delaney realized Dad hadn’t been angry. He’d been scared. “As a CIA agent,”she said, the idea forming as she voiced it, “he knew every terrible scenario that could play out. I think…I think he was just overwhelmed at what could have happened.”
“Maybe.” But Noah clearly wasn’t mollified. “He should have known better than to terrorize his eight-year-old daughter with those scenarios.”
She’d never thought of it that way. She’d always accepted that her father’s reaction was justified, that she’d deserved his anger.
“You had the right to shop, Delaney.” Noah stepped around the peninsula toward her. “At eight years old, at eighteen, at twenty-eight—you have the right to pursue your own interests, to want things for yourself.”
He moved closer. The words he spoke, the idea behind them, felt foreign, almost dangerous. Her whole life had been built around the belief that other people’s needs came first, that her own desires were selfish.
