"I hope so." Grace blinked back more tears. "Listen, don't tell anyone in the family please. I don't want anyone to judge Damon for breaking up with me. He needs to feel their full love and support, not criticize him for going through an identity crisis."
At least that's what she hoped his brothers and cousins would think if they knew he’d broken up with her. She hated to think the family that had accepted her as part of their own would support Damon dumping her.
She wished she’d told him about her baby a long time ago. She hated having the guilt of that hanging over her head while she tried to convince Damon to give them a chance.
She needed to stop living in fear of being rejected. Damon said she deserved someone better, but until she was able to overcome her own doubts and fears, she didn’t deservehim.
CHAPTER 25
"There he is."
Damon's eyes flew open at Steven's booming voice.
Matt followed their oldest brother into the room.
"Hey, when did you guys get here?" Damon pushed the button to raise the head of his bed.
"Just arrived," Matt said. "We dropped our bags at Fischer House, said hi to Mom, and came straight here."
They both approached the bed, and one at a time, clasped Damon's hand then leaned in and pressed their shoulder to his in a semblance of a hug.
"You look like warmed over meatloaf, man." Steven's voice was laced with humor.
Their family always used dark humor to deal with uncomfortable, sensitive situations. Damon was glad this was no different.
"You should have seen me a week ago." Damon studied his arms. "At least they finally removed the IV and all the cords and sensors and let me shower."
With the help of a nurse. Male nurse, thank goodness. But that didn't make it any less awkward. Despite the steady regiment of pain meds they were keeping him on, he nearly passed out in the shower.
The simple fact that he needed help to bathe meant he was right to send Grace away. It wouldn't always be like this, he knew that, but that didn't mean he wouldn't still be a burden on her in many ways.
"You went a whole week without showering?" Steven's nose wrinkled.
"Longer than that. I was out on assignment before—" Damon's throat seized up at the snippets of memory that assaulted him of the explosion. The ones that haunted his dreams last night.
"In the meantime, he’s probably had some hot nurse giving him sponge baths." Matt teased, pretending not to notice his struggle.
Damon snorted. "If you call robust and forty-something hot."
"Well, it looks like you're going to live." Steven's head bobbed.
Every time Damon started to feel sorry for himself, he had to stop and remember how lucky he was to be alive. It was easier said than done.
"Looks like it." A smile, the first one in over a week, pulled at Damon's lips. "You suckers are stuck with me."
"You always were an attention seeker." Matt's gaze shifted to his leg. "But did you really have to give us the biggest scare of our lives?"
"Go big or go home, right?" Bantering with his brothers almost felt normal. It was exactly what Damon needed right now.
Might as well get the awkwardness over with. He tugged the blanket up to expose his stump of a leg.
Stump.
He was still trying to get used to that term.
"It's got a compression wrap on it, so you can't really see anything, right now, but it's pretty gnarly."
Hideous was more like it. He'd been completely unprepared for how grisly it would look when the nurse took the bandage off this morning before his shower. Dr. Campbell assured him that once it was fully healed, the scars wouldn't look so bad, but Damon wasn't sure he believed him.
