Battlefield of the Heart (24 page)

“But who's going to protect you from me?”

Danny's whisper brought tears to her eyes, and she put her other arm around him to hold him tightly. “Oh, Danny. What is it going to take for you to see that I'm not worried about it? I know you've got problems, that you could have a flashback at any moment and do who knows what. But that's a risk I'm willing to take because you're the man I love. Like I said before, you may be different now than you were before the army, but that different man is the one I fell in love with.”

He slipped his arms around her. “I don't want to hurt you again, even if it's just an accident. You're too special to have to deal with that.”

“That's why you're here, to get the help you need to hopefully keep you from having that severe a flashback again. The nurse told me this morning that they're adjusting your medication and working to find the right combination and dosages to keep you stable. Once they do, I'm sure you'll be okay.”

He nodded and buried his face in her hair, taking a deep breath. “Thank you so much for coming. I need you.”

“That's why I'm here.” She continued to hold him, wishing she knew how to help him. His caseworker's words kept coming back, reminding her that she only needed to love Danny.

After a moment, he released her and sat back. “I better read this card. My parents always send me cards when I'm in the hospital. They think I forget people care about me.”

Cindy leaned against his shoulder as he opened the card. “From how surprised you seemed that I showed up, I think they might be right.”

He sighed and tossed the card on the table in front of them. “Not exactly. I know they care and that a couple of other people care. It's girlfriends I'm not sure about.”

She straightened and tried to meet his gaze. He looked away. She took hold of his hand and gave it a squeeze. “Danny, talk to me. Why don't you believe a girlfriend could care about you while you're in the hospital?”

“Because my last one didn't.”

He stood and she joined him as he grabbed the card and headed toward the nurse's station. After he handed it to the nurse behind the desk, they silently walked around the open dayroom between the nurse's station and the locked entrance of the ward. Cindy left him to his thoughts. He was obviously struggling with something. Was he finally going to tell her about his high school sweetheart? She hoped so; as difficult as it might be to hear about whatever had happened, it couldn't possibly be worse than not knowing.

Finally, Danny put an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her temple. “You know I love you, right?”

“Yes, and I love you, too,” she said, laying her head on his shoulder as she matched his slower pace.

“I'm working hard to believe that,” he murmured, holding her a little tighter. He heaved a heart-rending sigh. “Cindy, I need to tell you something that you might not want to hear, but I think you need to hear it so you can understand me a little better.”

She shoved down a sudden attack of nerves and slipped her arm around his waist. “You know I'll listen to anything you want to tell me.”

“Yeah, but this is different. This isn't related to the army.”

“I want to know about you,” she said, looking him in the eye, “not just what happened while you were in the army.”

He nodded, but he didn't speak for several more circuits of the room. She wanted to shake him, force him to talk to her and end the suspense threatening to kill her, but she remained silent. She knew from experience that he'd talk when he was ready.

At the entrance of the long hall containing patient rooms, he stopped and glanced around the dayroom then led Cindy back past the nurse's station. He guided her into a small, windowed room with a couple of tables, a few heavy plastic chairs, and no people. After closing the door, they sat down next to each other, and he took a deep breath before putting his arm around her and drawing her close. “I should have told you about Shannon a long time ago, but it's not something I like to think about, let alone talk about.”

Cindy laid her hand on his chest, not surprised his heart was racing. Her own pulse was a little fast, but she wasn't sure if it was anxiety over what he might say or anticipation of finally hearing the story of the girl he'd almost married.
Father, please guide me through this potential minefield.
“It's okay. You're telling me about her now. Right?”

“Yeah.” He sighed again before speaking. “I met Shannon in January of my senior year of high school. We started going out and kept getting closer as time went on. After graduation I went into the army, and she went to college. We kept up our relationship, even though the distance made it hard.”

Cindy moved her hand to his leg and laid her head on his shoulder. He needed to know she still loved him regardless of what he said. He gave her a hug before continuing.

“Three years ago, when I was home between deployments, I proposed to her. She accepted, and I thought we'd be together forever. I mean, we'd already been together for four and a half years, even though we'd been apart for a good portion of that time.” Danny gave a short, bitter laugh and glanced at Cindy. “I learned a lot about Shannon after that.”

“What happened?”

“She started resenting my military service.” He shifted his gaze to the exterior window across from the door. “I'd known for a while that she was struggling with me being gone so much, but she always assured me she was fine. Then I started having problems for a lot of reasons. I came home with two weeks of leave, and I spent it with Shannon and my family. I was depressed when I came home, and I needed to see my fiancée. She was the girl I loved… or thought I did, anyway. Turns out she didn't love me as much as she'd said. During that leave, I felt like she was distant from me and didn't really want to spend time with me. She kept assuring me everything was fine, so I thought maybe I was just paranoid because of the depression.

“After I went back, her letters and emails kept coming, and they sounded like they always had. When I talked to her on the phone, she told me how much she missed me and how she couldn't wait for me to come home. Then a lot of stuff went down, and I lost it. I got shipped back to the U.S. and put on a psych ward. Shannon sent me two cards, and I talked to her on the phone maybe four or five times in a month. My parents sent cards twice a week and called every day. They even came to visit for a week, but Shannon couldn't be bothered to come for one day. The last time I talked to her, she told me she couldn't handle a husband with problems.”

Danny shuddered, and Cindy wrapped her arms around him, her heart aching for him. How could anyone treat such a wonderful guy so coldly, especially when he needed her the most?

He held Cindy close, continuing in a softer voice. “The worst part isn't that she broke off the engagement while I was hospitalized. That was probably the best time she could have done it, since I was surrounded by people who could help me deal with it. No, the worst part is she told me she'd been seeing another guy while I was deployed. That's why she'd seemed distant when I was home on leave. She'd just started dating some business grad student who had a guaranteed spot in his father's
Fortune 500
company as soon as he graduated. A week after she ended it with me, I found out she and her other boyfriend had been engaged for two months. She married him three months later.”

“Oh, Danny, I'm so sorry.” Now she understood why Linda hadn't told her the story. It was deeply personal and something he wouldn't appreciate others sharing.

He straightened and shrugged as he met her gaze with soft gray eyes. “I've come to realize she did me a favor. She couldn't have stayed with me through everything. My problems didn't get really bad until after she'd already started seeing that business student. If she couldn't take me being a little down while I was deployed, there's no way she could have handled a flashback or me being hospitalized for even a short time.” A faint smile touched his lips, and he stroked Cindy's cheek. “You, on the other hand, met me because of a flashback. You've seen me at my worst, and you're still here with me. I think you'd be better off with another man, but the simple fact that you haven't left me yet makes me love you even more.”

She gave him another hug, happy he could see how much she cared about him. “I'm just glad I know where you are. I hated spending the weekend worrying about you, but even then, I knew I couldn't abandon you. You've become a part of my life.”

“You're an important part of mine, but I don't want you to feel like you have to stay with me out of pity.” He leaned back in his seat, his expression stony. “I'm sure my dad told you I can't handle rejection. He's wrong. I've been rejected before by people other than Shannon. Dad doesn't understand I'm used to it. He's just overprotective. So, leave and let me get on with my life.”

What had just happened? “Your dad did talk to me yesterday, but I'd already planned on sticking with you. I don't abandon the people I love.”

“Yeah, Shannon told me the same thing once.” Danny stood and walked to the far side of the room, keeping his back to her. “I'll make it easy on you. Get out of here. I'm not going to make you stay with a guy who can't even handle college.”

Cindy rose and walked to him, aware of a nurse opening the door. “You're not making me stay with you. I want to be with you.”

He whirled toward her and glared. “You're just saying that because you feel sorry for me. I refuse to have anyone else pity me. Go home. You know you're going to leave me anyway. Don't bother pretending you're not.”

“I'm not pretending. I love you.” She fought to keep her voice steady as his words tore through her like shrapnel. After all the time they'd spent together, after everything they'd been through, how could he think she pitied him or that she'd leave him?

“I doubt you know what love is.”

The nurse stepped into the room and spoke in a calm voice. “Danny, why don't you go cool off for a few minutes?”

“I'm fine. I'm just trying to send home a woman who has no clue what she really wants.”

Cindy struggled to keep the tears at bay. “Danny…”

“We'll both be better off if you go.” He walked out of the room and disappeared toward the patient rooms, leaving her alone with the nurse.

Cindy turned toward the sympathetic woman. “I didn't mean to upset him. He was fine. I don't know what I did or said or…”

The nurse gave her shoulder a comforting pat then guided her out of the room and toward the door leading out of the ward. “Honey, I doubt it had anything to do with you. His mood has been all over the place today. The doctor is working to get him stabilized, and he's receiving counseling to help as well, but it's going to take time. For now, it might be best for both of you if you go on home.”

Cindy nodded. There was no point in upsetting Danny further, and she couldn't handle any more rejection from him right now, anyway. “Should I come visit him again tomorrow? Or do I need to stay away for a couple of days? I don't want to do anything to make him worse, but I don't want him to feel like I've abandoned him, either.”

They stopped by the exit, and the nurse turned to face her. “Go ahead and come tomorrow. The worst that can happen is you'll have to go home early like tonight. But I have a feeling in an hour or so Danny's going to feel pretty bad about the way he treated you.”

“Why is that?”

The nurse smiled. “He's been talking about you and how great you are since I came on duty. He's had his down moments, but the one thing he always went back to is how much he hoped you would come to visit.”

She managed to give the woman a tight smile, even though her heart threatened to shatter any second. “Do you think it would do any good to try and call him later?”

“You can try, as long as it's before nine.”

“Okay.” Though she ached from the beating Danny had just given her heart, she intended to keep her promise to stick with him if he would let her — and if he would get the necessary help to keep from trying to hurt her feelings. But was she brave enough to let this nurse pass on a message for her? Thoughts of how much Shannon had hurt him caused her to work up the courage. “If Danny starts worrying that I've abandoned him or that I don't care about him, can you let him know I love him and will get here as close to the start of visiting hours as I can tomorrow?”

The nurse nodded and smiled sympathetically. “I'll let him know. You drive carefully.”

“Thanks.”

Cindy made it to the parking garage before the tears started falling. She sat behind the wheel of Danny's truck and wept, praying for comfort and strength. Even though she was sure Danny's words had been the result of his PTSD, the rejection still hurt. As she thought over the last few days, she realized leaning on God was the only thing that had kept her sane. She could only pray He would help her survive this as well.