Love in the Light - Laura Kaye Page 0,35

endings that were different.

In one, it was him and Makenna in the backseat when the car flipped, and it was Makenna who didn’t survive while he did. He called her name over and over, but she never answered.

In another, Sean morphed into Makenna from an earlier version of the dream. It was her eyes that accused him. Her voice that said, “It shoulda been me. I shoulda been the one to live.”

In a completely new spin of his subconscious, Caden became his father and Makenna, his mother. When the car flipped, Makenna suffered his mother’s fate, her head battered against the side window, her neck breaking, her death instant. And not only was Caden trapped hanging upside down knowing that everything he’d ever loved was gone, but knowing, too, that it was his own fault.

He’d lost control. And she’d paid the price.

So by the time a call came in to the station, Caden’s head was a fucking wreck. Which probably explained why he had his very first on-the-job panic attack while responding to the scene of an accident. It was the hair that did it. The female driver’s long red hair.

His mind had done its usual thing, and for several long moments, he’d been absolutely sure his worst fears had come true. Makenna was dead in that car. His chest went tight, his breathing shallowed out, and he froze.

It didn’t matter that Makenna rarely drove her car. Nor that the car in the accident hadn’t been the same as Makenna’s little Prius. Or that there was absolutely no reason why Makenna would be on Duke Street near Landmark Mall at four o’clock in the afternoon when she worked miles away in Roslyn.

His brain didn’t trade in logic in moments like those.

Embarrassment aside, it was even worse that he could’ve jeopardized a patient’s life. In the end, the woman’s injuries weren’t that serious. But that wasn’t the point. He was fucking out of control, and he didn’t know what the hell to do about it. He hadn’t been this bad in years.

Then again, he hadn’t had anything to lose in years, either.

Now he did. And he was losing it.

When they returned to the station house, his captain called him into his office.

Exhausted and strung out, Caden dropped into the chair in front of his captain’s desk. In his forties and prematurely gray, Joe Flaherty had been Caden’s supervisor all nine years he’d worked in this house, and he was aware of Caden’s background. A few of the guys were.

As a rule, Caden didn’t flake out—he showed up early, he left late, he picked up extra shifts, he covered for the guys with families, he left his rig clean and well stocked, and he did the job to the best of his ability. They all knew he was solid. Well, until today.

“What happened out there, Grayson?” Joe asked, his voice concerned, but not unkind.

Caden scrubbed at his face. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Caden said. “Nightmares about the accident have been coming back lately for some reason.” He shook his head, wanting to be honest, but not wanting to say more than he had to. He met Joe’s gaze head on. “When I first saw the woman, I thought it was Makenna.”

A thoughtful expression on his face, Joe nodded. “We all see someone we love in the face of a patient at some point, so don’t beat yourself up about that,” he said. “You talking to someone about the nightmares?”

He shook his head again. Caden hadn’t sought any kind of therapy in years. He’d worked things out. Gotten himself under control. Learned ways to handle his shit.

Only, clearly, that wasn’t all true anymore, was it?

“Maybe you need to consider it. Given your history, I always expected you to have issues responding to MVAs. The real miracle given the life-threatening nature of your accident and your PTSD is that you didn’t. And I watched you.”

Caden knew that was true. And he’d understood why. On some level, he’d actually appreciated it. Before his first times out there, he hadn’t known how he might respond either. But he’d been so driven to repay the debt, to help how Talbot had helped him, that he’d never had an issue. Accident scenes had never been a trigger for him the way they could be for other crash survivors.

The accident had scarred him physically, but the emotional trauma stemmed from its consequences. From losing his family. From surviving what they hadn’t. From being alone with their corpses—because he