Awakened by His Touch (17 page)

All she’d done was prove Elliott right, really.

Still she didn’t use her phone. She’d spend the night out here before calling for help. Turned ankles were hardly a new experience for her—she just needed to wait it out. Although she would turn for home just as soon as her leg was up to the challenge. There really was no point in denying reality.

She was
blind
.

And this was
far
.

She tipped her face back and stared straight into the sun, her ears full of the wind buffeting the coast, her perception full of the golden glow of the sun. And she used it to calm her anxious nerves.

‘Hey...’

Her ankle protested at her startled lurch. And the sun’s glow turned rich and masculine.

Elliott...

‘Whatcha doing, Laney?’

‘Thinking,’ she replied, struggling not to move. Struggling for some dignity. Struggling not to weep at the sound of his voice.

‘On the ground?’

‘Benches seem to be in short supply out here.’

‘Yeah, you’re a long way from home,’ he murmured, squatting next to her.

‘I could say the same thing.’

Why are you here?
That was what she wanted to say. And right behind that was an immense gratitude that he was.

‘Your phone is off.’

Heat washed up her neck but she lifted her chin anyway. ‘I prefer to do my thinking in silence.’

‘Are you planning on getting up any time soon?’

‘When I’m ready.’

But this man was no fool. His sharp brain was one of the things she loved best about him. The present tense of that thought sucked at her spirits. All her good work of the past two months undone by mere moments back in Elliott’s company.

Her feelings for him hadn’t changed one little bit.

‘Laney, are you hurt?’

Horribly!
she wanted to sob. By everything he’d shown her about herself. And about himself. And about the unfairness of life in general.

She waved her left leg loosely. ‘My ankle.’

His answer was immediate and infuriating. But she was too distracted by the heaven of his arms around her after all this time, and by his scent pressing so close to her, to protest as he lifted her off the ground. He resettled her more comfortably and her arms crept around his neck.

Where she’d once let herself believe they belonged.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, breathless, as his footfalls crunched.

‘Looking for you.’

Ugh
...such intensity. How badly did she want to imagine that it had something to do with her and was not because her parents had issued some kind of all-points bulletin?

‘Lower your good foot.’

She slid down his body, with the polished gloss of his car at her back, until her strong foot hit the ground. He opened the door with one hand and helped her inside with the other.

‘I mean on the peninsula,’ she said as soon as he’d closed himself in with her. ‘Why are you here?’

Looking for you
. Please say it...please say it.

But his voice was guarded. ‘I’ve spent the last ten weeks on the go in the constant company of your brother. My apartment felt pretty big and echoey all of a sudden.’

‘And you thought you’d remedy that by driving four hundred kilometres to hang out on one of our windswept cliffs?’

She refused to let his chuckle warm her.

‘I thought you’d have gone to the office if you were in need of company,’ she tested. ‘I’m sure it’s full of people working way past their home time.’

‘I stopped off to see my mother, but otherwise I headed straight down from the airport.’

Nice hedge
. She straightened further as he bypassed confession, but played along. ‘How is she?’

‘She’s good. She—’ He stopped as suddenly as if something had caught his eye in the distance. ‘We had a good chat.’

What? Could he barely believe his own words?

‘About your trip?’

‘About a whole bunch of things. Overdue things. Turns out I had my share of unspoken baggage there.’

‘You shock me.’

He didn’t take offence.

‘Did you get it sorted?’

Because mothers mattered.

‘Yeah. I think we did. There was a lot I didn’t understand.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like how I came about.’

‘Elliott, I could have given you the birds and the bees talk if I’d realised you were lacking...’

‘Funny girl. I mean
why
. Turns out Mum was acting out when she was sixteen. Trying to get herself fired from the squad.’

‘Why?’

‘She was miserable. She hated that life. She hated the pressure she’d been put under her whole childhood. The stress. The intense expectation.’

‘So getting pregnant was her solution?’

‘Getting pregnant was just the result. She knew fraternisation would get her sent home.’

‘So you
made
her life, then? Not ruined it?’ His earlier words echoed, clear and pained.

‘I changed it. But...’ A gentle lightness stole over his deep voice. ‘Yeah, not for the worse, as far as she was concerned.’

It was hard to resent a man for his own personal healing. Even one who had hurt you.

‘I’m glad for you. Does that help?’

‘It explains a lot. Her background too. Now I know why she didn’t push me harder. Or at all. She thought she was protecting me from the sort of experience she’d had. Letting me just emerge at my own pace.’

‘But you wanted the pressure?’

‘I wanted her belief.’

Yeah. Laney could definitely relate to that.

‘Let me just call your parents,’ he said. ‘They are frantic. And Owen’s cursing because you’ve upstaged his glorious return.’

No. Not the Owen who had come back from his travels. That Owen was infinitely more self-assured than the one who had left. But she sighed anyway. ‘It seems I haven’t really learned anything in the months you were gone.’

Except that wasn’t true. She’d learned how to be humble. And that a person couldn’t just
wish
feelings away. More was the pity.

‘Where were you headed?’ he asked after a brief call to her brother. ‘Before gravity intruded?’

‘The lookout.’

‘You weren’t far off. I can see it from here. Why so far from home?’

‘I can’t really explain it... I needed to do it. To prove I could.’ Never mind that apparently she couldn’t. She shuddered in a calming breath. ‘I hate that you were right.’

He could have said something comforting, something patronising. But he didn’t. He shifted in his seat, turning his voice more fully on her. ‘You want to tell me what’s really going on, Laney?’

‘I could ask you the same,’ she murmured.

‘What do you mean?’

Enough of the eggshells, already. ‘You lied to us.’

His surprise was more of a stammer. ‘About what?’

‘About not representing Ashmore Coolidge any longer. About quitting your job in protest when they denied the export proposal.’

Awkward.

‘I didn’t lie, Laney.’

‘Yeah, you did.’

‘No, I didn’t. I emailed your father with full details when it happened. Did he not tell you?’

She thought back to how injured her father had been after that evening, and how long it had taken the two of them to get back to a cautious happy place where he finally understood the pressure he’d put on his young daughter, with his relentless drive to give her every experience available, and she’d finally accepted that those same experiences had nurtured and drawn out her talents. Made her the woman she now was.

‘Guess he forgot.’

Unless he was just too hurt...

‘Or he didn’t want you to worry about Owen.’

‘Why would I worry about Owen?’

‘Because there’s a big difference between heading Stateside under the auspices of an international finance company and two freelancers cold-calling in a rented RV.’

‘There may be things about my brother that I was unaware of, Elliott, but I know Owen well enough to recognise that the latter would have suited him down to the ground.’

‘He did really well.’

The proud confirmation of a mentor. And a friend.

‘So...what happened with Ashmore Coolidge? Why did you leave?’

‘Water under the bridge, Laney. Wouldn’t you rather talk about the trip?’

Actually, what she wanted to say was
Why didn’t you call me?
But his ex-employers seemed a much safer topic. And one likely to keep him at a distance.

‘No. I want to talk about Ashmore Coolidge.’

‘They passed on the deal. Ripples from the global financial crisis.’

‘You don’t seem the type to poach a client.’

‘I’m not. I told them when I resigned that I was going to pursue it with your family. Independently.’

‘And they were okay with that?’ Not the Roger Coolidge she’d spoken to.

‘They didn’t love it, but they were prepared to be flexible after...’

‘After what?’

‘Laney, it really doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to me. If there are good reasons why we shouldn’t be proceeding.’

‘They aren’t related to the feasibility or the figures. And they aren’t good reasons.’

‘Then what?’

‘Look, Laney. I believed in the proposal and I believe in Morgan’s. And I really believed in the opportunity. Too much to just let it go.’

‘What about your promotion?’

‘I walked away.’

For a guy whose dream had been ripped out from under him he sounded pretty...relaxed. ‘I want to say I’m sorry about that, but something tells me I shouldn’t.’

‘I can’t say I enjoyed the face-down with my employers, but a couple of months of being freelance has shown me how much I’ve been missing by tethering myself to a company as conservative as Ashmore Coolidge.’

‘Face-down about what?’

Frustration issued tight and tense from his throat. ‘A fundamental aspect of their approval.’

Wait. There’d been a moment when they
would
have accepted? And he hadn’t jumped at it? ‘Come on, Elliott, you know I’m not going to stop asking.’

‘Laney, can you just trust me that I did what I thought was in your best interests?’

‘“
Your best interests
” Morgan’s—or “
Your best interests
” mine?’

‘Laney—’

She reached for her phone. ‘Maybe I’ll just ask Roger, then.’

Strong fingers curled around hers to stop her dialling. ‘
Roger?
You’re on a first-name basis with Coolidge?’

‘A lot has changed since you’ve been gone.’

You know—in the time when you were completely ignoring me.

‘I’m amazed he wasn’t too ashamed...’ he said, under his breath.

‘Of what, Elliott?’

Breath hissed out of him like a deflating balloon.

‘Ashmore Coolidge made acceptance of my proposal only on certain conditions—’ That was the world Roger Coolidge had used, too. ‘—and certain marketing strategies that I didn’t agree with.’

‘Carving our logo into Mount Everest?’

‘Actually, I thought that had merit,’ he quipped.

But his silence only grew more awkward, and she recognised that awkwardness from those first hours when they’d met. ‘Wait... Was it to do with me?’

Silence.

‘What did they want you to do?’

‘You weren’t even comfortable with the researchers naming their project after you. I was pretty sure you wouldn’t have wanted to be the international face of Morgan’s.’

Correct.

‘Ashmore Coolidge particularly wanted
your
face,’ he nudged.

‘Did they imagine a pretty face would open doors with the apiaries?’

His sigh was almost lost in the rasp as he ran his hands over his chin. ‘They felt you would open doors on the media circuit.’

And then the penny finally dropped. And rolled right off the edge of the cliff behind them. ‘They wanted to trade off my vision?’

‘It’s not going to happen, Laney.’

‘Damn right, it’s not! I can’t believe they asked.’

‘They don’t know you.’

‘Do they not have any shame?’ Heck, and she’d been so polite to Roger Coolidge!

‘If they did they’d never do half the things they do.’

But as her umbrage eased off a little the meaning of his words sank in. She twisted back towards him and whispered, ‘You quit your job rather than sell me out?’

‘I found a line I wouldn’t cross. Who knew?’

His laugh was one hundred per cent self-deprecation.

No. He was making light of it, but just...
no
. ‘You gave up your dream.’

For
me.

‘It was repugnant, Laney.’

So...what...? Anyone would have done it? Did he expect her to believe that?

‘Not to them. They would have quite happily used my blindness to sell a truckload of honey.’

‘Don’t deify me just yet, Laney. I walked away from that opportunity straight into another one. A better one. I wasn’t exactly taking a leap of faith. If we proceed, I stand to make that same truckload.’

‘So you’re in this for you? You’re not a good guy? That’s what you want me to believe?’

‘I’m a reasonable guy, Laney, but I’m not a saint. There was a time your vision was on the assets side of
my
assessment file. Back at the start.’

Sure, he’d thought about it—but he hadn’t done it. Big difference.

‘What stopped you?’

‘You. I got to know you.’

Her heart clenched before she remembered not to let it. ‘I don’t need you to run interference for me with Ashmore Coolidge. I would have told them where they could shove that idea.’

His full laugh washed over her like a warm wave. It had been a long time since she’d heard it.

‘I know. It wasn’t about you. It was about me. Drawing that line.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I didn’t want to be a man who had no line.’

A decency line. And she was it. But not because of
her
; because of him.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘For whatever reason you did it. You had a lot to lose.’

‘I have a lot to gain, too.’ He took her hands in his again. ‘Laney, it took me a while, but I got there. I understand you don’t want to be defined by your vision. The woman who does extraordinary things
despite
her blindness. Or
because
of it. You don’t even want to be extraordinary.’