Her Knight in the Outback (16 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘H
EY
...'

Marshall's voice was startling enough out of the silence without her also being so horribly unprepared for it. Eve's stomach twisted back on itself and washed through with queasiness.

She'd only just resigned herself to him being gone—truly gone—and now he was back? What the hell was he trying to do—snap her last remaining tendrils of emotional strength?

She managed to force some words up her tight throat. ‘What are you doing here, Marshall?'

It felt as if she was forever asking him that.

Compassion from him was nearly unbearable, but it rained down on her from those grey eyes she'd thought never to see again.

‘Sit down, Eve.'

Instantly her muscles tensed. Muscles that had heard a lot of bad news. ‘Why?'

‘I need to talk to you.'

‘About...?'

‘Eve. Will you just sit down?'

No. No...
He was looking at her like her father had the day Travis was officially declared a missing person.

‘I don't think I want to.'

As if what she wanted would, in any way, delay what she feared was to come.

‘Okay, we'll do this upright, then.'

His mouth opened to suck in a deep breath but then snapped shut again in surprise. ‘I don't know where to start. Despite all the trial runs I've had in my mind on the way back here...'

That threw her. Was he back to make another petition for something between them? She moved to head that off before he could begin. Hurting him once had been bad enough...

‘Marshall—'

‘I have news.'

News.
The tightness became a strangle in her throat. Somehow she knew he wouldn't use that word lightly.

‘You're freaking me out, Marshall,' she squeezed out.

The words practically blurted themselves onto his lips. ‘I've found Travis.'

The rush of blood vacating her face left her suddenly nauseous and her legs started to go.

‘He's alive, Eve,' he rushed to add.

That extra piece of information knocked the final support from under her and her buckling legs deposited her onto the bus's sofa.

‘Eve...' Marshall dropped down next to her and enveloped her frigid hand between both of his. ‘He's okay. He's not hurt. Not sick.'

Eve's lips trembled open but nothing came out and it distantly occurred to her that she might be in shock. He rubbed her frigid fingers and scanned her face, so maybe he thought so, too.

‘He's living and working in a small town here in Western Australia. He has a job. A roof over his head. He's okay.'

Okay.
He kept saying that, but her muddled mind refused to process it. ‘If he was okay he'd have been in touch...'

And then his meaning hit her. New job and new house meant new life. They meant
voluntary.
Her heart began to hammer against her ribs. Everything around her took on an other-worldly gleam and it was only then she realised how many tears wobbled right on the edges of her lashes.

‘Where is he?' she whispered.

It was then Marshall's anger finally registered and confusion battled through the chaos in her mind. Anger at her? Why? But colour was unquestionably high in his jaw and his eyes were stony.

‘I can't tell you, Eve.'

Okay, her brain was seriously losing it. She waited for the actual meaning to sink in but all she was left with was his refusal to tell her where her long-lost brother was.

‘But you found him...?'

‘He asked me not to say.'

‘What? No.' Disbelief stabbed low in her gut. And betrayal. And hurt. ‘But I love him.'

‘I know.
He
knows,' he hurried to add, though the anger on his face wasn't diminishing. ‘He told me that he would disappear again if I exposed him. So that you'd never find him. He made me give him my word.'

Pain sliced across her midsection. ‘But you don't even know him. You know me.'

You
love
me.

She might as well have said it. They both knew it to be true. Not that it changed anything.

‘Eve, he's alive and safe and living a life. He's on his meds and is getting healthy. Every day. He just can't do that at home.'

The thump against her eardrums intensified. ‘Okay, he doesn't have to come back to Melbourne. We could move—'

‘It's not about Melbourne, Eve. He doesn't want to go
home
.'

Realisation sunk in and she whispered through the devastation, ‘He doesn't want to be with his family?'

God, did she look as young and fragile as her disbelief sounded? Maybe, because Marshall looked positively sick to be having this conversation.

‘He wants to be healthy, Eve. And he needed to start over for that to happen.'

Start over...

‘He doesn't have to come back, I can go to him. If he likes where he is—'

‘I'm so sorry.' He squeezed both his hands around both of hers and held on. And, after an endless pause, he spoke, leaning forward to hold her stinging eyes with his. ‘He doesn't want you to come, Eve. Particularly you.'

Particularly you.

Anguish stacked up on top of pain on top of misery. And all of it was wrapped in razor blades.

‘But I love him.'

His skin blanched. ‘I know. I'm so sorry.'

‘I need to see him,' she whispered. ‘I've been searching for so long—'

‘He wants a fresh start.'

A fissure opened up in her heart and began to tug wider. Her voice, when it came, was low and croaky. ‘From me?'

‘From everything.'

‘Is this...' The fissure stretched painfully. ‘Is this about
me
?'

Pity was like a cancer in his gaze. ‘He can't be with you any more. Or your dad.'

‘Why?' Her cry bounced off the Bedford's timber-lined walls.

Words seemed to fail him. He studied his feet for the barest of moments and then found her gaze again.

‘Because of your mother, Eve.'

She stared at him, lost. Confused. But then something surfaced in the muddle of pain and thought. ‘The accident?'

His expression confirmed it.

God, she could barely breathe, let alone carry on a conversation. ‘But that was years ago.'

‘Not for him, Eve. He carries it every day. The trauma. The anxiety. The depression. The guilt.'

Guilt?
‘But Mum wasn't his fault.'

His fingers tightened around hers again and his gaze remained steady. ‘It was, Eve. I'm so sorry.'

She shook the confusion away, annoyed to have to go back over such old ground. But being angry at him helped. It gave all the pain somewhere to go.

‘No. He was with her, but... She was driving drunk.'

But she could read Marshall like a book—even after just a few weeks together—and his book said something else was going on here. Something big. She blinked. Repeatedly.

‘Wasn't she?'

‘Didn't you say they were both thrown from the bike?'

She was almost too dizzy for words. So she just nodded.

‘And the police determined that she was in control?'

‘Travis was the only other person there. And he couldn't ride properly then. He was underage.'

Marshall crouched over further and peered right into her face. Lending her his strength. ‘No. He couldn't.'

But it was all starting to be horribly, horribly clear.

Oh, God...

‘Trav was driving?' she choked. Marshall just nodded. ‘Because Mum had been drinking?'

No nod this time, just the pitying, horrible creasing of his eyes.

No... Not little Travis...
‘And he never told anyone?'

‘Imagine how terrified he must have been.'

A fourteen-year-old boy driving his drunk mother home to keep her safe and ending up killing her.

‘He wouldn't have lied to protect himself.' Her certainty sounded fierce even to her.

‘But what if he thought you'd all blame him? Hate him. That's a lot for someone to carry. Young or old. He can't face you.'

She sagged against the sofa back, this new pain having nowhere to go.

‘He carried that all alone? All this time?' she whispered. ‘Poor Trav. Poor baby...'

‘No. Don't you take that on, too. He's getting treatment now. He's got support and he's getting stronger. He's doing pretty bloody well, all things considered.'

So why was Marshall still so very tense?

‘But he knows what he wants. And needs. And he isn't going back to your world. And he doesn't want that world coming to him either.' He cursed silently. ‘Ever.'

A tiny bit of heat bubbled up beneath her collar and she'd never been so grateful for anger. It cut like a hot knife through the butter of her numb disbelief and reminded her she could still feel something. And not a small something. The feelings she'd been suppressing for twelve months started to simmer and then boil up through the cracks of Marshall's revelation.

Ever.

‘So...that's it?' she wheezed. ‘I gave up a year of my life to find him—I broke my heart searching for him—and all this time he's been living comfortably across the country
starting over
?'

Marshall's lips pressed together. ‘He's made his choice.'

‘And you've made yours, apparently. You've taken his side pretty darned quick for a man you don't know.'

‘Eve, I'm on your side—'

It was as if someone was puffing her with invisible bellows filled with hot air...making this worse and worse.

‘Don't! How do I know you're not just making this all up to further your cause?'

‘You can't be serious.'

‘How would I know? The only evidence I have that any of this is true is your word. You might not have found him at all. You might just want me to think that. You might say anything to get me to stay with you.'

The words poured out uncontrollably.

‘What the hell have I done to make you believe that of me?' But he rummaged in his pocket, pulled out his phone and opened his photo app. ‘Believe this, then.'

Seeing Travis just about broke her heart.

Her baby brother. Alive. Healthy. Enjoying a beer. Even laughing.
Laughing!
She hadn't seen that in years.

She certainly hadn't done it in as long.

Tears tumbled.

‘Eve—'

‘What would happen, Marshall?' she asked desperately. ‘If you told me where he is. How would he even know?'

She was flying through the stages of grief. At bargaining already.

‘I know you, Eve...'

‘So you're just going to take the choice away from me? Like some child?'

‘You wouldn't be able to stay away. You know it.'

‘I'm not about to
stalk him
, Marshall.'

‘You already are, Eve! You're scouring the country systematically, hunting him down.'

Her gasp pinged around the little bus. ‘Is that how you see it?'

‘Why else would you want to know where he is? Unless you were going to keep tabs on him.'

‘Because I
love
him. You have no right to keep this from me.'

‘I'm not doing this to be a bastard, Eve. I don't want you in any more pain.'

‘You think this doesn't hurt? Knowing he's alive and I can't get to him? Can't hold him? Or help him? You think that's kinder than letting me hear from his own lips that he doesn't want to come home?'

Just saying the words was horrible.

He took her chin in his fingers and forced her to look at him and, despite everything, her skin still thrilled at his simple touch. It had been days...

‘Hear me, Eve,' he urged. ‘If you go there he will disappear again. He knows what to do now, he'll be better at it and he might go off his meds to keep himself hidden. You will never see or hear from your brother again. Is that what you want?'

In all her wildest, worst dreams she'd never imagined she'd be sitting here, across from Marshall—of all people—fighting him for her brother's whereabouts.

But, dear Lord, fight she would.

‘How is that any different to what I have now?'

‘Because I know where he is and he's agreed to check in with me from time to time.'

The grief and hurt surged up right below her skin, preparing to boil over.

‘So...what? You get to be some kind of gatekeeper to my family? Who the hell gave you that authority?'

‘He has a legal right to go missing. He wasn't hurt, or forced, or under any kind of duress. He decided to leave.'

‘He was sick!'

‘And managing his condition.'

He had an answer for every single argument. ‘Then he must have been desperate.'

‘Maybe, but he's not now. He's doing okay, I swear.' He caught her eyes again and brought everything back to the simple truth. ‘You've found him, Eve.'

‘No,
you
found him. I have as little as I had before.' Less, really. ‘And, whatever he's going through, he clearly needs some kind of psychological help. People don't just walk out on perfectly good families.'

‘They do, Eve. For all kinds of reasons. He couldn't stay, not knowing what he'd done. Fearing you'd discover it. Knowing how much you'd sacrificed—'

The inquest. The random timing of his disappearance suddenly came into crystal focus. ‘I can help him.'

‘You're still protecting him from responsibility? He's an adult, Eve. He doesn't want your help.'

‘He needs it.'

‘Does he, Eve? Or do you just need to believe that?'

She stiffened where she sat.

‘You were his big sister. You looked after him and your father after the accident. That became your role. And for the last twelve months you've been about nothing but him. You chucked in your job. You sold your house. What do you have if you don't have him?'