Hot Island Nights (20 page)

“I get it. You don’t deserve to know me and so you’re taking yourself off. Am I getting this straight?” she said.

He stilled. His face was in profile to her but she knew she’d struck home.

“You’re a real saint, aren’t you? Sure, you walked away from me once for money, but this time it’s because you’re protecting me from yourself. How very damned noble of you.”

He swung to face her.

“You telling me you want me hanging around? A man who’d sell his own kid?”

“As opposed to what? Having nothing? Knowing there’s a man out there in the world who gave me life who I don’t know anything about?”

“Some would say that’s a better deal.”

“Well, they’re not me. They didn’t grow up in a big house with two old people who didn’t know what to do with a little girl who missed her parents so badly she cried herself to sleep every night for six months.”

Her voice had risen and a nurse appeared in the doorway to her room.

“Is everything okay in here?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said at the same time that her father did.

They looked at each other. After a moment the nurse shrugged and walked away.

“I want to know where I come from,” Elizabeth said. “I want to know my own father.”

She could hear the emotion vibrating in her voice and she blinked furiously. Her father stared at her for a long moment. Then he made his way to the chair beside her bed. He slid his crutches from beneath his arms but didn’t immediately sit. He looked at her, as though he was waiting for her to object. As though he still couldn’t quite believe she was giving him this second chance.

She didn’t say anything. He was her father. She wanted a relationship with him, even if he wasn’t perfect.

After a few seconds he lowered himself into the chair.

She asked about Nate before Sam left. He had no information for her. Nate had called him to let him know what had happened, told Sam where she was, and ended the call without saying anything else.

Despite being bone-weary, Elizabeth lay on her side staring out the darkened window for a long time after her father had gone.

Why hadn’t Nate called or come by?

A nervous, fluttery anxiety tightened her belly as she tried to understand. Perhaps he had been unable to find someone to drive him to the hospital. Just because he’d conquered his fears to drive during an emergency did not mean he was cured, after all. Post-traumatic stress was an ongoing condition, not something that was healed with the flick of a switch.

But even if he’d been unable to catch a lift, he could have called. And he hadn’t.

Something was wrong, and she was worried.

When she’d woken and remembered Nate driving, her first thought had been that he’d had a breakthrough. But maybe there was something she was missing here. Maybe being forced to confront his fear had pushed him backward, not forward.

Impossible to know without seeing him, and all this speculation was making her head ache. She closed her eyes and forced herself to think of something else, and after what felt like a long time she finally fell sleep.

The first thing she did when she woke the next morning was roll over and check the chair beside her bed. Again it was empty.

Disappointment descended on her, along with anxiety. She didn’t understand what was going on. Then she pulled herself up in the bed and glanced toward the door and he was standing there.

“You’re here,” she said stupidly.

She waited for him to come to her side, to kiss her, but Nate didn’t move.

“How’s your arm?” he asked.

“It’s fine. A little tender, but in the end I only needed a dozen or so stitches. Pretty amazing, huh?”

She smiled but he didn’t smile back. All the doubts she’d fought off in the small hours returned tenfold. She’d been telling herself there was an explanation, warning herself not to jump to conclusions, but now Nate was standing there looking cold and distant and she was afraid.

“Nate…? What’s going on?”

Then her gaze moved beyond him and for the first time she saw her suitcase sitting just inside the door, her overnight bag set neatly beside it.

“I think I got everything. If there’s anything else, I’ll send it on,” he said.

“I don’t understand.” Although she did. Of course she did.

“You should go home. Spend Christmas with your family.”

“But…what about us?”

“You should go home,” Nate repeated.

He was starting to really scare her. The flat, dead look in his eyes. The cool, resolved finality in his voice.

This was how he’d been with Jarvie. He’d cut Jarvie out of his life just as coldly. And now he was trying to do the same with her.

“What’s going on, Nate? Talk to me. Whatever it is, we can work it out.”

“There’s nothing to work out. This should never have happened in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was never going to work.”

“That’s not true, Nate—”

“I’m a mess. My life is screwed. I had no right dragging you into any of that.”

“Your life is not a mess, Nate. You’re recovering from major trauma, yes, but that doesn’t mean your life is over. Every day you get better. The night sweats have stopped. And you drove, Nate. You got in a car and drove. Doesn’t that tell you that the way you’re feeling has to shift?”

“Right. And then all the little bunny rabbits will skip down rainbow lane. It doesn’t work like that, Elizabeth. Take it from someone who has lived with this shit for six months.”

There was so much bitterness and anger in his voice. She set her jaw. He might not be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but she could. And she would continue to be the lamp holder for him on this if that was what it took to get him through.

“I know what you’ve gone through is hard. But you’ll get there. I know you will. You’ll get your old life back. I firmly believe it. We’ll take it slowly, step by step. But it’ll happen. We’ll do it together. We’ll do whatever it takes—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You didn’t hear her scream. You didn’t watch them zip her into a body bag like a lump of meat. Nothing will ever be the same.
Nothing.
”

Elizabeth sat back against her pillows. She’d seen Nate’s anxiety, his fear of driving, she’d seen him in the grip of night terrors. She’d watched him anesthetize himself with alcohol to take the edge off. She’d read about hypervigilance and depression and broken sleep. She’d seen the way he’d corralled himself into a corner, turning away from his old life and using his self-taught coping mechanisms to get through each day. She’d seen the pain and the shame and the fear.

But what she hadn’t seen or understood until now was that underneath it all lay deep, soul-destroying guilt.

Nate blamed himself for his sister’s death.

It was so simple, and yet she hadn’t seen it until now.

He blamed himself. And he punished himself.

On some unconscious level, he welcomed the symptoms of his post-traumatic stress as due and just penance for his crime. The anxiety, the inability to drive, the loss of his business—these were all fit punishments for a man who’d taken the life of the one person he loved above all others. The woman he’d raised almost as a daughter. The woman he’d strived so hard to provide for. The woman he would have died for.

Then Elizabeth had come along, and things had shifted, gotten better….

“You don’t want to get better, do you?” she asked. “You think you deserve it. Don’t you?”

“Spare me the pop psychology. What we had was a holiday fling. It’s over. End of story. We both move on.”

“No, Nate. What we
have
is a relationship, present tense, and I love you and you love me and the thought of having so much happiness within reach scares the hell out of you. The past few weeks, things have been changing for you, haven’t they? You’ve been feeling better. Happier. More content. Which is why you sacrificed the business. God forbid you have Smartsell
and
me. One of those things had to go. And then you drove, breaking down another barrier and suddenly I’m on the chopping block, too.

“I thought you couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You
can
see it—you just don’t think you deserve it. You won’t let yourself have it. You want to keep paying penance for Olivia.”

“This is bullshit. I’m selling the business because it’s the right thing to do. And I’m ending things with you because there’s no future in it.”

“Answer me this, then, Nate. How did you get here today? Did you drive?”

It was a stab in the dark, but she knew Nate well enough to know that once he knew he could beat something, he wouldn’t allow it to beat him. The expression on his face confirmed her guess and she smiled sadly.

“You’re getting better. But it doesn’t make you happy, does it?”

Nate’s gaze fixed on a point over her shoulder. “I spoke to the travel agent on Main Street. There’s a flight to London tomorrow night and there are plenty of seats.”

“Were you speeding?”

He was taken off guard by her abrupt question and his gaze snapped back to her. “What?”

“Were you speeding, the night of the accident?”

“No.”

“Were you drunk? On drugs?”

He simply stared at her. She already knew the answer. Nate was too responsible to be so reckless.

“Did you try to steer out of the skid?”

Nate locked his jaw.

“Did you try to steer out of the skid?” she repeated. “Yes.”

“Tell me what else you could have done. Tell me what else you should have done to save her.”

His jaw worked. There was so much guilt and anger in his eyes, so much grief….

“It was an accident, Nate. A horrible, pointless, unlucky accident. Not your fault. No one’s fault. And I understand that that’s maybe hard for you to deal with when you’ve lost someone you love so much, but you turning away from life is not going to bring Olivia back.”

He dropped his head and lifted a hand to his face. For a moment she thought she’d finally gotten through to him, but when he lifted his head again the cool, distant expression was back in place.

“I hope your arm recovers quickly.” He turned to leave.

“Nate. Don’t you dare walk away from this.”

He kept walking.

She threw off the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her drip line got caught on the bed frame and she wasted precious seconds untangling it. When she was finally free to slide to her feet the abrupt movement sent a wave of dizziness washing over her.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. By some miracle they’d found each other when, by rights, they should never have even crossed paths. She’d fallen in love with him, baggage and all. And now he was throwing their love away without even fighting for it.

Was he really so broken? And if so, what hope did she have of convincing him he deserved to be happy?

“Would Olivia want you to live like this, Nate? Would she?” she called after him.

She had no idea if he heard her. All she knew was that she felt as though she had just lost the most important battle of her life.

But she’d guessed he’d driven in to see her.

There was no way she could have known that he’d borrowed Trevor’s car for a couple of hours yesterday and again this morning, forcing himself to work through his anxiety and the flashes of memory that washed over him. Forcing himself past the sweating and the shallow breathing until he was able to get in the car and put his hands on the steering wheel without hearing his sister pleading with him.

But Elizabeth had guessed. She’d known that once he’d proven to himself that he could drive if he had to, he wouldn’t be able to let the fear beat him again.

He parked Trevor’s car in the parking lot behind the pub and dropped off the keys at the bar. Then he walked down to the beach and headed home along the sand.

He’d become a master at blocking out things he didn’t want to think about or feel over the past six months, but it was impossible to stop himself from mulling over what Elizabeth had said to him in her hospital room.

That he wanted to punish himself.

That he blamed himself for Olivia’s death.

That he believed he didn’t deserve to be happy.

He wanted to deny it all as a bunch of gobbledygook from the self-help section of the bookstore, but deep inside her words had struck a chord. It
was
his fault that Olivia was dead, after all. He’d been driving. Her care—her life—had been in his hands. And he’d failed her.

Elizabeth could talk about luck and accidents and blame all she wanted, but the truth was immutable. It was his responsibility, all of it. Because of him, Olivia would never take the trip to Paris she’d always dreamed about. She’d never know if she could have made it into the School of Fashion and Textiles at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She’d never fall in love and marry and have a family of her own.

She was gone. His little sister.

And he was still here, not a scratch on him. Not even a freaking scar to show for the accident once the bruising had faded and the swelling gone down. He still had his wealth, his health, his life. Everything.

So, yeah. Maybe he did think there was a certain justice in the night terrors and the flashbacks and the whole can’t-get-behind-the-wheel-of-a-car thing. A life for a life. What could be more simple? More fitting?

The sun was hot as he walked from the beach into his street. There was beer in the fridge, he knew, and vodka in the freezer. He could numb himself with alcohol. Just to get through the next few days before Elizabeth was gone. And then it would be back to the usual. The days. The bar. The nights.

He entered the house through the back door. He’d cleaned the blood that first night—mopped it out of the kitchen and bathroom, soaked it out of the carpet in the hallway. It hadn’t come out completely, of course. If he looked to his right, he’d see the dark stain where Elizabeth had collapsed in the hall.

He didn’t look. He went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Then he sat at the kitchen table and drank it down, staring at the wall and willing himself not to think.

Would Olivia want you to live like this, Nate?

He should never have hooked up with Elizabeth. He should never have let himself get involved with her or her quest to find her father. He should never have sought comfort and solace in her arms.

Would Olivia want you to live like this?

He slammed the bottle down onto the table and beer frothed over the top. He swore, then stood and went to the fridge. Clearly, reinforcements were called for. Beer wasn’t going to cut it today.

He opened the freezer and found himself staring at ice cream and frozen vegetables and meat. Only then did he remember that Lizzy had relegated his vodka bottle to the cupboard. She’d claimed it was because they needed the freezer space, but he’d known it was part of her quietly determined effort to encourage him to drink less.

He crossed the kitchen and pulled open the cabinet over the counter. He could see the vodka bottle, lying on its side along the back, but his gaze was drawn to the pink-and-white plastic bag of marshmallows sitting at the front of the shelf. A sticky note was attached to the bag, Lizzy’s old-school cursive script curling across the small square of paper:
Don’t even
think
about finishing these without me!!!

Like a physical blow, clarity tensed his gut and made him take a step backward.

He would never see Elizabeth again. He’d ensured that with his words and actions today. There would be no more of her laughter and dry looks and calm certainty. He would never touch the silk of her skin or taste her kisses or see the warm, clear light in her eyes. He would never walk into a room and smell her perfume and know she was nearby. As far as he was concerned, it would be as though she had died that night in his bloodstained hallway. She would become nothing but a memory.

But she wouldn’t really be dead. She would be in London, living her life. He imagined how it might be—Lizzy at school teaching her kids, finding her way again on the other side of the world. Her tan fading, along with her memories of him. And then, eventually, she would meet someone else and fall in love. She’d get married and have children. And some other lucky bastard would get to sleep with her each night and grow old with her and comfort her when she needed it and make her laugh when she was sad and infuriate and challenge and adore her.

He sucked in a ragged breath.

Jesus, he wanted to be that lucky bastard. He wanted the peace of waking in her arms. He wanted the joy of being inside her, her body warm against his. He wanted to watch her bloom as she discovered all the things about herself she’d been too scared and dutiful to acknowledge. He wanted the happiness she offered so easily, so openly.

He wanted a future full of hope and possibility, not this quarter-life of regret and fear and loneliness.

The moment he acknowledged his own desire, the old guilt rose inside him. How could he open himself to so much happiness when Olivia was gone? How could he allow himself to live fully without her? If he picked up the threads of his life, if he kept growing Smartsell and he allowed himself to have Elizabeth, if he could truly
live
again, it would be as though he was denying Olivia ever existed. As though her death meant nothing to him.

You turning away from life is not going to bring Olivia back.

Nate closed his eyes. He knew Lizzy was right. Olivia was dead. He missed her like crazy, would probably continue to miss her like crazy every day for the rest of his life, but all the guilt and pain and self-flagellating in the world was not going to bring her back.

The bottom line was that she was gone. And he was not.

And he didn’t want to keep living like this. He didn’t want to be a victim of his own memories. He didn’t want to let fear control his world.

But most of all he didn’t want to let Lizzy go. In a few short weeks she had turned his life upside down. He needed her. He wanted her. He loved her. And maybe it made him a bad brother and a weak, selfish bastard, but so be it.

He chose life. He chose Lizzy.

If she’d still have him.

He was on his feet in a split second, out the door a heartbeat after that. He broke into a run. He’d go back to the pub, ask Trevor for his car again. Lizzy would still be at the hospital. And if she wasn’t, he’d track her down. Wherever she’d gone.

His step faltered as he registered the beaten-up four-wheel drive parked out the front of his house. A woman was sliding carefully out of the passenger seat, a man on crutches hovering protectively at her side.

“Lizzy,” he said, stopping in his tracks.

Her head came up and the look she gave him was pure defiant challenge.

“Don’t bother telling me to go away, Nathan, because I’m not going anywhere. It’s taken me half my life to work out what I want and no way am I walking away from it now. So I don’t care what you say, I’m staying, and I’m going to keep loving you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He closed the distance between them in three strides. Then he pulled her into his arms, resting his cheek against the crown of her head, breathing in the smell of her.

Elizabeth was very still in his arms. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Slowly her body relaxed and she wrapped her good arm around him.

“This had better mean what I think it does,” she said, her voice muffled by the front of his shirt.

He smiled slightly.

“That was your cue to say something reassuring. In case you missed it,” she said.

He loosened his arms enough to look into her face. “I love you.”

She bit her lip. He cupped her face and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone.

“Did I mess up my line?” he asked.

“No. It was perfect. I just thought I was going to have to wrestle you to the ground before I got you to admit it.”

“I want this, Lizzy. I want you. I want to make it work. I know it’s been tough. It’s probably going to be tough again. I’ll go back to my therapist, talk to my doctor about medication. I’ll do what I can. But—”

She pressed her fingers to his lips. “My love doesn’t come with
buts.
It just is. Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it.”

She looked into his eyes, her own very steady and certain.

“Lizzy,” he said, but the rest of the things he wanted to say got caught in his throat.

She smiled and stood on her toes to press a kiss to his lips.

“I know.”