Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (39 page)

He turned his head to catch a kiss, force her to shut up. She was all teeth and smiles and even holding her head still, he couldn’t make a kiss work. “Georgia, enough.”

“Taylor showed me photos. You were such a cute kid, cheeky. Angus looked so proud and Jamie so serious. Taylor always looked grubby, like she needed a good wash, but you looked like you knew secrets. When you hit your teens you were all limbs and angles and thick glasses. Skinny and awkward. By seventeen, though. Oh Damon, you were so damn pretty.” She stoked a finger gently across the scar above his brow. “At eighteen, you had this, a scar on a scar, courtesy of Angus.”

“He was teaching me to fight.”

“He didn’t teach you to duck.”

“He taught me enough to be able to protect myself.”

“But not from scaffolding. You frightened me so much that day. You were a gorgeous man at twenty, now you’re so handsome it hurts to look at you sometimes. I know you’re not insensible to this. You know how people react to you. But I’ve never told you how I see you.”

He opened his mouth to shush her and not a cough, not a sound came out.

“I see strength in your jaw and the line of your cheekbones. I see experience in the curve of your top lip, sensuality in the fullness of your bottom one. There is knowledge and wisdom in your brow, and bravery in the shape of your nose and chin. But it’s your eyes, the colour, the steadiness. You think they’re useless, but that’s not true.” She brushed a knuckle against the corner of one eye. “Here is empathy,” she stroked the eyelid closed, “here is humour,” she made a circle, tracing the skin beneath his eye, “here is loyalty.” She kissed the dimple in his cheek, “and fun,” her thumb rested in the cleft of his chin and she moved his head side to side, “and compassion and love.”

He took a shuddered breath. This had gone somewhere unexpected. Turned his desire inside out. He closed his eyes, brought his arms around her and pulled her flush to his chest. He didn’t want her to see him anymore in case she saw duplicity and cowardice before he was ready for her to.

“I’ve upset you.” She sounded uncertain, disappointed.

He squeezed his eyes, a bitter burn behind them and moisture sticky on his lashes. Could he get his voice to work, he didn’t know what to tell her. That he was embarrassed, shamed, that her words put a death grip around his heart.

He flinched when she launched a thousand kisses on his face and neck and throat. Her nails digging into his arms. She tasted the water on his face and she brushed his hair off his forehead. He locked a hand to the back of her head and held her so he could connect one kiss and still the dread he felt against her lips. That one kiss, that lush stroke of tongues slowed his heart rate, but it did nothing to quell his fears.

Once he lost this woman he would be permanently blind and dumb, deaf and insensate because everything he felt and loved and needed was in her.

When he moved inside her she let go a scream of delight and tightened around him like altitude, knocking his breath out, making him light-headed. Nothing else was gentle or slow from that point. Or quiet. They tore the bed up, they bruised each other. She shouted his name. He fought off impending numbness by drowning in the abandon of her and when they hit the summit, the flood of release was an avalanche, burying them both in gasping wonder.

He slept like he was innocent, heavy, complete, and that too was a bitter thing, to have that luxury along with the softness and comfort of her.

Taylor saw them off. She hugged him hard and too long. She didn’t approve but she didn’t have all the details either and even then she’d hate him for this. Georgia was excited. A return to the UK she never imagined making so soon.

Inside the airport terminal he handed her the e-ticket and an envelope with the details of a car service, and an apartment he’d booked her into. He’d managed to steel his expression till now, not wanting to spoil even this for her before he had to. But he stank of it, his despair, his determination.

And she knew.

She clutched at his jacket. “You’re not coming with me, are you?”

He could’ve said a million things to make this easier, but it was past time for cowardice. “No.”

“Can’t or won’t, Damon.” Her voice was stomped flat and concertinaed hard like a drink can.

He swallowed, forced the lie out. “Won’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have other things to do.”

“Other things to do? What kind of a reason is that? You let me think this was a trip for both of us. You had no intention of coming with me. Are you sending me away? Getting rid of me?”

“It’s not like that.”

“What is it like then? Because it sure feels like that. You suggest this out of nowhere, plan it in record time; money, resources, spare no expense. You packed a bag. I watched you.”

He reached for her but she moved away.

“I should’ve known something was off when I saw Taylor’s face. How she held on to you on the verandah. You need to tell me right now what’s going on.”

“Stand closer to me and lower your voice.”

“I’ll stand wherever I want and speak however I want. I don’t need you to advise me on my behaviour.”

He didn’t want a scene, but part of him needed this anger from her. “You and Hamish, it has nothing to do with me.”

“This is about me and you, not Hamish. He’s ten thousand miles away.”

“There is no me and you.”

She must’ve reeled in shock. He longed for a slap. To hear her walk away, to know she was on the plane and on her way.

“Are you sick? Is something else wrong with your throat? You’ve never stopped coughing, clearing it. You said that would stop.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“So yesterday, last night, there was a you and me. We ride in a taxi and now suddenly there isn’t. Did we drive through some kind of time machine?”

He had no response for her. His head was spinning so hard he was barely holding on. He went for his pocket and pulled out his folding stick.

“Damon. I need to understand what’s happening here.”

“Go to the check-in, wait in the lounge. Get on the plane. Stay in London as long as you need. I’ve prepaid your rent here for three months.”

“You think I’m going to take your ticket, your money. I’m not a charity case.”

He didn’t know where exactly she was standing. He tucked his head down to cough into his hand. “Yeah, Georgia you are. You have no job, almost no savings. I bought you a dress before I even fucked you. I’m trying to help you out.” He couldn’t let her think there was any way back from here. “There’s no great mystery. The sex is fantastic, baby, you know I’m into that, but did you think we were forever? I need a break. Let’s just take a rest and see what happens.”

“Don’t do this, Damon.”

“What? Make it easy for you to visit your husband?” He said that word, husband, and it hurt him as much as it was intended to hurt her.

“Please don’t do this.”

“The airline points are meaningless to me. Three months of your rent is the cost of a new suit that I’ll write off on tax. If you’re so worried about me financing this, don’t use the car service or the apartment.”

“This is what you want.”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m going back to my regular life. I travel a lot. Much as this has been good, I don’t have room for a relationship. I thought this was the right thing for you.”

“You thought making my decisions for me was the right thing to do?”

His knuckles ached from the grip he had on his stick. “Fuck, yes. What do I have to say to get you to understand? We’re done now.”

Something bashed into the back of his leg. A woman grabbed his arm. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry, that bag got away from me. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re sure, honey?”

He waved the woman off, distracted. He had no sense of Georgia. She’d have spoken, surely. “Georgia?”

He swept the stick out in front of him. Nothing. He’d gotten disoriented, no longer sure which way he was facing. He spun around. “Georgia. Georgia.”

“You okay, mate?”

“There was a woman with me.” She meant everything to him and he just ended it.

“You’re standing here by yourself, mate. I’m airport security. Can I help you?”

He shook his head. No one could help him.

He caught a cab directly to the hospital and checked himself in. He had time before the surgery prep to enquire about whether Georgia got on the flight. There was nothing he could do if she didn’t. But she wouldn’t be able to find him. None of them would. They were all in the dark.

Only his parents knew about the new round of surgery, the risk, the low percentage chance that he’d come out of it with any voice at all.

For risky surgery, the cordectomy went well. The micro-surgeon removed the glottic cancers and re-sectioned the vocal cord. It could’ve been much worse. He had a new scar but he wasn’t breathing through a hole in his neck.

No one could say what kind of a voice he’d have when he recovered, but they were sure he’d be able to make himself heard and understood.

It would have to be enough. He should be grateful.

He was a week in hospital.

He felt nothing but rage.

He went home to the farm. He was on absolute voice rest for two weeks and only limited vocalisations for a month. He kept his phone off. He replied to email as if he was out of the country. He didn’t hear from Georgia, but he knew she’d spent two nights at the apartment. He had his books and Mum’s home cooking. He had long walks and music. He played chess with Dad. His throat felt bad and he didn’t feel like eating. He had antibiotics and steroids and a throat pump to stop him coughing.

Dad set him up a rudimentary gym in an old barn. He spent hours there. He slept. He dreamed; frightening drug-induced nightmares where his heart had been removed and replaced with a tin box and his lips had been sewn shut. He healed. He hoped.

He mourned.

When he should’ve been testing the voice he had left, he was too terrified to open his mouth.

He didn’t speak or utter a sound for so long it became a habit.

32: Unfixed

London was colder, wetter, and more depressing than Georgia remembered it. Hamish was livelier, funnier, and better company. Which was hard to credit given what they were to each other.

They’d never been back to where Jeffrey happened. It was different, of course, nine years later. It was dark and cold then, drizzling. She shivered, but not from the lack of sunshine. There’d been a card shop that sold novelties on the corner. It was a trendy clothing store now. The railing was still there, separating the roadway and the flow of traffic from the pedestrian pavement.

Memories hurtled at her. Snogging in the library with Hamish. Strolling home to his flat and coming across Jeffrey in a fight with Thomas. Thomas barely recognisable for the blood. Pulling out of Hamish’s grip. Getting in Jeffrey’s sightline and shouting at him. The satisfaction and relief when he stopped hitting Thomas, dropped him to the pavement, and put down the knife. Then the horror when Jeffrey charged at Hamish, pushed him against that traffic barrier, then with superhuman strength, lifted him up and over it, tossing Hamish headfirst like a spear onto the road. The cars screeching to a stop, all those horns blaring, lights flashing, people shouting, Hamish lying crumpled, unmoving.

Hamish ran a hand over the shoulder high metal barricade. “That’s much taller than I remember it being.”

Georgia touched Hamish’s arm. “I thought you didn’t remember at all.”

He shook his head, his shaggy hair flying. “I didn’t. At least, I didn’t admit to it. I do remember though.”

That was a surprise, like so much of this new Hamish was. “It was the drugs, he was unstable.”

“I know, Georgie, I know. And it wasn’t your fault. It was just… We must’ve talked about this a thousand times.”

They had and it was always the same horror story. Jeffrey was mentally ill. Georgia hadn’t understood that; equated Jeffery being difficult with her dad when he was drunk, and was high on her fixer capabilities, her previous successes at talking Jeffrey down. She made a decision that went bad. She should’ve let Hamish steer her around the drama. He had his phone out, he was talking to the police.

And at the end Jeffrey shouting, “I did that for you, Georgie girl. Now you’re free.”

“It still feels like it’s my fault,” she said.

“Then sack your therapist. You said the woman was helping.”

“She has helped. I feel stronger, more confident. But this is not about me. What do you remember?”

“Can we go somewhere else? I’ll tell you, but not here, all right?”

She looked left. “Is that big old bookshop still there?”

“Bookshop cafe now. I think they sell more babycinos than books.”

The bookshop was four streets away, tucked off the main road. It was quieter, less frenetic. It was just warm enough by English standards to sit outside on crates with padded cushions on top. Hamish ordered for them, scones with jam and cream, then put his hand over hers on the table. “It’s so good to have you here. I wouldn’t have done this without you.”

Hamish being genuinely nice was a little thrill. “Was it worth doing, really? What does it mean to you to see it?”

He took his hand away and sighed. “I don’t know, it’s just when I think about it, dream about it, it’s this horrible scary place, dark and wet, and the traffic is always these big-wheeled trucks coming to run me down, which is stupid since they’re not even allowed in this part of the city and I was unconscious anyway, I wasn’t even aware of ordinary cars. My brain wants to remember it as an accident waiting to happen, as a trivial thing I should’ve been able to walk away from and I know it wasn’t like that. So seeing that, well, maybe the dreams will stop.”

“You could’ve come back any time.”

Hamish wrinkled his nose. He waited until the waitress had put their coffees on the table. “Ah, but then I’d have had to face the truth wouldn’t I? And if I faced the truth, well, I’d have no good reason to be so angry all the time.”

She pushed the sugar dispenser across the table to him. “You’d have plenty of reasons.”