Feeling suddenly wide awake and fired up, he showered and dressed. No time like the present. If Chase was anything like him, Ethan knew exactly where to find him.
Ignoring the lift that seared images into his brain, igniting lust throughout his body every time he passed it, he tugged open the fire exit door and took the stairs two at a time, and soon enough found himself in the bar, with the velvet curtains and single suits staring at screens. And Chase sitting exactly where Ethan had three weeks ago, contemplating the mission and the past and trying to find answers in the bottom of a tumbler.
‘Thought I might find you in here.’ Ethan slid onto the bar stool next to Chase and ordered. ‘Whiskey and soda for me, and same again for him.’
Chase nodded his thanks with a lift of his eyebrows. ‘Just enjoying the peace and quiet.’
He did enough of that on the ship. Ethan shrugged. ‘You want me to leave?’
‘You have a drink ordered.’ He didn’t say stay, but he didn’t tell him to leave either. ‘How’re you finding it?’
Which bit? The ship? The work? The woman? ‘Oh, you know. Colder and wetter than I like, but I’ll cope. Halfway through already, it’ll be over soon enough.’
Chase nodded. ‘We couldn’t have set off without you. I know you dropped everything to come here.’
Which Ethan guessed was a thank you in Chase-speak.
‘Truth was, I was in between jobs.’ He’d been wasting time in bars similar to this one in Khartoum, pondering how his life was panning out when he’d got the call from Medicine For All’s head office. ‘I owe you. I told you that. That night.’
Something flickered across Chase’s eyes. Don’t go there. His head gave a minuscule shake and emotion leached from his face. But they had to go there no matter how much they didn’t want to. Either that or self-destruct.
Ethan pushed. ‘I never thought our paths would cross again.’
Chase stared into his glass. ‘I’m thinking you made sure they didn’t. You didn’t come to the funerals or the memorial service.’
Imagining the hopelessness surrounding all of that, Ethan shuddered. Four lost lives, so much gone, too young. The grief-stricken parents. The minute’s silence that felt like it had stretched across Ethan’s whole life. He hadn’t needed a service to help him remember the dead; they walked with him everywhere. ‘I was in hospital, getting fixed.’
Chase nodded, emotion sparse, voice hoarse. ‘I heard you had a couple of fractured vertebrae.’
‘Took a while to mend. Plus a duff leg for a while too. I had a lot to get my head around.’ But this wasn’t just about him, it was about what Chase had had to do too. How the hell did a seventeen-year-old live with making a decision about who to save and who to leave? Chase had just been a junior skier, not a SARCO back then. ‘Not sure if you can get over that kind of thing, you know? Not properly.’
Chase blinked and went on studying his glass. Not once since Ethan had sat down had they made eye contact.
Chase might not be ready to talk about this but Ethan had a few things he needed to get out while he had the chance. Blackness and cold whipped round him but he breathed it away. If he didn’t say something soon, his whole life would be black and cold. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. ‘I need to say thank you for saving me, Chase. I need to say I’m sorry about Nick. I don’t know if I said that before. I don’t remember much, to be honest, apart from the dark and the cold and the pain and your voice. But I know you had to choose between saving me or saving your best mate and you chose me. I can’t get my head round that.’
Chase’s shoulders sagged. ‘No. Ethan—’
‘You have to know I’m trying to make it worth it. There isn’t one day that I don’t think about how things could have been different. How Nick might have survived. And how bad I feel about that.’ Guilt ate at everything he did.
You’d better be worth it.
Chase shook his head then lifted his eyes and met Ethan’s. Survivor’s guilt bound them together. The whole thing was messed up. So damned sad Ethan’s heart almost snapped in two.
‘He wasn’t ever going to survive, Ethan. He was crushed under three huge beams. There wasn’t anything I could do except maybe say goodbye and make sure he wasn’t on his own when he died. But I couldn’t do that when I could actually save you. Right?’
Pain arrowed into Ethan’s heart. ‘But I thought you’d had to choose who to save?’
‘There wasn’t a choice. Nick was almost certainly dead and you were gripping onto something. You were a pain in the arse, Reid, but you had spirit and a will to survive. You were the only one who had a chance.’ Chase’s eyes misted and he blinked again. ‘I didn’t know how to cope with it all back then. I was angry and broken and I’d lost my friend.’
‘But I thought...’ He’d imagined Chase looking from one dying kid to the other, torn in two over who to help. That much was probably true, because he would certainly have died if Chase hadn’t pulled him out. But he’d thought Nick had died because Chase had saved him. Not that Nick had already been too far gone.
Eyes back to the amber liquid, Chase cleared his throat. ‘I shouldn’t have let you believe there was any kind of choice or that I blamed you for Nick’s death. Because I don’t.’
Ethan let that settle for a few moments. He’d spent sixteen years believing he’d been the reason another guy had died. Knowing he wasn’t should have freed up some space in his chest but it still felt as if the beam was crushing him. Although maybe it was a little lighter now. Maybe.
He had a finger of bourbon left to drink. ‘You heard anything about the others? I saw something about Eddie getting a silver medal in Whistler. And Cam’s a bigshot human rights lawyer.’
Chase sat up straighter, his mouth set in a line. ‘Mr Wheeler’s doing charity work or something in a garden centre. Fat lot of good he was in an emergency, but at least he’s doing something good now.’
‘No one knows how they’re going to react in a moment like that. He must have been in shock.’
‘Something like that.’ Chase’s eyebrows rose. ‘Seems most who survived have gone on to do work that helps others.’
‘The world needs more people like that, right?’
Chase shook his head. ‘Not if it means they have to live through what we did.’
‘You think about it a lot?’
‘All the time. It eats away at me. How come I came away with barely a scratch?’ He took another drink of his bourbon. ‘Why me? Why not Nick?’
‘Yeah.’ Ethan’s heart twisted as he felt the pain he saw in Chase’s face. ‘And why can I walk and talk and breathe and live and have a future when they can’t? Why?’
Another shake of the head. ‘There isn’t an answer to that.’
Better be worth it.
He was trying, for God’s sake. He was goddamned trying. Because even if Chase hadn’t meant the words, Ethan walked the sentiment, lived it. He’d survived when others hadn’t. ‘We’ve got to live for them too, right?’
‘That’s a lot to live up to.’ Chase swirled the last of his whiskey in the glass and looked deep into it as if it had all the answers.
And Ethan knew then exactly what Chase thought about every night as he stared out to sea.
Ignoring the razor blade pain in his throat, Ethan raised his glass. If they couldn’t yet raise a glass to each other, the least they could do was toast those who had gone too soon. He managed to squeeze the words out. ‘To Nick, Liam, Mac and Johnny.’
‘Rest in peace, lads.’ Chase blinked.
Another flicker of eye contact. A sharp nod of the head as the glass hit Chase’s lips. Then the drink was gone and, a few seconds later, so was Chase.
Feeling far too shaky and awake to go back to bed, Ethan ordered another drink to steady his nerves.
It was still as raw as hell, but it had been
a conversation.
It was a start.
CHAPTER NINE
ETHAN HADN’T TURNED up to the dinner, but Claire wasn’t surprised. Just like everything else he did, when Ethan pulled back he did it properly.
Standing in the hotel foyer, waiting for the lift with Kristina and Fatima, she took a huge breath and tried not to think about what had happened in that little metal box, and that it wouldn’t happen again.
Her period still hadn’t arrived and at some point she was going to have to take a pregnancy test. Bad enough that she’d had to find excuse after excuse as to why she wasn’t drinking the copious amounts of wine they’d bought between them, but she hadn’t had five minutes alone to slip out and buy a pregnancy test, so she was in limbo. She’d have to make an excuse and head off on her own tomorrow and get one.
How far back would he step if it was positive?
‘Hey, Claire.’ Kristina was tugging the lift gate open. ‘Are you okay? You seem miles away.’
No. For a change, Claire’s head was exactly where her body was. Right here. ‘I’m tired, actually. I’ll be glad to get some sleep.’ Claire stepped into the lift and refused to allow her thoughts to go back to that night.
This time there was no problem reaching floor eleven and she stepped out, taking a long deep breath. Sharing a room with Kristina meant they would no doubt chat late into the night and hopefully she’d be too exhausted to be kept awake by her thoughts.
But suddenly, a little further along the corridor, the fire door blasted open and Ethan powered through it a little unsteadily, his face dark and haunted. Clearly something had happened to him and her first instinct was to reach out to him and hold him close, to soothe away whatever pain he was feeling.
‘Ethan...’ She breathed his name like a sigh and then felt the colour start to rise into her cheeks. Damn her stupid hopeful body.
He looked surprised to see them all and did a double take. ‘Oh. Hi. Sorry I didn’t make it to dinner.’
Claire opened her mouth to answer him but couldn’t find any words. I think I’m pregnant was hardly suitable. Neither was Kiss me. And they were the only words in her head.
Finally, with her cheeks burning red hot, she croaked a brief, ‘You missed a good night. Sleep well.’
‘Goodnight.’ Without really looking at any of them, he brushed past and headed towards his room.
She felt Kristina’s eyes boring into her back as she watched this stiff exchange so she turned away from him. ‘So, Kristina, are we going to draw straws to see who uses the shower first?’
Her friend laughed. ‘I’ll race you.’
He was sliding his key card into the lock.
Say something.
Not in front of the others.
He was opening the door. She held her breath.
He closed it behind him.
‘’Night, all!’ Making Claire jump, Fatima slipped into her room to a chorus of Sleep well and Kristina slid her card into the door lock.
He was in his room, two down from her. He had no idea what was running through her head, what might be growing in her belly. Okay, she had to admit, probably was growing given the lack of her period. He had no idea how his life could irrevocably be changing. If he stepped back from her, would he step up for his child?
But there was no point giving him a sleepless night too, not until she was sure. Claire breathed out and was about to step into the room when Kristina whispered, ‘He looks like hell.’
‘To be honest, we probably all look as tired as he does.’
‘It’s not like him to stalk off without a smile, though. Maybe one of us should just check he’s okay.’
Claire shivered. No way was she knocking on that door and making a fool of herself. ‘I’d go talk to him, but it’s...complicated.’
‘Should I go check on him, then?’ The look she gave Claire was an ultimatum that Claire didn’t want to respond to.
He had looked like hell. Claire relented. It wasn’t hard. ‘All right, I’ll go. Just to check he’s okay.’
Before she lost her nerve, she tapped on his door. He answered dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts, his broad chest bare. In the lift she’d hung onto those shoulders, she’d run her hands over that sun-kissed chest, but she hadn’t seen it in the dim light and shadows. On the ship he wore the regulation T-shirt and shorts. She’d spent hours watching the way his skilled hands worked on patients, dealt with medical equipment, tied those ship’s knots, admired the way his calves moved like a symphony when he walked or ran his laps round the deck. But she’d never seen his body like this.
Half-naked, Ethan Reid was tanned and lean and all the things she’d dreamed he’d be. Her gaze wandered over his body, committing every muscle, every dip to memory. She swallowed roughly as desire flickered to life deep in her belly, and she couldn’t help checking out those dark boxer shorts.
Omigod. She was gone, just looking at him.
Then she remembered the triggers and their promises and she pressed her lips tight together. When she followed the smattering of hair upwards via his abdomen, his chest and then to his face, his eyes snagged hers. He’d stepped back to let her in. ‘Claire? Did you want something?’
Yes, please. All of it. All. Of. It.
If she walked into the room she would be inviting further complications into her life. But something had happened to him and she just wanted to make sure he was okay.
Saying nothing, she walked past him and into the room. The light was dimmed, the curtains still open wide. From here she could make out the lights of the port and the hulking shadow of their ship. She’d come up in their lift with the prospect of their baby in her belly. Somehow their lives had become irrevocably intertwined and she was half hurting because he was now holding her at bay, and half driven mad by desire.
She dragged some semblance of sense into the forefront of her mind. ‘Um. Yes. Are you okay? You look...’ Beautiful. Exhausted. Haunted. ‘I was worried. We were...worried when you didn’t come to dinner. I told the team you were probably asleep, but we just wanted to make sure you were okay.’
His eyes were dark and that haunted look seemed to cling to his whole body. ‘I spoke to Chase.’
‘You did?’ Her hands felt restless. She didn’t know what to do with them, where to sit, how to act. Because all she wanted to do was hold him and she couldn’t do that. ‘Did you talk about the avalanche?’
A sharp nod. ‘We talked about that night.’
‘And how was he?’
‘Guarded. Raw.’ Just the way Ethan was looking now. He poured two glasses of cognac from a bottle she’d seen for sale in the hotel shop. ‘He’s racked with guilt and beats himself up about it every day. Sixteen years and it’s still right there front and centre of everything he does.’
‘That makes two of you.’ Taking the glass but not drinking from it, just in case, she sat by the window on the only armchair in the room and he perched on the end of the bed, cradling his liquor.
‘I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to put it behind us.’
‘But it was a good first step. You can’t expect everything to be fixed after one conversation.’
He took a sip from the glass, grimaced, then put it on the nightstand. ‘I’ve probably had enough. Too much maybe. I’m wired, to be honest.’
The subdued light threw shadows on the walls. She could see his large frame and hers. In the shadow they were so close they looked as if they were two halves of a whole, embracing. ‘Tell me what he said.’
‘It was weird. Like he didn’t want to go back there, but it was the only possible thing to do. We might never get the chance again, we’re always too busy or never alone on the ship, and we needed to just talk.’
Ethan closed his eyes and he looked so exhausted and wrung out she knew she couldn’t add to that by telling him something she sort o
f, might, kind of think she maybe...and then having her period arrive in the middle of the night and having made a big fuss over her stupid misfiring hormones.
Tomorrow she’d buy a test and do it just to be sure. If she was pregnant she had the rest of their lives to tell him, one night wasn’t going to make a difference. But being here for him for right now might make a difference to him.
He shrugged. ‘I’m just trying to make sense of it all. He said something that surprised me, that he hadn’t had to choose between the two of us and that Nick was already dead when Chase came to rescue me.’ Ethan blew out a deep breath. ‘Or as good as dead anyway. There’d never been any chance of him surviving.’
‘So you weren’t the reason Nick died? That’s good, then, isn’t it? It frees you?’
His eyes grew darker. ‘I’ve spent so long trying to make up for Nick’s death, thinking I was somehow to blame, and suddenly I’m not. I’ve committed my life to proving myself, so knowing the facts should be freeing, but I don’t know, Claire. I don’t know how to feel. Because there’s still that need in me. Deep down. I need to keep on proving—’
‘Hey, you are enough.’ She put her glass down on the windowsill and took his hands in hers, because she knew this wasn’t just about Nick and that night, it was about the lack of love from his parents too. He’d been waiting for someone to tell him he was enough, then when that hadn’t happened, he’d tried to prove it to himself and to the world. ‘Look at the work you do, tirelessly.’
He dropped her hands and skimmed the top of his head with his palm. ‘It’s been a hell of a few weeks.’
‘It sounds as if it’s been a hell of a life, Ethan.’
‘The thing is, I remember lying in the dark, thinking I was going to die. And hearing Chase say something about having to make a choice between me and Nick. But...’ He sighed. ‘I had so much going through my head, maybe I heard it wrong. The building was creaking and any minute the whole place was going to completely collapse on top of me. I was panicking. I was in so much pain and it was so dark and when I heard his voice I just wanted to shout, Choose me. Choose me. Don’t choose Nick. I’m here. I’m here.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Yeah. Gutless.’
Saved by Their One-Night Baby Page 12
