‘Are you okay?’ she asked, apparently seeing something in his expression he hadn’t managed to hide.
‘Yeah.’ His voice emerged gravelly. He coughed into a hand. Steadied his voice. ‘Yeah,’ he repeated, more convincingly. ‘Fine.’
‘You seem—’
‘My turn to ask questions, remember?’ he interrupted, reverting back to interviewer. The gritty resolve that had kept the scars inside from taking over his life kicked back in. ‘Tell me more about this sister of yours.’
* * *
Evie sat silently for some time, gazing out over the darkened water. Her agreement to answer Adam’s personal questions had taken her by surprise. What surprised her even more was that, as she’d begun to open up, it had become important to tell him everything. Although the words to explain her relationship with Lulu were not coming easily.
Taking a deep breath, she started. ‘We all knew Lulu was destined for a career in front of the camera. With our family background and her looks, she was a shoo-in. With help from Dad, she secured the position of weather girl for the Six O’clock News.’
‘Good to see nepotism is alive and well in big business.’ The sarcasm was uncharacteristic.
‘It didn’t worry me. I knew I’d earned my place. Off-camera, of course. Anyway, the newsreader, Nick Santana, was my boyfriend. The banter between weather girl and anchor was all part of that image of being the—’ her fingers formed quotation marks in the air, ‘—Friendliest News Team on TV.’
She worked hard to control her features, determined not to give anything away, despite the stab of pain to her chest making it difficult to breathe. Tears burned the back of her throat. She managed to rein them in, biting the inside her cheek, refusing to allow herself to break down in front of Adam. Judging by his frown of concern, he already had an inkling of where this was headed.
‘What I didn’t realise,’ she continued, ‘was that the friendliness had gone a lot further than that. One night I slipped out to Nick’s dressing room during a quick break and I—’
She stopped, unable to speak past the sudden quaver that insisted on strangling her words. A deep breath helped control the trembling of her lips. Finally the words came, tumbling over each other.
‘I walked in on them together, half-naked.’
‘Ouch.’
Adam’s dark eyes seemed to share the pain she knew had to be etched all over her face. Hard as she tried, she’d never been good at hiding her emotions.
‘What did you do?’ he asked cautiously.
Determined not to wallow in self-pity, she smoothed her features and gave him a watery smile. ‘I, um, I punched him. In the face. Just before he had to go on air.’
Face unfathomable, Adam stared wordlessly back at her until she began to feel self-conscious under his scrutiny.
‘Okay, probably not the most sensible thing I could have done. In fact I lost my job over it. But you know what? It felt bloody good.’
He let out a choked laugh, disbelief mingled with pity on his handsome face. She attempted a laugh too, but it came out more like a bark.
‘What can I say? When I think back on it, their attraction was inevitable. When my sister was around, it was like I became invisible. And Lulu and Nick are both exceptionally good-looking people.’ She tried to make it sound offhand. It probably would have been more convincing if she hadn’t had to rub her face with the back of a hand to scrub away the stupid tears rolling down her cheeks.
Adam’s hand settled on the arm of his chair, so close to her own that they were almost touching. Her heart sped up. Suddenly she ached for him to reach out across the small space between them, grasp her fingers with that large, rough hand of his and give her the comfort a simple human touch brought with it.
But with him, it would never be a simple touch. With him, it would lead to yearnings that could never be explored. She heard him swallow, watched his hand move up to rub the back of his neck.
‘There you go again,’ he said, ‘trying to make out like only good-looking people get to be loved.’
Her jaw clenched automatically. She needed to make him understand. ‘In my experience, that’s the way things are. Lulu’s beautiful; she gets any man she wants. Nick’s the square-jawed captain of the football team; he gets the prettiest girl in school. It’s just the way it is. As shallow as it sounds, in my industry looks are everything.’
Adam sat up straight and looked her directly in the eye. ‘You’re right, it’s incredibly shallow. Beauty is such a superficial thing and equating it with the right to be loved is …’ he searched for the right word, ‘… tragic.’ He paused momentarily. ‘If it was true where would that leave Bitzer? Or Alice Cooper?’
She smiled at the attempt at a joke ‘Okay, maybe it’s not true for everyone,’ she conceded. ‘Just people like me.’
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth; they made her sound pathetic. In that instant, her fragile facade of confidence crumbled. Face it, you are pathetic.
‘What do you mean, people like you?’ Adam demanded. ‘You’re way too hard on yourself.’
She breathed in deeply, gathering the strength to answer him openly and honestly. ‘I have an almost paranoid fear of rejection,’ she admitted. ‘See, there’s still this idea lurking at the back of my mind that if I ever find someone else to love, once they meet Lulu and she goes into her routine, that’ll be it for me.’
‘Don’t go comparing yourself to your sister. Or anyone else for that matter. That’s a fool’s game. You are who you are. And when you do find someone, they will love you for that exact reason.’
‘Self-acceptance when you’re tall, skinny and gawky doesn’t come easy.’
He studied her, his eyes darkly glittering in the sun’s final radiant display. ‘You know why they call it body image, don’t you?’
She’d read all the magazines, had all the answers. ‘Because it’s just that—an image, not reality.’
‘Correct.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, you’re tall. Impressively so, like Nicole Kidman. Skinny?’ He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t say that. May described you as willowy. It suits you. As for being gawky, the way you stride about when you’re on the job, in total control of your little world, you move with a sense of purpose that’s … good to watch. You’re good to wa … I mean good at your job.’ As if embarrassed by his words, he lowered his gaze.
‘That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me for a long time.’ Her voice emerged even huskier than usual. ‘Maybe if you’d mentioned it to Neil, he might have taken me more seriously.’
He looked up to hold her eyes, all self-contained strength again. ‘That’s another thing. You worry too much about what other people think. You shouldn’t.’
She grimaced. That was too close to the truth. ‘Says the man who once voiced to me his concern that neither Meg nor Chrissy would like him.’
He shot her a chagrined look. ‘Are your sister and this guy Nick still together?’ He was changing the subject, as he so often did with a topic he had no intention of discussing further. She knew it was pointless to try to bring him back to it.
‘No. They only lasted a month after I caught them. She’s supposedly dating a soapie star now, according to the gossip columns.’
‘You don’t have any contact with her at all?’
‘My step-mum’s done everything she can to get us to reconcile, but forgiving my sister for breaking my heart is not high on my list of priorities.’
Wishing the whole incident had never happened, that her relationship with Lulu could return to the way it had been while they were growing up, was something she’d given up on a long time ago. And while she willed herself to believe that she didn’t give a damn about setting things right between them, in her heart she knew she was lying to herself.
Adam’s deep-timbred voice intruded on her thoughts. ‘As painful as it must have been for you, can you honestly say your heart was truly broken?’
His night-dark eyes were glued to her
, searching a place in her depths she’d shut off from everyone for the last twelve months. Everyone, including herself. There was too much understanding in those eyes of his. She had to turn her gaze away, to think past how easy it would be to get lost in them. To consider his confronting question.
Had Nick broken her heart? He’d hurt her. Badly. Betrayal obviously caused pain. But had her heart been ripped in two? Her hand stole to her chest. She found a thump, steady and strong, and the ache she thought would never end, was … gone.
Her heart wasn’t broken.
Panic surged inside, trebling her heart rate. If that was true, then for the past year she’d been living a lie—the lingering hurt that had been so much a part of her life had been based solely on something she had made herself believe. How humiliating. And to have it pointed out by Adam was an affront. He only knew what she’d told him about the situation. How could he possibly presume to know how she felt inside? She folded her arms in agitation and, concerned at what a reply in her current state of mind might bring with it, said nothing.
If he was aware of her churning emotions, Adam’s response to her silence didn’t reflect it. ‘This Nick guy sounds like a complete jerk to me. I reckon your sister did you a favour, taking him off your hands.’
Evie felt her entire body, inside and out, wince as the words hit home. A lot of other people had tried to tell her that, too. Why she hadn’t believed them until now, she had no idea. Because those people were right. Nick Santana was a jerk.
So why on earth had she been beating herself up over the end of their relationship? More to the point, why the hell the continued self-imposed celibacy? Maintaining her knee-jerk reaction to the break-up, vowing never again to make the mistake of believing in someone, was way past its use-by date.
The admission came out slowly. ‘You could be right.’
‘I’m no expert in relationships, obviously, but I know a little about being treated … wrongly. And the effect that can have.’ Something—some memory?—stopped him and the shadows in his eyes deepened for a moment. Then he pulled his broad shoulders up straight, gathering himself together. ‘Trust me, dwelling on the bad things isn’t good for you. Replaying in your mind the things you want to forget is kinda like feeling a bruise to see if it still hurts. It restarts the pain.’ She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.
‘So you think I should forgive and move on?’ she said into the growing darkness.
He sat quite still for several seconds, staring out over the bay with unseeing eyes. When he brought his gaze back to her, his brow was furrowed. He had the look of someone who’d just made an important but worrying discovery and wasn’t sure what to do about it.
‘Yeah.’ He drew the word out, turning it into an answer and a question at the same time. ‘I guess that’s what needs to be done to get over something like that, once and for all.’
Evie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was this really the same man she’d spent the last few weeks ineffectually trying to get to open up? It was rare for him to string so many sentences together, let alone allow his thoughts to be so exposed.
What had brought on the change? Perhaps it was as simple as being without the dual distractions of having to wear a mike and Cam hovering with his camera. But then, her walls were coming down too. Maybe sitting out here for the past couple of hours, eating and talking together after a long, worrying day, had been the tonic they’d both needed.
She’d told him things she’d never admitted to anyone else. They’d just slipped out. Why? What was it about Adam that made her want to reveal so much about herself?
Her thoughts sharpened. Because she trusted him.
Drawing strength and a sense of calm from his presence, she silently contemplated forgiveness. Of Nick. Of Lulu. And for the first time, letting it all go seemed doable. Too much time and energy had gone into maintaining the wall she’d built around her heart with regard to those two.
With the decision made, a kind of catharsis washed through her, and the once-heavy place in her heart lightened.
‘You know what? No maybes about it. You are right. Thank you,’ she said quietly, eyes downcast while she searched for what to say next.
Keeping this man at a distance for the sake of self-protection, as she’d been doing, had only had the effect of intensifying her feelings for him, improper and impossible to act on as they were. She couldn’t afford to give away any more indication of her true feelings. If she did, anything might happen.
‘I thought I knew myself. But talking with you tonight I’ve learned more about me than I ever knew before.’ She gave a brief laugh. ‘And, unbelievably, it’s not all bad. I owe you.’
Unable to help herself, needing to touch him, she reached for his hand where it lay on the arm of the chair. And as she did, she glanced up at him. The look on Adam’s face was the most desolate imaginable.
When he spoke, his voice was a raw whisper that sent shivers racing up her spine. ‘There are things you need to know about me, Evie.’
CHAPTER
20
The pulse pounding behind Adam’s ear was fit to wake the dead. He’d never trusted anyone with who he really was. Until now. The time had come to lay the monster in his head to rest.
‘Apart from a couple of names, I have no real idea of who my parents are.’
‘I’ve told you before, Adam, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.’ Evie sounded relieved. If she expected something more profound, she wouldn’t have long to wait.
Barely able to make out her eyes in the fast-growing dark, he was more than aware of her presence in the slight pressure of her hand. It looked incredibly small and delicate, lying on top of his large, scarred paw.
He dragged in a ragged breath. ‘I’m not ashamed of being a foster child. Not anymore. May and Larry Stephens were the best parents anyone could hope for. They gave me love—unconditional love—from the moment I arrived.’ He meant every word, hoped she could hear it in his voice.
She picked his hand up. Squeezed it gently. Her touch was gentle and reassuring, and an instant warmth flooded through his body. It was as if something inside … released. As if all his doubts and misgivings, all his internal protests about the wisdom of what he was about to do, suddenly dissolved.
This was the power of Evie—her compassion and the extraordinary strength of her comfort, which he was counting on to get him through telling her what he needed her to know. And what he needed her to know was that all those things he’d said to her—how she was too hard on herself, that she shouldn’t worry about what other people thought of her, that she had to let go of the past—had thrown his own life into sharp focus. And now he understood the advice he’d given her was the exact advice he needed to take.
The candour she showed in accepting that things in her life needed changing, and in being willing to do something about it, gave him the courage he needed to face up to his own challenges. Breaking free of the past would be the first step.
‘I’m glad I met May. She’s an exceptional lady. I wish I’d met your father too.’
Adam gritted his teeth against the surge of anger that stormed through him at the mention of the word ‘father’. His response was immediate and unequivocal. ‘No. You don’t.’
‘Why not?’ Her confusion was clear in her tone.
‘It’s Larry who will always be Dad to me. He’s the one who taught me what it is to be a real man.’ Emotions held tightly in check, he pushed back the anger rubbing away at his insides. ‘My biological father was—is—I don’t know, or even care, if he’s still alive—the scum of the earth.’
He heard her gasp. Felt his stomach flip. There’s more. A lot more. I hope you’re strong enough to cope.
‘But you didn’t know your parents.’
‘I never knew my birth mother. I’ve been told she abandoned me—us—soon after I was born. But my father, I have indelible memories of.’ He bit down on his tongue, a horrifying flashback of flying fists sear
ing the back of his eyes. The taste of blood in his mouth was sickeningly familiar. He swallowed it down. ‘I only wish I didn’t.’
‘Are you okay? Can I get you some water?’
He shook his head, needing nothing now but to get this thing he’d resisted all his life out in the open. ‘For most people, memories are good things. Reminders of a past they want to hold onto. For me, they’re … nightmares.’ The shudder that spasmed his body was involuntary.
‘I think I’m beginning to get the picture. Adam, you don’t have to go through with this right now.’
The quiet sympathy in her voice steadied him. ‘That’s just it, I do need to.’
She leaned forward in her chair, her hand gripping his. ‘Okay, if you really want to do this, I’m listening.’
‘Are you prepared to hear the worst? I’m not sure anyone is. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve never talked about it before.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘It’s your decision to make. Just know I’m here for you.’
His hands felt clammy, his chest tight. Once said, he could never unsay the words. Confiding in her was taking a giant leap of faith but some instinct deep in his heart told him it was right to tell this woman his secrets. She gave him the emotional safety he needed to talk about his childhood.
And now was the time to face up to the horror of his past.
‘My father was a drunk,’ he said, finding it easier to speak into the growing darkness rather than look at Evie. ‘A big, strong, violent drunk. I was very young the last time I saw him so my recall is all visual. The image in my mind, and in my messed-up dreams, is of a bear of a man. I guess it’s where I get my height.’ His fists contracted into angry knots. ‘I can only hope it’s the only similarity between us.’
He could feel her eyes on him, her unwavering attention, but he didn’t look at her. She had the good sense not to speak.
The Farmer's Perfect Match Page 20
