How To Mend A Broken Heart

by Amy Andrews

  Tess nodded. ‘Best place for him. Give him a kiss for me.’

  ‘Do you want to… Do you want to come and see him?’

  Tess recoiled from the suggestion. Circumstances had dictated that she be part of this nightmare scenario but now it was over, she just wanted to put it away in the same place she put her Ryan stuff.

  Deep down and out of reach.

  Besides, Jean was getting restless, pacing around the small office and anxiously asking every ten seconds when they could leave.

  ‘Ah, no. I’m going to get Jean home. I think the stress of this environment is increasing her anxiety level and you guys just need to be able to think about Christopher today.’

  Trish nodded. ‘Take our car,’ she said as she reached into her handbag for her set of keys. ‘It’s parked in the two-minute emergency parking and needs shifting anyway, and it’s not like we’re going anywhere soon.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Tess said, taking the keys.

  ‘I’ll follow shortly,’ Fletch said.

  Tess shook her head. ‘No, Fletch, you need to stay with Trish—she needs you now. So does Doug.’

  It was such a cowardly thing to set him up for. She couldn’t bear to do it herself so she was putting it on him when she knew it had to be just as difficult for Fletch to go into the PICU—as a relative, not a doctor—and sit with his sister while she watched a machine breathe for her little boy.

  A little boy that looked remarkably like his own little boy.

  It was cowardly to ask him to have to relive the whole nightmare of Ryan again while she fled to the safety of home.

  But Trish and Doug shouldn’t go through it by themselves either, not when they had someone with a wealth of ICU experience in the family. Not when they’d been such a tower of strength to her and Fletch a decade before.

  Trish needed her brother now.

  And, yes, she probably needed Tess now too, but Tess had given all she could.

  ‘I’d like you to stay, Fletch,’ Trish whispered. ‘I’m sorry, I know that’s asking a lot.’

  Fletch smiled at his sister. ‘Of course.’ He squeezed her shoulder. ‘Whatever you need.’

  ‘Are we going yet?’ Jean asked again.

  Tess nodded briskly. ‘Yes, we’re going right now. Come on, let’s be off.’

  She gave Trish a quick hug, mouthed ‘Thank you’ to Fletch and then ushered Jean out the door and didn’t look back.

  ‘I’m sorry, Fletch,’ Trish said as they watched the two women disappear around the corner. ‘Will she be okay?’

  Fletch grimaced. ‘I don’t know, Trish. I don’t know how much longer she can go on like this, just keeping it all bottled up, keeping it all inside.’

  Trish squeezed his hand. ‘You still love her, don’t you?’

  He looked down at his little sister as her words seemed to make sense of the jumble of emotions that had been tangoing inside him since Tess had been back in his life. ‘I don’t think I ever stopped.’

  And the guilt he felt at what he had done all those years ago magnified tenfold.

  * * *

  Tess kept busy when she got back to the apartment.

  Busy, busy, busy.

  They walked Tabby, baked a double batch of muffins—one for Trish and Doug—and then cooked a huge lasagne for tea, half of which could also go to Trish. They cleaned up the kitchen and watched Jean’s television game shows. They took Tabby down again for one last toilet stop before bedtime.

  Normally Tess loved the river at this hour of the late afternoon as the shadows turned it an inky velvet and she and Jean and Fletch too, if he was home, would watch it for a long time, chatting about the different boats, and Jean would usually tell a story from her childhood.

  But Tess didn’t want to indulge in anything that didn’t involve brisk activity. The events of the day had stirred up too many memories and if she stood still for too long they might just take over.

  When they returned to the apartment Fletch still wasn’t home. Tess felt a spike of worry and pushed it away.

  It would be fine. Christopher would be fine.

  They ate the lasagne without him, Jean doing him up a plate and covering it with cling film just as she always used to when she’d come to stay with them and he was on shift. Then she washed up.

  ‘Oh look, Vertigo is on,’ Jean said, pointing to the television as she dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘Jimmy Stewart is magnificent in it, don’t you think?’

  Tess marvelled over the complexities of the human memory and the bizarre progression of a disease like Alzheimer’s. Earlier Jean hadn’t known what a whisk was but she could remember a film that was over fifty years old.

  ‘Shall we watch it?’ Tess asked.

  Fletch still hadn’t returned by the time the movie faded to black and Jean declared she was off to bed. Tess watched as she and Tabby headed for the bedroom.

  Then there was just her, a quiet apartment and the relentless pulse inside her of things she didn’t want to think about.

  She texted Fletch. Everything okay?

  He texted back. Extubated twenty minutes ago. Will be home soon.

  Tess didn’t know if she was relieved that he would be coming home soon or not. It was good to know that Christopher had been successfully extubated but it had been a momentous day and she was pretty sure Fletch was going to be physically and mentally exhausted.

  She remembered how shattered he’d been that night after being woken to do the study consent on the immersion. How much worse would he be after hours in the very PICU where his son had died, watching as a machine pumped air into a carbon copy of him?

  She took a shower and tried not to think about it. She hummed out loud to keep the images of Christopher and Ryan at bay as they rose and blurred in her head unbidden. She scrubbed at her body vigorously with the towel afterwards, rubbed at her hair so hard the sound of it temporarily obliterated everything else from her head.

  Then she heard ‘Tess?’ and her heart contracted with the force of a sonic boom then tripped along at a crazy clip.

  Fletch.

  ‘In here,’ she called out. ‘Just a sec.’

  She looked around the bathroom for something to wear. With Fletch not home yet, she hadn’t thought to bring her pyjamas in with her. There were two options—the towel she was using or the T-shirt he’d been wearing to bed, which he’d hung on the towel rack that morning and had left there.

  She shied away from the whole idea of the towel. A towel said I’m naked under here. A T-shirt said I’m dressed.

  So she quickly threw it over her head and was immediately surrounded by the very essence of Fletch. That strange mix of aftershave and deodorant and pheromones that all combined to make a wild, heady aroma. She inhaled deeply and her nipples tightened against the fabric, rubbing erotically on the inside where his own naked skin had imprinted.

  Dear God! Get a grip.

  She’d worn his shirts a hundred times in the past and with what they’d been through today her nipples and his pheromones shouldn’t even be registering.

  She was just stalling.

  And she doubted he’d even notice.

  ‘Hi,’ she said as she stepped out of the bathroom, flicking the light out and leaving just her bedside lamp to illuminate the room. He was sitting on his side of the bed, taking his shoes off, his back to her.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, turning to look at her. She was in his shirt and a rush of emotion filled his chest. He wanted to lose himself in her so badly at the moment he had to turn away from her lest she see it and run screaming out of the apartment.

  ‘You’re wearing my shirt,’ he said, for something to say other than I love you.

  Tess grimaced. So much for him not noticing. ‘Yes. Sorry. It was…at hand.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘My shirts always looked better on you.’

  Tess walked around the bed, approaching his side tentatively. She stopped when she was standing in front of him an arm’s length away. ‘Are
you okay?’ she asked his downcast head.

  He lifted his head and pierced her with his wattle-green eyes. ‘What do you think?’ he demanded, his voice low.

  Tess looked at him. His salt-and-pepper three-day growth looked more salt suddenly, his eyes bloodshot and the lines on his forehead and around his mouth deeper. His tie was pulled askew, his top button undone and it looked like he’d worn a track in his hair from constant finger ploughing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I just couldn’t…I couldn’t stay.’

  Fletch reached out a hand and squeezed her forearm, dropping it again straight away. ‘I know. You did enough today…it’s fine.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  Fletch nodded. ‘Grizzly but curled up in Trish’s lap in a recliner by the bed when I left.’

  Tess visibly sagged at the news—she hadn’t realised she’d been holding herself so upright. She knew from her past PICU experience that it would happen that way but the whole drama had been too close to home and deep down she’d been preparing herself for disaster.

  ‘Oh…thank God,’ she murmured, clutching a hand to her breast.

  Fletch rubbed a hand through his hair and then scratched at his chin. It rasped like sandpaper in the still of the night. ‘He’s just so much like…Ryan, you know?’ he said, marvelling at how Tess had managed to keep it together at Trish’s today when it must have been the most horrendous experience for her.

  ‘I just kept seeing him…Ryan. Looking at Christopher’s chest rise and fall and thinking it was Ryan.’

  Tess saw the moisture in his eyes and felt a corresponding moisture in hers. The tears she’d been trying to keep at bay all day—no, all decade—burned for release. But still she wouldn’t let them. She’d already shed more than her allotted amount since coming to stay with Fletch.

  And the tears threatening were world-is-nigh tears and she knew once she’d shed them there was no way back. That part of Ryan would go with them and as much as she tried not to think about him, she wanted to know he’d be there if and when she was ready.

  ‘It was awful,’ he murmured.

  ‘I know,’ she said, remembering how hard it had been to separate Ryan and Christopher in her own head. ‘I know.’

  And it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to take a step closer. To step right into the circle of his arms and enfold him in hers.

  Fletch shut his eyes as she fitted against him. She cradled his head against the soft part where neck met shoulder, and he inhaled the scent of her. Her shampoo and her perfume and the strange heady mix of his shirt on her skin. He drew her close and just absorbed her.

  He felt the kiss at his temple first. It was so light he didn’t even realise for a moment. But his mouth must have because his lips were nuzzling her neck and then her fingers were in his hair and his hand was sliding down her back and she moaned in his ear as his hand skimmed her bare skin where buttock met thigh.

  He pulled back, one hand clamped on the back of her leg, the other firmly on her opposite hip. His heart banged against his ribs as desire ran thick and undiluted to every nerve in his body.

  ‘Tess?’

  Tess read his question loud and clear and knew the answer even before he’d asked it. She could already feel the taint of the day sliding away with her inhibitions. The memories of Christopher and Ryan and ambulances and hospitals fading with every fan of his breath on her neck.

  She couldn’t remember a time when she’d needed him more.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘MAKE love to me,’ she whispered.

  Fletch drew in a shuddery breath at her request. That he could do—loving her had always been easy.

  Loving her had never gone away.

  He tilted his head, his gaze zeroing in on her mouth. The flesh of her thigh was hot and pliant beneath his palm and he squeezed. A tiny, almost imperceptible gurgle at the back of her throat went straight to his groin and his breath stuttered out between them.

  He opened his palm and traced the inside of her thigh with his fingertips. He watched as she shivered and her eyes widened before fluttering closed. His fingers traced higher, over the sweet curve of a naked buttock, into the dip that formed the small of her back, across to the bony prominence of her hip.

  Tess sucked in a breath. ‘Fletch,’ she murmured, opening her eyes.

  Their gazes meshed as his fingers trailed upwards. The curve of her waist, the bumps of her spine, the fan of her ribs. Each slow, lazy stroke ruching his shirt ever northward.

  Tess bit her lip as cool air caressed bare, heated flesh from her waist down. It pricked at her skin, leaving thousands of goose-bumps and two erect nipples in its wake.

  ‘Lift your arms,’ he whispered against her mouth.

  She clutched his shoulder at his husky command. Long-forgotten muscles clenched deep inside. Then she did his bidding, slowly raising her arms above her head, her gaze never leaving his.

  Fletch swallowed at the directness in her gaze and her complete compliance with his command. His palms skimmed up her sides, hooking his T-shirt as they went, past the swell of her breasts, up over her shoulders and finally over her head.

  His breath hissed out as she stood between his legs totally naked.

  He dropped his gaze to look at her. She was different now. Thinner, less round, her breasts smaller, her bones more prominent. But there was still a slight curve to her hips and her waist still dipped and her breasts were still dominated by large areolas that had deepened to mocha during her pregnancy and were as fascinating tonight as they’d always been. He swallowed, just anticipating taking them into his mouth.

  He dropped a kiss at the hollow at the base of her throat and whispered, ‘Tess,’ against her neck, his erection straining painfully against the confines of his trousers. ‘My Tess.’

  Tess shut her eyes as his lips moved along a collar bone and his palms stroked up and down her back, urging her closer.

  She was his Tess. Had always been his Tess.

  He turned his head and made for the other collar bone and she whimpered as his hot tongue lapped at her skin like she was dusted with honey. Fletch pulled back, already breathing too hard as the aroma of her swirled around him in an intoxicating haze.

  A trail of glistening skin shone in the lamplight where he’d laved her collar bones but her mouth, so tantalisingly close, looked parched in comparison. He claimed it then, biting back on a groan as she instantly granted him the entry he craved. His tongue plunged inside then flicked over her lips, desperate to also make them moist with his possession.

  His hands slid down to her smooth bare bottom, pulling her pelvis into the cradle of his. One hand moved lower, stroking down the backs of her thighs, the other moved higher, seeking the fulfilment only a round female breast could offer.

  Years ago one of her breasts would have spilled out of his palm but now it fit perfectly, the hard nub in the middle scraping erotically against the dead centre. He squeezed it and she whimpered. He flicked his thumb over the tightly ruched nipple and she cried out, breaking their lip lock.

  ‘Fletch,’ she moaned.

  Fletch felt her fingers plough into his hair as he kissed down her neck, homing in on his target. His mouth salivated at the feast that awaited. His hand at the back of her thigh moved up swiftly to her other breast and by the time his mouth had closed over her nipple his fingers had claimed the other.

  Tess gasped, her knees buckling slightly. She felt his arm tighten around her waist as she clasped his head to her chest. Partly to stay upright, partly because she did not want him to stop. The heat and the pull of his mouth as he paid homage to her breasts was turning everything liquid.

  Her head spun as he continued to use his mouth and tongue on nipples so aroused she wanted to throw her head back and howl her pleasure. She dropped a hand to his shoulder to steady herself, her palm instantly lamenting the feel of thick starched fabric instead of hot male skin.

  She opened her eyes, suddenly aware that whilst sh
e was buck naked, he was still fully clothed.

  That wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.

  She groped for his buttons, her eyes rolling back as he switched attention from one nipple to the other, taking it from cool and puckered to hot and hard in a second as he sucked it deep into his throat.

  Her fingers fumbled and somehow found his loosened tie despite the havoc he was creating. She only just managed to strip it out from his collar as his teeth grazed the sensitive tip in his mouth and she lost all coherent thought for a beat or two.

  Determined to plough on whatever the provocation, Tess straddled his lap and started in on his buttons, pleased to hear a guttural groan escape his mouth as she rocked herself into him. He released the nipple he was torturing, placing his forehead against her chest and breathing hard as he grabbed her hips and held here there.

  She smiled then slowly pushed at his shoulders until he was lying back on the mattress and she had him at her total mercy. His eyes, smoky with desire, glittered up at her as she rotated her pelvis again and he swore under his breath, his fingers gripping her hips hard.

  She marvelled that ten years of abstinence hadn’t dulled her sexual instincts. But, then, it had always been instinctive with Fletch. There’d been guys before him but they’d always been such hard work. With Fletch it had been easy.

  So very, very easy.

  Still, she’d have thought she’d be nervous about having sex again after such a long dry stretch. Or that she might even have forgotten how. But towering over Fletch’s reclined form, she knew that her body knew what to do.

  And she knew it was going to be better than ever.

  Tess leaned forward slightly, her gaze locking with his as she reached for his first button. It popped easily and she lowered her mouth to where it had been and pressed a kiss there. She repeated the process with each button until they were all undone and his shirt had fallen open.

  Fletch let out his breath on a hiss as she sat up to admire her handiwork and her breasts bobbed enticingly. Once upon a time her long hair would have flowed down her front and covered them and he liked it that they were free to his gaze. He reached up and traced a finger from her collar bone to the tip of a rapidly hardening nipple and repeated it on the other side.