“There ain’t one part of you that’s discounted, darlin’, and it’s a package I very much wanna be part of.”
“Why?” I couldn’t hide the exasperation in my voice. “What do you get out of all of this?”
His eyes narrowed as if I’d asked the craziest question in the world. “You.”
“But why do you still want me?” It was still a confusing idea for me, that he could want me completely, warts and all, especially when there was nothing—no sex, no marriage, no family—on offer.
“Because you’re my happy. Bein’ near you on your worst day is better than bein’ with nearly anyone else on their best.”
I didn’t miss the “nearly,” and wondered who that could’ve been. Was there someone else he valued as highly as he said he valued me?
“If things’d gone different, I prob’ly woulda asked you to be my wife by now,” he admitted. “And eventually I woulda made vows to look after ya for better or worse, in sickness and in health, ’til death do us part. In my mind, those vows are real, even though I never said ’em to ya.”
I frowned at the mention of wedding vows.
“I ain’t gonna walk away just because it’s hard. As difficult as it might become, you’re worth it.”
My lip twitched at his words. “Say that again?”
“You’re worth it. Darlin’, you’re worth everythin’.”
The words spread through me and deep inside, I started to believe them. It was like a brick had been removed from the wall around my heart. One brick, out of thousands, and yet it was a start.
I WOKE TO an unusual sound. An alarm blared nearby. The warm embrace around my hips shifted as Beau groaned behind me. A moment later, the noise cut off.
“What’s that for?” I mumbled. It’d been so long since I’d been pulled from sleep by anything but a nightmare that despite the rude shock of it, it’d been almost nice.
“I got my appointment with Dr Bradshaw today.” After the afternoon spent outside, I’d invited Beau to stay for dinner again, and then asked him to spend the night. Unlike the last time he’d stayed, I’d slept through the night with barely a nightmare to haunt me.
His words were a reminder of what had happened the previous week in the doctor’s office though. I rubbed my hands over my face. “Shit. She probably thinks I’m a bigger freak than ever. I wonder if she’ll care if I never go again.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think she thinks anythin’ of the sort, darlin’. She knows as well as I do that you’re gonna have good days and bad days.”
“I guess that means you’re going to leave now?”
“It almost sounds like ya want me to stay.” His breath whispered across my skin as he said the teasing words.
I uncovered my face. “I think I kinda do.”
“I think I kinda like that you do.”
“How long before you have to go?”
“I need to have a shower and change, and I gotta go home for that, but I can probably stay for another twenty minutes.”
“By home do you mean your hotel room?” It was a question that had niggled in the back of my mind since the first time I’d invited him over. He’d arrived so fast, and I couldn’t think of any hotels or motels that close to us. A little further down the coast for sure, but not near us.
“Uh, no. I—” He twisted around toward me as if he wanted to watch my expression closely. “I leased a house a few streets over.”
“You rented a house?”
“I didn’t wanna tell ya, just in case ya thought I was tryin’ ta force anything, but it ain’t that. It was just easier than hotels.”
“Only you would rent a house because it was easier.”
“Means I don’t have to worry about tryin’ ta move from hotel room to hotel room, or worryin’ ’bout where I might stay.”
“But that’s insane. I mean the rent on houses around here isn’t exactly cheap.”
“It’s only money, darlin’. ’Sides, it’ll probably end up cheaper than a hotel in the long run.”
“Well, I still think you’re crazy.”
He chuckled. “Ya ain’t the only one.”
“You know what seems a little crazy?”
“What’s that, li’l miss?”
“We’re both going to the same place later today at around the same time.” My heart stammered as I tried to make it through my thought. “That’s two cars heading the same way a little more than an hour apart.”
“Heh, well, when ya say it like that, it does sound a little crazy. ’Specially when it’s at least forty minutes to get to Dr Bradshaw’s office.”
“It makes sense to only take one car, doesn’t it?”
“If ya think so.” He grinned as if he could see through my statement to the request I was really trying to make. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to make it, and yet it danced off my tongue anyway.
“It seems a waste for Mum and Nikki to have to go all the way into the city when you’re going that way anyway, don’t you think?”
He held out his hand and when I slipped my fingers between his, he asked, “Darlin’, would you do me the pleasure of accompanyin’ me to the city?”
“I-I think I’d like that.” Even as I said the words, panic rose in me at what it would mean. It’d mean getting in his car, letting him drive me into the city. Being alone with him, out of the house and away from my comforts, for a few hours.
His brow furrowed and the corners of his lips drooped downward. “Are ya sure, ’cause it don’t look like you’d like it.”
“It’s just a lot. Like a lot a lot.” The thought was more than overwhelming.
“Don’t worry ’bout it, darlin’, maybe next time.”
“No. I want—need to do this. I just need you to know that it isn’t easy for me to do it.”
He buried his head into the crook of my neck. “I know. And I appreciate it.”
“I guess you should go home and then come back to get me? Or how’s it going to work?”
“We can do that.” He turned thoughtful for a moment. “We should probably tell your mama what we’re plannin’ though. Just to make sure she’s okay with it.”
“She’s not the boss of me.”
“Still, I think it’s the least we can do. After all, your mama and daddy are bein’ very accomodatin’ lettin’ me stay over without warnin’. There ain’t too many folks that’d do that.”
“I think they think more of you than they do of me at the moment.”
“That ain’t true. They love ya.”
I flinched when he said the L-word, and an apologetic smile lit Beau’s face. He dragged himself away from me and out of the bed. “Let’s go find your mama.”
Following Beau’s lead, I headed out to find Mum. The house was so quiet I wondered whether Dad had maybe taken most of the kids with him for an early start. I found Mum in the living room, flipping through an old photo album filled with all of our baby pictures. She had always been a stickler for printing off hard copies because you never knew when digital might fail. Over her shoulder, I saw her staring at a photo of me holding baby Parker when I was ten.
“Mum, I—”
She jolted upright and snapped the photo album shut as I spoke.
My words caught in my throat when I saw she’d been crying. I didn’t need to ask for the cause. There was only one thing that brought on her tears now. One thing that triggered her pain. Me.
I shook my head to indicate to Beau that I didn’t think asking right then would be a good idea. Not while she was upset anyway.
“What is it, sweetie?” she asked. Her tears had been swept away in the beat I’d looked at Beau.
“Nothing. Beau’s heading off, that’s all. He wanted to say goodbye.”
“Oh?”
“I have my appointment with Dr Bradshaw.”
“Of course. We’ll have to head off before long too.”
“Yes, ma’am. Maybe one day, I can help ya out and take Phoebe with me.”
I
narrowed my gaze at him. How had he not understood to avoid the suggestion of me going with him?
“I’m not sure if . . .” She glanced at me, and I dropped my gaze to the floor. How could I meet her eye when she’d see the desire to go with Beau burning inside there? I didn’t want to hurt her. “I mean, it’s up to Phoebe.”
Beau nodded. “I understand. It’s her choice. Always.”
“Phoebe, what do you think?”
I felt cornered as both of them turned to me. If I said I didn’t want Beau to take me, it’d be a contradiction of the things we’d discussed just minutes earlier, but if I said I did, I risked breaking Mum’s heart. Again.
“I-I wouldn’t mind Beau taking me. Maybe. One day.”
Mum almost did a good job of concealing her pain, but for a moment her mask slipped.
I moved to Beau’s side and shoved him toward the door. “Can you just go? Please.”
“Phoebe! That’s not very—”
“It’s okay, Lys, I need to go anyway.” He lifted his hand and cupped my chin—after waiting for permission as always. “Call me if you wanna. I think there’d be some benefit.”
I heard the things he didn’t say. If I wanted him to take me today, the offer was still open.
I pushed him toward the door again. “I’ll see you later, Beau.”
As soon as I shut the door, I went to head back to my room, but Mum stopped me. “Pheebs, can we have a word?”
My heart leapt into my throat as I considered what might have been behind her request. “Uh, sure.”
“Sit.”
Her brief request didn’t help my nerves. My palms were sweaty as I sat on the couch, so I rubbed them over the front of my pyjama bottoms.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Dad took Nikki to work with him. He said the girls in the office have been asking about her. He dropped everyone else at school on the way.”
I nodded. It wasn’t the first time Dad had taken Nikki into work. Not that he could have her there too often, but if he knew it was going to be a quiet day, he’d take her in.
“I think I need to apologise,” Mum started.
“What? I—”
She held her hand up in a silent request for me to stop. “No, I do. I think, I know, I’ve made things harder for you than they maybe needed to be.”
I stared at my hands in my lap while she came over to sit at the other end of the couch. Her hand came to rest on her stomach as she fell into concentration, no doubt trying to pick the right words. I hoped she’d avoid the ones I didn’t want to consider.
“When you were taken, when I found out that you were missing, I—I couldn’t cope. Dad went to the States to find you, and I stayed here to keep everything going, but no matter what I did, I felt like I’d failed you.”
“No, you—”
“Please, I need to get this out,” she said. When she glanced up at me, tears wet her dark lashes. Her honey-brown irises swam with regrets. “It reminded me of the time we almost lost you before, and of what the future might have in store for you. I was terrified and even though I never gave up hope, I think part of me expected you not to come home.”
I didn’t tell her that I’d thought the same thing more often than not, especially when infections had set into the wounds torn into me by Bee’s torture. It’d only been Cora’s attention and a course of antibiotics in her name that had seen me through.
“When I heard they’d found you, that you were safe, I was overjoyed. I—I started to think I had my baby back. And, well, I’m afraid that’s how I’ve treated you ever since you came home.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I frowned at my hands. What did she mean?
“I’ve resisted anything that will take you away from me again. Anything that will give you freedom. Like the car last week. I didn’t want you to do that. I convinced myself it was for the best if you never went to the track again. That you needed to be at home—protected. But your dad reassured me you’d be okay. That Beau was right about the possible benefits. I’m starting to think I might’ve been holding you back. I’ve treated you as my baby, forgetting that you’re also a grown woman. And I’ve failed you.”
I shifted closer to her, wrapping my arms around her to comfort her. “No.” My voice was insistent as I buried my head against her neck. “You haven’t failed me. You couldn’t. I failed you. And I failed Dad. And Beau. I failed everyone.”
“Baby girl, you didn’t fail anyone.”
“I did. I made so many mistakes. If I hadn’t—”
“You were making Dad and me so proud with what you achieved over there,” she murmured against my hair. “It was never going to be an easy road trying to set yourself up in a new place, and we didn’t even know the worst of it. I think if things hadn’t happened like they did, you would’ve exceeded every expectation placed on you.”
“But things happened like they did because of me.”
“No—”
“If I hadn’t insisted on going even when I thought Beau didn’t want me anymore, things would’ve been different. If I hadn’t agreed to go out with Xavier—”
“No one is responsible for that . . .” She trailed off and drew down a deep breath as she fought a frown. “You can’t blame yourself for the actions of those sick people.”
“You can’t blame yourself either,” I retorted, knowing that guilt and anguish were at the bottom of her words. “You’ve done what you thought I needed. Conceded more than most might have. And it has been what I’ve needed. I needed to not be forced out the door. I needed to be cared for and kept here where I didn’t have to see anyone. I couldn’t face the world.”
I felt her tears wetting my hair.
“But I think you’re right too. I think I need to find the strength to be me again. I just . . . don’t know how.”
“I think seeing where things go with Beau is part of it.”
“You really think so?” I asked.
She nodded against the top of my head. “I do. And maybe trying to reconnect with Angel, too.”
I sighed as she asked for the impossible. “I don’t think I can do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . I can’t.”
“I won’t push, but it’d be a shame for you to walk away from the person you’ve relied on so much over the years. Over nothing.”
I pulled away from Mum and shifted to the other side of the couch again. “It’s not nothing.”
“Then what is it?”
There were a few things I’d never spoken to Mum about. I’d never told her the details of the things I’d suffered—although I was sure Dad had filled her in on some of it. I’d never been able to find the words to tell her about my miscarriage. Or that Angel had warned me about Xavier before everything went to shit. But more than anything else, I hadn’t told her the real reason I couldn’t face Angel. “She’s all the parts of me that I’ve lost.”
“What?”
I stared at the ceiling while I spoke, hoping that if I looked up long enough the tears wouldn’t be able to fall. “She reminds me of the pieces of me that I lost over there. The parts that I loved, that made me who I was, they’re all safe in her and I don’t want to destroy them too.”
“I don’t think you’ll destroy anything by reaching out to her.”
“I would. I’m just like her mother, and if she has two people in her life like that . . . it’ll break her.” I sobbed. “I can’t be responsible for breaking her.”
“You’re nothing like her mother.”
“I hit her.”
“You didn’t mean—”
“And neither does her mother apparently. It doesn’t matter how many times I apologise; it won’t take back what I did. And I did it once, who’s to say I won’t do it again the next time she touches me without warning? You know what she’s like, she expresses herself with her touch, and I don’t want her to have to change that just so she can be around me.”
Mum’s tears were back�
�if they’d ever left. “I think she’d say it was worth it.”
“But I say it’s not! I’ll hate myself if I change her.”
“You don’t think she’s changed anyway? How do you think she’s coping with being frozen out of your life?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t be another person in her life like that bitch who raised her.”
“Just promise me you’ll think about it? I mean, letting Beau in hasn’t been as bad as you thought it would be, has it?”
I shrugged. “I guess not. Everything’s different now though. We’re not who we used to be, and I think that he changed too. Angel, she hasn’t. She’s untouched.”
“I think you’ll find there isn’t anyone who came away unscathed. I mean, I know your dad and I put on a brave face for the others, but you know we both hurt for you, baby. And he still has nightmares of you disappearing, and of everything he saw the day he found you, not that he’d admit that to anyone of course.”
“It’s my fault.”
“No. It’s not. There are three people responsible, and they’re all dead, and thank God they are or your father would probably be in jail.”
“It’s not fair that they get so much power. Even now, they’re controlling everything. I hate it. I hate feeling this way. Second-guessing everything. I wish I could just get past it, but they . . . they’re always there.” I drew my knees into my chest and clutched at the side of my head, as though tugging my hair would pull out the memories.
“One day, it’ll be better.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and could see Xavier and the glint of his knife. “I don’t know if I believe that.”
“If you let love back in, in whatever form that takes, it’ll get better. This. Here. Shows that it can.”
I turned back to face her. “What do you mean?”
“Just a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t talk to me about it at all. You never laughed. You were trapped and I couldn’t reach you. When Beau could, I thought maybe it was because he treated you differently—more like an adult than I have been—but now, I’m just wondering whether maybe you needed the combination of those things. Or maybe, you simply needed time.”
Physis (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #4) Page 11
