Then he walked down the hallway to his room. Beaten down. Hollowed out.
Chapter 17
Kezia startled awake in her hotel room to a triple whammy.
Still not pregnant. Still kinda blotto. And the phone was ringing.
The first whammy had lost its shock value since the tiny printed “not pregnant” appeared on the test stick last night. And just in case the test hadn’t made it clear, she’d risen a few hours ago and discovered she’d got her period at last. Yippee.
The second whammy? Blame that on drowning her troubles in a bottle of chardonnay while watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns and bawling her eyes out.
She squinted at the nightstand’s digital clock. Two in the morning. Gesù. The phone continued to blast high decibel shrills. Snatching up the handset, Kezia mumbled, “Wha-ya?” since apparently, her mouth had forgotten how to form actual words.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Ms. Murphy,” the crisp female voice chirped down the line, “but I have Nick Russo at the front desk insisting I let him up to your room.”
The receptionist’s words jolted the last dregs of sleepy drunkenness from her system.
What was Nicky doing here? The ramifications exploded into her brain.
“Send him up, please,” she said, at the same time grappling with the nightstand lamp.
Her fingers finally located the stupidly small knob and light flooded the room. She hung up the phone and scrambled out of bed.
Ohgodohgodohgod! None of her relatives knew she was in Wellington. Easier to stay at an impersonal hotel than to explain the shit-fest of her life to one of her brothers. Had something happened to one of her nieces or nephews? Matt and his snazzy little sports car he always drove too fast?
Then on the heels of that: Zoe.
“Nonononono!” She pounced on her handbag, rummaging through the inside pockets until she found her phone.
With ten fat sausages instead of fingers she tried to locate the power button. She’d shut it down last night, knowing the only person she’d take a call from would be Zoe—and Zoe would be having way too much fun for a mother/daughter chat. Plus Zoe knew to ring Shaye or Piper if she needed some spare clothes or some other kid-like emergency.
The phone powered up and she fidgeted from foot to foot as the black screen slowly changed to color. Ten missed calls. Thirteen unread text messages. All from Ben and Shaye. She opened a random message from Ben.
Flying to Invers with Zoe. Joe thinks appendicitis. Call me!
Her heart stopped beating, until the knocking on her hotel room door kick-started it. Kezia stumbled on icy legs to yank open the door to Nick, who stood in the hallway dressed in jeans and hooded sweatshirt. His fists were clenched, dark eyebrows drawn together in hot thunder.
He let out a stream of Italian curses which would’ve caused his sister-in-laws to blush, and threw up his hands. “Christ and all his angels, Kezia!”
She thrust out her phone. “Zoe!” Her voice cracked like cheap porcelain and dissolved into a hiccupping sob.
Her brother reeled her in for a rough hug, a whiff of feminine perfume on his skin tickling her nose. “Don’t start with the tears, Piccoletta. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do—starting with, who the hell is Ben Harland and why is he with Zoe?”
Kezia pulled back and led Nick inside. “I have to call him—”
Nick shook his head, his dark hair rumpled and in need of a trim. “You won’t get hold of him, he’ll be in the hospital by now, you’re not allowed to use cell phones there, remember? Interferes with their machines or something—look, sit down and I’ll tell you what I know.” He slumped into the room’s only armchair.
After a moment, Nick sent her a pointed look and she stopped pacing and wringing her hands. “Sit.”
She sat, tensed on the very edge of the bed.
“Your friend Shaye rang looking for you about an hour ago. She was pretty surprised to find I didn’t know you were in Wellington, and that I wasn’t suffering from a personal crisis which warranted your sisterly attention. Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was? What a mission it became to track you down?”
Kezia’s cheeks heated.
“Yeah, little sister—lucky you’re predictable when it comes to hotel chains. You’re still going to hell for scaring the crap out of me and lying to your friends. Anyway—Shaye told me Zoe got sick at a birthday party. The local doc suspected appendicitis and ordered an airlift to Invercargill hospital.” His dark brown eyes, a mirror or her own, narrowed in speculation. “This Ben Harland guy went with her.”
Kezia blinked back tears and sucked in a deep breath. “Oh.”
“So.” Nick twirled the cord of his sweatshirt’s hood and glared. “This guy means something to you if you’re not freaking out about him being with Zoe.”
“He means something.”
No, Ben meant everything. But the last tie between them had snapped after the test showed a negative result. Ben was free to do whatever he needed to do. History wouldn’t repeat itself; a man wasn’t going to shackle his life to hers because she carried his child. Her stomach folded in on itself with a sharp cramp and she wrapped her arms around her middle.
“I don’t want to talk about it now. I need to get to Zoe.”
“Then hit the shower, Piccoletta, and we’ll make some calls. You smell like Uncle Alberto after an all-nighter.” Nick swung his legs off the chair.
Kezia grabbed a change of clothes and locked herself into the bathroom. Leaning against the door her heart throbbed in time with the blood pounding through her brain. Why hadn’t Shaye gone on the helicopter with Zoe? Why Ben? He’d made it clear from the beginning he didn’t want or need the extra responsibility in his life. Responsibility like her and Zoe, and the little baby she’d secretly hoped for, but had been only a wistful dream. Her eyes prickled hot, her chest tightening unbearably.
No tears, Kezia. No recriminations, no useless longings, no time.
Getting to Zoe was the only thing that mattered now.
***
Ben hated waiting rooms on general principle. Boring, too hot or too cold, and the magazines catered to fashion-crazed women or were two years out of date. But the waiting room in Invercargill’s hospital took on nightmarish proportions when he startled and almost fell out of the chair each time the sliding doors hissed open.
A zombie-faced man wandered into the room, glanced bleary-eyed at him and left again. His watch said an hour and a half had gone by since he’d let go of Zoe’s hand after the anesthetist took her under.
Wish they’d hurry the hell up—he was going nuts in here. Bad enough they’d waited hours while the hospital organized emergency surgery. At least after a shot of Happy Juice Zoe had been in a lot less pain.
After he’d left the theatre and stripped out of the butt-ugly scrubs they’d given him to wear, he grabbed a coffee from a vender. He crumpled the empty paper cup and tossed it at the rubbish bin. The cup bounced off the rim and clattered to the floor. Sighing, he closed his eyes. Story of his frickin’ life.
The door sucked open with a bone-chilling hiss, but he kept his eyes shut. Someone would announce his name, if it was in fact a member of staff and not some other poor slob desperate for a snippet of news.
“Ben?”
He peeled open an eye, tipping his head forward from where he rested against the beige-painted wall. Kezia stood inside the doors, her blouse and jeans wrinkled, her dark curls flat on one side, her eyes red and swollen. She looked like shit—not to put too fine a point on it.
So instead of asking her why the hell she’d switched off her phone and all the other questions burning his ass, he said, “She’s going to be okay, Kez. Her appendix hadn’t ruptured and she shouldn’t be in surgery much longer.”
She nodded stiffly and crossed the short distance of faded linoleum, sitting next to him with her bag clamped to her stomach. “I’ve spoken to the surgical registrar. Thank you for taking care of her.”
Kezia stared
straight ahead, maybe at the rack of pamphlets detailing your rights while in hospital.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.
He’d screwed up his chances with Kezia. Just how badly, he didn’t know yet.
Ben folded his arms and stared straight ahead with her. “You’re welcome.”
You’re welcome? What a dumb-ass thing to say.
“I, ah, had to wait until this morning to charter a private plane,” she said. “I got here as soon as I could. Zoe, did she”—a hitched breath and a click as she swallowed—“ask for me?”
Zoe’s lips moved over and over in the short flight to the hospital. He hadn’t been able to hear her words with his ears covered by the chopper’s headset and the roar of the rotors, but he knew she continued to ask for her mother.
“Yeah, a lot. But she held up like a little warrior once I told her you’d meet us at the hospital.”
He turned his head, noting Kez’s hunched posture, her fingers gripped tight around the straps of her handbag. “I’m dying to ask. Why was your phone switched off?”
A sigh gusted out of her, puffing out a single curl of dark hair which had spilled across her face. “I switched my phone off because I didn’t want to talk to anyone after I took a pregnancy test.” A pause while she tucked the strand of hair behind her ear. Her hands shook.
He jerked upright in the chair, his resting pulse rate hurtling into a sprint. “You’re pregnant?”
Heat blossomed deep inside his chest. A baby with Kezia? A little boy who he’d teach to cast a line and bowl a cricket ball? Or maybe another girl—dark eyes, corkscrew curls—a tiny Italian diva like her mamma.
“No. The test was negative.”
The warm spot disappeared and the words fell between them, loaded with live mines.
He couldn’t begin to imagine the collateral damage he’d done with the whole Marci-gate incident—and while he’d been screwing things up, Kezia had thought she was pregnant.
The world’s biggest stronzo, that was him.
“You should’ve told me.”
Kezia’s long, elegant fingers massaged her temples. “Would telling you have made any difference?”
“Shit.” Well, what could he say? If he’d known—oh, that explained her mystery tears on Friday afternoon—he would’ve only felt a million times worse. And the problem with Marci would’ve magnified in his head to need-a-straitjacket proportions.
“It was only a suspicion, and I refused to use it to influence any of your decisions. Now it doesn’t matter. There’s no pregnancy.” Her clipped tones suggested the topic was now closed.
Jesus Christ. Did she think the only reason he would have wanted to be with her was because she might’ve been pregnant? What the hell happened to women’s intuition? Didn’t she know she could shatter him into tiny pieces with just a glance? The woman bloody owned him, and she hadn’t a frickin’ clue.
Instead of riling her up, he rested his forearms on his knees and sucked in a deep breath. “And so, before you took the pregnancy test, you were visiting your brother—”
Kezia stared at him with hangdog eyes.
“What?”
Her handbag slid to the floor. She ignored it and lifted her chin. “I wasn’t with Nicky.”
“Wait a minute—you weren’t with your brother?”
Dark eyes cut away from him and an ice cold fist wrapped around his gut. “Why were you in Wellington, Kezia?”
She worried her bottom lip with an eye tooth, and sat straighter. “I went to a meeting at my old school, to apply for a position opening up in the third term.”
“A teaching position in Wellington?”
“It’s a good job.”
“You have a good job in Oban. You and Zoe have a life there now.”
You have me there, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Then it hit him. He’d be leaving Stewart Island soon to be with Jade in Auckland. To do the whole court thing. His gut churned maliciously.
God, he was a thick-headed male sometimes.
“Whether or not I leave the Island to be with Jade, you and Zoe don’t have to go.”
Her eyes were bleak pools leading to dark fathoms he had no chance of navigating unscathed. “I can’t stay in Oban, Ben. Everyone who matters to me knows or has guessed about us. Do you think I want to be reminded of being let down again by a man every day for the next forever?”
“I let you down.” He didn’t need to phrase it as a question when it was a fact.
“Just like Callum, just like his parents, and just like my family.”
“I get the parental stuff, Kez—but how the hell did Callum let you down by dying in a car accident? Was he at fault?”
She shook her head. “No. The truck crossed the center line, he never stood a chance.” Her eyes cut to the side, and dammit, he knew her well enough to spot there was a lot more to the story of her husband’s death.
“What happened, Kez?”
She scooped up her handbag, placing it on the seat next to her and fussing with the straps. Like hell she wouldn’t spill. He stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. He’d wait.
Denim rasped as she crossed her legs and wrapped her hands around her knees. “Callum became more and more distant after Zoe’s diagnosis. For the first few months he’d be at every hospital procedure, every specialist appointment. But then there would be a client meeting he couldn’t reschedule. A conference he had to attend, and Zoe was too little and too sick to notice one of my brother’s taking his place.” She looked up to meet his gaze, her eyes glittering like black diamonds.
“The day of the accident I left a hysterical, bitchy message on his phone after his secretary rang to say he wasn’t coming to the hospital yet again. When he arrived two hours later, I thought he’d come to apologize, to sit with Zoe so I could take a break—grab a coffee at the hospital, go home for a quick shower. Something.”
“You’d been with her all day?”
“Yes. Callum hadn’t come to swap out with me. He’d come to tell me he couldn’t cope any more with Zoe’s illness and me being the obsessively involved mother. He was moving out—starting that night.” A tear slipped over her dark lashes. She brushed it away with an impatient hand.
“Oh he loved Zoe, he said, and he’d do his best to support us. Of course, him moving out was temporary because he needed a break from the day to day dramas and disruptions.” A bitter laugh seethed out from between her teeth. “All stronzate. His eyes told the truth.”
“He wasn’t coming back.”
“No. He was done. We were done.” Kezia fumbled in her purse, dragging out an elastic tie which she used to gather her hair into a loose ponytail. She looked like a teenager—a teenager who’d found out the hard way that ‘love u 4eva’ had the tensile strength of wet tissue paper.
“Callum went into Zoe’s room and kissed her goodnight, then he left. It was the last time she saw her daddy alive and the first time I knew I wouldn’t allow myself to rely on anyone again.”
You can rely on me.
He dismissed the thought. Callum was a douchebag for abandoning his family, but hell, wasn’t he almost as guilty? He couldn’t be relied on either—as Kezia had delicately pointed out with her story. He was risking everything he and Kezia had together.
Leaving her and Zoe would be as brutal as amputating a healthy leg and arm, but could he live with himself if he just let Marci take Jade? No. And after everything he’d put Kezia through, how could he ask her move to Auckland with him while he fought in the courts? He’d done enough damage in this woman’s life. He didn’t deserve her.
“So I guess we’re done too?”
Her silence was answer enough.
The door hissed and a nurse stepped inside. “Ms. Murphy? Zoe’s been moved to the recovery suite, she’s doing fine.” The woman beamed at them. “I’ll come back and take you to her shortly.”
Beside him Kezia gusted out a sigh. “Thank you.”
<
br /> Ben picked up his jacket slung over a chair and stood. “I’d better go if I’m to catch the first ferry.”
He couldn’t meet her eyes, knowing any glimmer of hope he saw there would bring him to his knees. There wasn’t any hope. Don’t be greedy, Ben. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
“I’ll tell Zoe you said hi. And thanks again.” Like he was a neighbor who’d done her a favor out of a sense of community service.
Not as a man ridiculously, crazily, stupidly in love with her.
The jacket nearly slipped from his numb fingers as his heart battered his ribs.
He loved her. But it was over.
He loved her. But he had to do the right thing. The responsible thing.
His blood pounded as each word punched into his brain like a nail gun.
Ben swayed and Kezia surged to his side, her delicate hand searing his skin as she gripped his elbow. “Ben? Are you okay?”
He pulled out of her grasp, shaking his head. “I’m good, just punch-drunk from lack of sleep.” The curve he forced his lips into stretched tight over his teeth. “I’ll take a power-nap on the ferry. I gotta go.”
Then before he changed his mind, Ben walked away. His jaw clenched as the sliding doors opened and hissed shut behind him, sealing him off from the woman he would never, ever be fucking okay about again.
***
Ben didn’t sleep on the trip back to Stewart Island. Not for one second could he close his eyes and think of anything other than Kezia’s face. And what he’d lost.
As the ferry wallowed in to Halfmoon Bay, Ben studied The Mollymawk shining in the midmorning sun. He loved what he did, he loved his insane family, and he loved the Island. But he loved Jade more.
Suck it up, you big pussy. The decision’s made.
After they docked, he was the first passenger off. He waved to Ford as he passed the garage but didn’t stop, speed-walking up the hill to his place. By the time he reached the house, his breath came in harsh pants, blood booming in his ears.
Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) Page 25
