Blackthorne: Heart of Fame, Book 8

by Lexxie Couper

  Once again, he had to wait a while before he could go on.

  Caitlin watched him, unable to contain her grin.

  “All right, all right.” He shushed the crowd with a laugh. “You’ll make my head grow too big and I’ll get kicked out of bed tonight for taking up all the room.”

  There were more squeals and cheers. More laughter from Josh.

  More grinning from Caitlin. She wanted to tell people she’d never kick him out of her bed but figured that wasn’t overly professional.

  Still, she couldn’t help but preen a little and press her thighs together at the throbbing beat in her pussy the thought of being in bed with Josh created.

  “Now.” Josh held up his hand once again, his smirk fading to a serious expression. “I’m assuming you all know why I’m here, but if you don’t, I’m gonna tell you. Tonight, all proceeds raised from this special one-off unplugged performance go toward Doctors Without Borders.”

  The crowd, utterly captivated by Josh, burst into wild applause and cheers. Feet stamped with wild enthusiasm. Smartphone camera flashes peppered the air.

  “Doctors Without Borders,” Josh continued once the room had quieted down again, “is an international humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. Today, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF as the organization is also known, Médecins Sans Frontières…” He paused for a second, giving the audience his famous smirk. “By the way, did you like my French accent there?”

  The room erupted in woops of delighted cheers.

  Josh grinned. “So good for my ego,” he muttered with a shake of his head. “Damn, you lot are so good for my ego. Anyways, today MSF provides independent, impartial assistance in more than sixty countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care or natural disasters. They are constantly facing down danger and risking their lives to provide medical aid to those most in need regardless of their race, religion or political affiliation. In other words—” he paused again, his expression growing more serious as he ran his gaze over the crowd, “—they are bloody incredible and deserve all the support and recognition I can give them. All the support and help you can give them. Which is why you’re here, right?”

  Once again, the crowd hanging on his every word erupted in bellowing cheers and whistles.

  Josh nodded like a loving parent, proud of their child. “That’s what I thought,” he called. “Now I’m sure…” He waited, commanding the room to hush with a hand. “I’m sure you have read or heard just this month of the tragic loss of Matt Corvin, an Australian doctor who volunteered with MSF almost a year ago. This performance tonight is to honour Matt’s selfless sacrifice. To let the world know the reason he gave his life has not been forgotten. To show the world we can help, even if we have no damn clue how to hold a scalpel, we can help. And will help. Yes?”

  The responding roar of approval shook the walls.

  Caitlin closed her eyes, almost undone by the power in Josh’s voice.

  “All right,” he cried. “Let’s make some noise for Matt.”

  With the crowd screaming and cheering, he began the next song, the harrowing lyrics of Synergy’s “Misplaced” filling the club.

  “Holy fuck,” she murmured, chest tight. “He really is incredible.”

  “And holy fuck,” a male voice uttered on her right, the words somehow nervous even as a laugh tripped over each syllable. “He can sing.”

  A prickling heat razed Caitlin’s spine. Her hair crawled on her scalp. Her lips went numb. Opening her eyes, she turned to the man beside her and let out a silent whimper.

  There, not four inches away, stood Matt.

  “Hey, Caity.” Lips she had kissed a thousand times curled in a hesitant, sheepish smile. “Miss me?”

  She stared at him. Her breath caught in her throat. “But you’re dead,” she whispered.

  He shook his head in a confused side-to-side motion, his gaze never leaving her face. “No, there was a mistake. They…didn’t the Federal Minister let you…someone was meant to contact you, let you…” He shook his head again, placing his fingertips on her jawline. “First things first,” he said and lowered his head to brush a soft kiss on her lips.

  Caitlin didn’t move.

  Couldn’t move. How could she when she was being kissed by a ghost?

  “You have no idea how often I’ve thought of doing that in the last five days,” Matt murmured, his breath a warm tickle on her lips.

  Warm.

  How can his breath, his lips be warm? How can that be if he’s a ghost?

  Breath still trapped in her lungs, Caitlin wrapped her hands around his wrists and pulled away from him, unable to stop staring at him. “Matt?”

  His name fell from her on a hoarse croak. Around them, the crowd cheered and sang along with Josh.

  Josh, whose voice stirred in her something deep and profound.

  Josh, who loved her…

  “Matt?” she whispered again. “I…I don’t…” She stopped. Shook her head. Stared at him. Her heart twisted. Her stomach knotted.

  A frown pulled at Matt’s forehead. Worry crossed his face, a face—Caitlin noticed for the first time—scarred and far more gaunt than it had been when he’d left for Somalia. “Christ, honey,” he whispered, cupping the side of her face. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you knew by now. The federal minister told me when I touched down in Sydney he would contact you.”

  She swallowed. There were words in her brain, churning in there, tumbling over each other, but what those words were, Caitlin didn’t know.

  Josh?

  Love?

  Taking a break?

  Not dead?

  Tight cold clamped around her heart. “How can you be alive?” she whispered.

  On stage, Josh began singing “Destiny’s Hope”, Synergy’s latest multi-platinum hit. The crowd erupted in ecstatic cheers, clapping and stamping their feet.

  A lopsided smile pulled at Matt’s lips and he threaded his fingers through Caitlin’s. Tugging her closer to him, he lowered his lips to her ear. “How about we continue this conversation in your office? The rock star’s making it hard to hear each other.”

  The rock star’s singing for you. And why are you kissing me?

  “Caitlin?” Matt’s breath tickled her ear. He skimmed his fingers over the curve of her hip, drawing her closer still to his body. “Can we go to your office? I need…I want…”

  Scrunching up her face, Caitlin swallowed. Every fibre in her body wanted her to look at Josh, to see him up there on stage. To see if he was looking at her…

  “Honey?” Matt smoothed his hand over her bottom, up to the small of her back. He brushed his lips against her ear in a warm and tender caress. “Please?”

  Throat thick, Caitlin pulled away from him. Stared at him.

  He smiled, the hope in his gaze shadowed by a haunted uncertainty. “It’s been so long,” he said. “I want to…I just want to hold…to talk to you so much.”

  Her head swam. Her pulse pounded. Her stomach churned. “Okay,” she whispered. “Okay. Just let me tell Zach where I’m going.”

  Turning, she found her second-in-charge behind the bar, watching her. Watching them both, his arms folded over his massive chest, his expression unreadable. “I’m…” she began, mouth dry. “My office…”

  Zach’s jaw bunched and he nodded without a word.

  “Heya, Zach,” Matt said at Caitlin’s side, holding out his hand to Zach. Caitlin couldn’t help but notice the flesh above his wrist was free of hair and pinkish-white.

  A scar. Freshly healed. From what?

  “Matt.” Zach engulfed Matt’s hand in a small shake. “Long time no see. You’re looking…alive.”

  Smoothing his other hand up Caitlin’s back, Matt laughed. “You could say that.”

  Caitlin’s tummy coiled. She swallowed again. An urge to tur
n around, to look at Josh still singing on the stage, still pouring his heart into every word, itched at her. But how could she look at Josh when Matt was alive and standing right beside her, his warm hand resting on her back, his scent—the one she’d ached to smell again for so many nights—in every breath she took? How could she look at Josh when Matt had just kissed her?

  Why would she want to look at another man?

  Because you love that other man. You love Josh. Because he is the future you want now. Because you and Matt were over. Because he—

  “Ready, honey?”

  Caitlin blinked at Matt’s soft voice in her ear. She frowned. God, she finally understood what the term shell shocked meant.

  He smiled at her, smoothing his hand higher up her back. “Your office?”

  Licking her lips, she straightened her shoulders. “Office.” She flicked Zach a look. “You’ve got the floor, Zach,” she said, yet even to her ears she sounded…distant.

  Her second-in-charge gave her a slow nod, that curiously ambiguous expression on his face again. “Sure, boss. What do you want me to tell Blackthorne when he’s done?”

  Caitlin opened her mouth. And then closed it again. With a shake of her head, she turned away. She didn’t know what to tell Zach. Just as she didn’t know what to say to Josh.

  Oh God, what did she say to Josh?

  What did she say to Matt?

  Catching her bottom lip with her teeth, her heart a wild rhythm in her throat, she threaded her fingers through her fiancé’s, gave him a small smile and led him through the crowded club. To the door marked private at the side of the stage.

  She didn’t look at Josh. She couldn’t.

  If she did, if she saw him looking at her, she didn’t know what she would do.

  She truly didn’t.

  A few moments later, no more than a dozen heartbeats, she opened the door to her office and stepped inside, Matt following.

  Another heartbeat later, the door closed behind them both, cutting them off completely from the sound of Josh’s amazing performance.

  The air pressed on her. Cold. Suffocating.

  Releasing Matt’s hand, she made her way to her desk, scrubbing her palms on her thighs as she did so.

  “Caity?” Matt spoke behind her. “You’re…stunned, aren’t you?”

  “That’s one word,” she murmured, hugging her elbows.

  Warm hands touched the curve of her hips, followed by warm lips on the back of her neck. “Fuck, honey,” Matt whispered, skimming his fingers over her hips to the plane of her belly. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to do this again.”

  “I didn’t think you wanted to,” she whispered.

  If he heard her, he didn’t respond. Instead, he tugged her back to his body, his breath fanning the side of her neck as he rained a trail of soft kisses up to the little dip below her ear the way he used to when they were still crazy in love.

  Caitlin closed her eyes, willing the warmth of sexual awakening at his familiar touch to flood her.

  It didn’t. Instead, all that unfurled through her was more confusion.

  And guilt.

  Twisting in Matt’s loose embrace, she flattened her palms to his chest—still broad, but not as hard with muscle as it had been the last time she’d touched him so—and gently disengaged herself from his arms.

  He looked at her, eyebrows dipping into a puzzled frown.

  “I need…” She pulled a slow breath, closed her hands into fists and then held them out to him, palms forward. “I need an explanation, Matt. For starters, you ended us before you left. For months, I never let anyone know that, even as I feared for you. Even when I knew we weren’t together anymore, I refused to move on, certain you weren’t dead. And then three weeks ago, the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs tells me they’ve found a body in a mass grave wearing not only your MSF I.D. tag but buried with the medical satchel I gave you. A day later, the whole country is told you’re dead via an official statement from the prime minister’s office. The whole country, Matt. And now you’re standing here. In my club, my office, very much alive. Kissing me!”

  She stopped, an invisible weight crushing her chest, her head roaring with emotions she couldn’t begin to decipher. Swiping her hand over her mouth, she stared at him and shook her head.

  “I need an explanation,” she repeated, the word muffled not just by her palm, but by her shock. “I need to know where you’ve been.”

  And why you seem to want me back?

  She didn’t ask the last question aloud. Instead, it twisted at her guilt and churned her stomach.

  For a moment, Matt didn’t reply. He studied her, resting his hands on his hips, his jaw bunched. And then, with his own slow breath, he nodded. “Okay.” He dragged his hands through his hair, the action revealing more pinkish-white flesh running the length of his under arm, from wrist to beneath the short sleeve of his polo shirt. “Okay.”

  Caitlin’s chest grew tighter. As much as she wanted to ask about his scars, she wanted to know where he’d been. She had to know.

  “On the day of the attack,” he said, holding her stare with his, “there were five of us MSF doctors at the camp from various countries, along with six nurses. We also had four Somali med students. Four young men desperate to learn what we could teach them so they could help their countrymen. There was also a small auxiliary crew of Somali volunteers who helped with laundry, bandages, feeding patients, that kind of stuff. When the militants first hit, they were targeting the Somali only. They were brutal. Barbaric. When it became obvious the militants weren’t trying to kill the MSF team, I gave my ID badge to the student I’d been working with for the two weeks. We were hiding in the supply tent at that point, cowering behind a stack of boxes containing empty syringes. I figured I’d be able to talk my way out of being shot even if I wasn’t wearing a badge, but Amiin stood more chance of survival if we were found and they thought he was a foreign doctor.”

  He let out a hollow chuckle. The sound, devoid of any humour or mirth, twisted a cold blade in Caitlin’s soul.

  “On reflection,” he went on, raking his hands through his hair again, “it makes little sense now, but when you are surrounded by gun shots, screaming people and destruction, your brain doesn’t really do you any favours. I know I’d ended you and I, but all I could think about was getting home to you, seeing you again. Telling you I was sorry, telling you I was wrong. And when Amiin begged God to let him survive so he could see his girlfriend again, when he tried to run, I understood so much I did the first thing I could think of. I gave him my badge and my satchel and told him to try and hide.”

  He tore his fingers through his hair again with a tension so fierce it pulled the sandy-blond strands back from his temples. Caitlin’s breath caught in her throat. For the first time since he’d appeared at her side at the bar, she saw a thick white jagged scar running down the right side of his face from just below his hairline to down past his ear.

  Oh God, what had he lived through?

  “The gunshots were getting closer to us,” he said, dropping his hands from his head. He rubbed at a palm with the backs of his knuckles, his stare jumping about the space at her feet. “We were going to be found if we didn’t move. I shoved my stuff at Amiin, made him take them and ordered him to try and get somewhere safe. I followed barely a second later. But it was too late. I can remember the side of the tent disappearing in a blast of red, boiling smoke. I can remember more screaming, whose, I don’t know. Maybe Amiin’s. Probably mine. I remember gunshots so loud my eardrums felt pierced. All I can remember after that is nothingness.”

  He raised his head and looked at her, the torment in his face filling Caitlin with pain.

  “I woke from a coma five days ago.” He shrugged. “The first thought in my mind was about you. I was in a hospital in Las Anod. No one knew who I was. I identified myself, asked them to contact the Australian High Commission in Kenya and waited. In the time it took for the high commissioner to reach the h
ospital, the doctors explained what had happened to me…” He touched the scar on his head with a wry snort. “Twice while I was in a coma, someone from the Australian High Commission came to the hospital, but neither time were they shown into where I was. I don’t know why. The doctors and nurses at the hospital don’t know why. The foreign affairs minister suspects money was involved. Perhaps a planned ransom demand? I still don’t know what happened to Amiin. I guess it was his body incorrectly identified as mine.”

  Caitlin drew in a ragged breath, an invisible fist clenching around her throat. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Matt. I’m…I don’t…I can’t imagine what…” She pressed her fingers to her mouth, tears prickling her eyes. “Shit, Matt.”

  He smiled, the expression at once sad and full of happiness. “Just say you’re glad to see me, Caity. I know I called off the engagement. I know I broke your heart, and I know it’s not going to be easy getting used to me being back…especially after you said goodbye to me—twice—but tell me you’re glad to see me and we can—”

  “Babe?” Josh’s voice filled the room. “I’m mid-set and Mandy said you were—”

  Caitlin swung around. Her stare found Josh, his hand still wrapped around the knob of her office door, standing one step inside, his stare fixed on Matt.

  The blood drained from her face. Her heart smashed into her throat. A heavy roar filled her ears. “Josh,” she said, extending her hand toward Matt, her mouth drier than dust, her stomach rolling in on itself in sickening knots. “This is Matt. Matt, this is Josh Blackthorne.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Someone had sucked the air from the room. That had to be the reason Josh couldn’t draw a breath. Had to be.

  It was that or the presence of the dead man standing a mere foot away from Caitlin. And as far as ridiculous, impossible situations went, walking into a room-sized vacuum made more sense than a dead man being alive. Right?

  The dead man, the man who Caitlin had planned to marry, turned to face Josh, his lips stretching in a warm, friendly smile as he walked towards Josh, hand extended.