by Heidi Rice
‘But that makes you and Zane brothers,’ she said carefully. ‘Why is that bad?’
He twisted his head, opened his eyes to stare at her. ‘If you’d ever met my father, you’d know why.’
* * *
Tess remained speechless, silenced by the naked pain she glimpsed for a second in Nate’s eyes. He looked away, stared out of the windscreen, his hand releasing hers. She’d trespassed onto a very private area of his life without intending to. She should leave this alone—continuing to talk about it felt like poking at an open wound—but then he spoke.
‘You know, you’re the first person I can remember who’s ever commented on the resemblance.’ His voice sounded resigned, and hollow. ‘Even though I always thought it was kind of obvious. I guess most people get sidetracked by the difference in our heritage and don’t look beyond that.’
‘Does Zane know?’ It seemed like a stupid question, surely they must have discussed this? The easy way they’d chatted together by the car, their body language, everything about their friendship spoke of companionship and familiarity. It would only be a short step to brotherhood.
He placed his hands on his thighs, the tension in his spine relaxing as he eased back into the seat. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘You think? You don’t know? Haven’t you ever talked about it?’ she blurted out, shocked to the core. Okay, men were famous for their lack of communication skills, and Nate could take stone-walling to a whole new level, but she’d assumed that tendency was just with her—because they’d been thrown into a situation that neither of them really knew how to deal with. But this was ridiculous. How could you be related to your best friend and never talk about it?
His eyes connected with hers, and he gave a brittle laugh. ‘We talked about it once, when we were kids.’ He rubbed his thumb absently against a small crescent shaped scar on his chin. ‘We didn’t talk about it again.’
‘What happened?’ she asked, knowing that she was trespassing into dangerous territory, but unable to stop herself. He looked so lonely, the cloak of confidence and control slipping to reveal a man with flaws and vulnerabilities just like everyone else. However dangerous it was, she wanted to know more about that man.
His shoulders hitched in a stiff shrug. ‘I told him I’d overheard my grandfather on the phone to my father. They’d been arguing, as usual, and Grandpa mentioned Zane’s mother Maria.’ He tapped his thumb on his thigh, his eyes dark with memory. ‘She was Grandpa’s housekeeper. I adored her. I used to pretend she was my mom too.’ He chuckled as if the thought were foolish. ‘She and Zane lived in the cottage you’ll be staying in. We became friends, or as Maria used to call us “los dos bandidos”, when I went to live with my grandpa at San Revelle.’ The easy smile on his face spoke of good memories.
‘Why did you live with your grandfather?’ she asked. And why had he needed Maria as a surrogate mother? What had happened to his own mother?
‘My parents lived mostly in an estate in Bel Air,’ he replied easily enough, but the warmth had gone from his voice. ‘But they liked to travel and they liked to party. And a kid tends to get in the way of that, once they’re old enough to talk back.’
‘I see,’ she said, although she didn’t see, not really. She’d always believed that her father had abandoned her, that he’d cast her aside. But there had been years before that brutal parting when he’d weathered all the harsh things she’d said, the stupid things she’d done, the bitter recriminations she’d thrown at him. She’d blamed him for everything, even on one horrid occasion her mother’s death. She’d hated him for trying to control her, to discipline her—but at least he’d been involved. Nate’s parents appeared to have been completely indifferent to him.
‘Anyway.’ He shrugged, continuing as if the way his parents had cast him aside meant nothing. ‘I heard Grandpa shouting at my father about his responsibilities towards me, and then he said something about Zane and how could my father treat his own flesh and blood like that.’ Tess’s pulse jumped at the detached tone, and the repressed misery beneath it. ‘It took me a while to figure out what he meant. But once I did I was so excited. I didn’t sleep at all that night. The thought that Zane and I could be brothers totally blew my mind. Zane’s two years older than me. He was fourteen then and the coolest kid I had ever met. He had a Playboy magazine stashed under his bed and an uncle Raoul who had taught him how to drive a stick shift, and a pet turtle that ate out of his hand. And he could spit into a jar at ten paces and burp “The Star-Spangled Banner”. I mean, seriously, seriously cool.’
‘Zane sounds like quite a guy,’ Tess said wryly, her heart lifting at the affection in Nate’s voice. Had she ever had a friend like that? She didn’t think so, but she was glad he had, because it sounded as if he’d needed one.
Nate gave a gruff laugh. ‘And the coolest thing of all was that he let me tag along with him. I had a bad case of hero-worship and as far as I was concerned him being my father’s son was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I got up at dawn the next day and raced over to the cottage. All I was thinking about was me. And how great this would be. I wasn’t thinking about Zane or his mom, or anyone else but myself.’
Bitterness edged the words as the warmth in his voice chilled.
‘Of course you weren’t,’ Tess countered, feeling desperately sorry for that little boy, who had needed so much more than a friend. And for the man who was still punishing himself for a reaction that would have been perfectly natural. She placed her palm on his thigh and felt the muscles tense. ‘You were, what? Twelve? Children think of themselves first—being egocentric at that age is a survival instinct.’ Especially for a child who hadn’t had the love and support they deserved.
She thought of her own selfish response to her mother’s death. The hell she’d put her father through, and for the first time realised that until this moment, she’d never once questioned that. Never once thought in any great depth about how her mother’s death had affected her father. But she was seeing it all too clearly now. Her father’s bushy auburn hair, which had grown grey almost overnight after her mother’s funeral. The bruised shadows under his eyes and the way that even when his jaw had been tight with anger in the years afterwards, his mossy green eyes had always been so sad. Why had she never seen that before in her memory?
Maybe she wasn’t quite as mature and well adjusted as she had always believed. Which would also explain why she had so easily jumped to conclusions about Nate, writing him off as a ruthless, irresponsible jerk on the flimsiest of evidence—an impression that was proving to be even more false now.
‘What happened when you told Zane?’ She squeezed his thigh, urging him to continue.
Nate ran his hands through his hair. ‘He punched me. And he kept on punching me, until Maria came running into the bedroom in her nightdress and pulled him off me. I don’t remember much after that. She patched me up, and begged me not to tell my grandfather.’ He bunched his fingers into a fist, bumped it against the wheel. ‘It makes me sick to think of it, even now. She was pleading with me, while Zane glowered in the corner, his knuckles bleeding and the fury in his face something I’d never seen before or since. She was terrified she’d lose her job. I don’t think she would have—my grandpa was an autocratic, old-fashioned guy, not an easy man by any means, but he understood about responsibility. Unlike my father.’ He dropped his head back on the seat, the sinews in his neck stretching. ‘I found out years later that Maria had been working as a kitchen maid at the place in Bel Air. She was sixteen and beautiful and my father got her pregnant. My mother fired her as soon as she started to show—I guess having my father’s bastard around would have spoiled the party atmosphere,’ he sneered.
Tess’s stomach twisted at the casual cruelty of two people who had only ever thought of their own pleasure.
No wonder Nate had once paid for another man’s child. And been so angry with Marlena’s lie about the pregnancy. And no wonder he was so determined to live up to his own r
esponsibility towards this baby. But where did that leave her, and her child? Were his feelings towards them both nothing more than payment for a debt he had never really owed? And why did that suddenly feel like not enough?
‘What did Maria do?’ Tess asked, swallowing down the little blip of panic. She wasn’t Maria. She wasn’t that young and had never been that innocent and she hadn’t been taken advantage of by Nate. And she didn’t need more from Nate than he was prepared to give her, not emotionally anyway. She was perfectly capable of standing on her own two feet—give or take the odd housing crisis or junked Impala.
‘She had the good sense to ask my grandfather for work. Without references she didn’t have a lot of options, but he hired her on the spot. I don’t know if he knew then she was carrying my father’s child, but he probably suspected.’ He choked out a harsh laugh. ‘I doubt Zane’s my only half-sibling. My father was...’ He hesitated, his face grim with barely concealed contempt. ‘Careless,’ he said eventually. ‘In every respect. And he liked to seduce women he employed. It made it that much harder for them to say no, or to cause a fuss when he got bored with them.’
‘I’m so sorry, Nate,’ Tess said, her heart beating a steady tattoo of regret and sympathy. How dreadful it must have been for him, someone with so many scruples, to live in the shadow of a man with none at all.
‘What have you got to be sorry about?’ Nate asked, puzzled.
‘I’m sorry that your dad was such a scumbag!’ she said forcefully, and then winced a little when he frowned.
Way to go, Tess, why not make him feel even worse about his heritage?
But then his brows lifted and his lips quirked. ‘I never thought of him as my dad,’ he said. ‘But you’re dead right about him being a scumbag. They both were.’ He rolled his shoulders, his face relaxing into a smile. ‘I can’t believe I told you all that,’ he murmured, his gaze rolling over her face. ‘Thanks for listening. I guess I needed to tell someone, and you got stuck with the job.’
The odd note of embarrassment was endearing. ‘We need to get to know each other. You said so yourself. I guess talking about our terrible childhoods is as good a way as any.’
He touched his thumb to her bottom lip, and she felt the shiver of reaction that was never far from the surface. ‘I can think of a better way,’ he said, the shiver becoming a definite spark.
She brushed his hand away, but couldn’t hide her response to the suggestive tone. ‘So you’ve said.’
He eased back in his seat, the slow seductive smile as devastating as always. ‘So your parents sucked too?’
She shook her head, sobering considerably. Guilt wasn’t something she did very well. ‘No, they didn’t. My mother was...’ She hesitated. How did you describe a person you had grieved for a lot longer than you had ever known? ‘My mother was funny, and sweet. And totally devoted to my dad and me. And she died when I was twelve years old in a car crash.’
Nate took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. ‘I’m sorry.’ The gruff condolence and the tender gesture made the long-ago grief sharp again.
‘For years I was so angry,’ Tess murmured, seeing it all so clearly for the first time. ‘I missed her. I wanted her back. The truth was I was an only child and she’d spoiled me horribly. Nothing was as good as it used to be and it wasn’t fair. A few weeks after the funeral, I remember giving Janey Prisley’s mum the evil eye and wishing she would die instead so I could have my mum back.’ She shot Nate a wry look. ‘I didn’t like Janey very much.’
His lips quirked. ‘Or her mom by the sound of it.’
‘Her mum was actually very sweet.’ If not that intuitive. ‘She was forever asking me how my father and I were doing. But I hated her for it, because it made me stand out.’
‘So you wished her dead. Sounds fair enough to me,’ he said amicably.
‘It’s not, it’s awful,’ Tess countered, remembering all the very inventive ways she’d imagined killing off Janey’s perfectly sweet mother.
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘I never wanted to be the only kid in school whose parents didn’t bother to show for Little League games or science fairs or parent-teacher conferences. So I hated all the kids whose parents did bother. But that was pretty much all of them, which eventually made it too damn exhausting.’
Tess laughed, as she was sure he had intended her to.
‘Kids are egocentric—putting themselves first’s a survival instinct,’ he said, quoting her own advice back at her. ‘Losing your mom takes a lot of surviving. You’ve got nothing to feel bad about.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said, impossibly grateful for his vote of confidence, even though she knew he was putting a better spin on her behaviour than she probably deserved. ‘But what is awful is the way I treated my dad. I went totally off the rails for three years. I smoked, I drank, I got my nose pierced, I stayed out all night, dated boys I knew he would hate.’ She’d always admitted she’d been a little wild, but the truth was she’d been totally out of control. ‘I even got a tattoo!’
‘A tattoo?’ His eyes lit up. ‘Where? I haven’t spotted one.’
She giggled, gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. ‘Don’t get excited. I had it removed years ago.’
‘What was it? And where?’ he asked, his prurient sexual fantasies apparently undimmed by the truth.
‘Guess?’ she said, unable to resist playing up to the wicked gleam in his gaze.
‘All right, you were how old? Fifteen?’
‘Yes—did I mention I also had a very good fake ID, that I forged myself?’
He chuckled. ‘Okay, you were fifteen and a little British girl.’ He rubbed his jaw as if he were giving the question serious consideration. The glow died. ‘Tell me it wasn’t a puppy on your ankle, or something cute like that?’
‘Pur-lease,’ she said, insulted at the suggestion she would be so crass—and predictable. ‘I was a rebel. I had the words “Kiss my Arse” branded on my left bum cheek and framed with a heart,’ she announced, stupidly proud of the vulgar tattoo for the first time in thirteen years when he threw his head back and roared with laughter.
‘Tess,’ he said, when his amusement had finally died down enough for him to string together a coherent sentence. ‘That’s priceless.’ The glow of lust became a glow of admiration and her heartbeat stumbled to a halt. ‘What the hell were you thinking having that removed?’
‘It was ugly.’
‘On your butt?’ he teased. ‘I doubt that.’ He turned her hand over in his, pressed his thumb into the palm and caressed. ‘Do you have any idea how much I would have enjoyed obeying that command?’
Heat flared. Yeah, she had a very good idea. She tugged her hand out of his, the simple stroke of his thumb making the thought of how much they could both enjoy him obeying that command—in a car, on a layby on Highway One—way too vivid.
‘You’re too late, Graystone,’ she declared, determined to make light of the incendiary sparks fizzing through her nerve endings. ‘My arse-kicking days are over.’
‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ he said, but he laughed, lightening the mood. ‘So what did your old man do? Don’t tell me he found out about the tattoo?’
The remark doused the sizzles. And Tess felt the silly sting of tears as she looked out across the ocean. The sun had dipped in the sky, giving the line of the horizon a shimmer of orange.
‘Hey?’ Firm fingers gripped her chin, and tugged her gaze back to his. ‘What is it? What happened?’
‘You know what’s really ironic,’ she began. ‘Up until about twenty minutes ago, I would have given you this long sob story about how my dad had been a complete bastard about it and kicked me out of the house.’
‘He kicked you out of the house? Over a tattoo? You’re kidding?’ The outrage in Nate’s voice should have been soothing. Hadn’t she always enjoyed bad-mouthing her dad to anyone who would listen as a teenager? And believed he had pretty much deserved her disdain all through her twenties?
But it wasn’t soothing any more. It just made her feel more selfish and immature. She’d thought she’d got on with her life, but had she really? If she’d always blamed her father for something that was at least as much her fault as his?
‘It wasn’t just the tattoo. It was everything. All the things I said and did. All the things I didn’t say and didn’t do. I was angry with him for not “being there” for me when Mum died,’ she said, doing air-quotes round the meaningless phrase. ‘He used to lock himself in his study for hours, but I could hear him crying through the door and it terrified me. I was scared I was losing him too and so I started acting out, to get his attention. God!’ She blinked furiously, refusing to shed a single tear. She’d shed enough tears of self-pity to fill an ocean already. ‘You know what’s the worst bit? He tried for years to repair our relationship after he’d sent me to live with my aunt. And I absolutely refused to even meet him halfway.’ She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap, too ashamed to meet Nate’s gaze. ‘And I kept on punishing him until he died.’
Nate tucked a finger under her chin. The sympathy in his eyes had a single tear coursing down her cheek. ‘You were a kid, Tess.’ He brushed the tear away with his thumb. ‘Everything seems black and white when you’re young. You make dumb decisions, do dumb things, especially when bad stuff happens.’ His lips curved up in a rueful smile. ‘Like going for a joyride in your father’s Porsche and shouting obscenities at a police officer who’s trying to stop you killing yourself because the man you’re really mad at isn’t there.’ The tender kiss he placed on her lips had her breath shuddering out. ‘It doesn’t make you a bad person.’
She let her lips curve too, and allowed herself to take the comfort he offered.
She didn’t really deserve it, she knew that. It had never been as bad for her as it had been for him. And while she’d been young when she’d done the stupidest things, she’d allowed that stupidity to taint the rest of her life up to today. Because she’d never really taken responsibility for the mistakes she’d made. But she could change that now, even if she could never go back and give her father one last hug. She could stop seeing people in black and white. And stop believing that the only person she could rely on was herself.
