‘The skidmarks you left behind when you left my life made that clear!’
He sighed. ‘I’ll apologise for that for the rest of our lives if you want, but again—and listen to me this time—the problem was mine. It had nothing to do with how I felt—how I still feel—about you.’ He wrapped his fingers around her arms, dipping his head so she had to look into his eyes. ‘I’m not the one always comparing you to her—you are. Are you saying a king-sized bed in a five-star hotel would have made yesterday better? Or a ceremony in a church? I had all that the first time around, and look what I got! I bloody cherish giving you that ring, and having our own private marriage, both at Kutringal and here, because you and I were always apart from the ordinary world. I cherish us, and everything we have. But if you want all the trimmings to prove it, fine. A king-size bed in a five-star hotel, with room service and a Sydney Harbour view, after a big wedding with both sides of the family there—will that do? If that’s what it’ll take for you to see I respect you more than any woman I’ve ever known, you’ll have it. I’ll call every Jepson in the phone book to tell them we’re together if you want, and invite them to the wedding. I’ll turn us into what everyone else is, if you want it—if it’ll stop you from turning the most beautiful experience of my life into a dirty one-night stand!’
She sat abruptly in the water too shocked to take it all in.
He held her shoulders. ‘This was not a one-night stand to me, Elle. You could never be that to me. No matter what happens, no matter what you decide, I want you to be in my life, my future.’
Stunned, she could only say, ‘Oh.’ Then, ‘How?’
He hesitated. ‘Do you remember the one passion I had when we were kids besides cops and fast cars?’
She smiled at that. ‘Of course. Planes.’
He nodded. ‘It’s something I never got around to trying, but I still want to.’ His eyes searched hers. ‘My time as a cop’s run out. I’m not enjoying the life any more. I’ve been burning out for years. By the time I was shot, all I wanted was to resign and find a new life, but I was stuck, I still needed to make sure Zoe had security.’ He smiled at her. ‘Then you came to Macks Lake, and I discovered what I want to do with the rest of my life.’
She frowned. ‘In what way?’
‘We flew to Kutringal.’ He paused. ‘I think I was of some use to you there.’
She nodded, as the pieces began falling into place.
‘I’ve got three months of long service leave owed to me. I could quit the service and take a couple of months to update my advanced first-aid certificate and get my pilot’s licence. I thought—if you’d consider staying—we could apply to start a Flying Doctor base in Macks Lake in the disused wing of the hospital. The area’s desperate for extra medical help, as you must have noticed. Dr Schumacher’s sixty-three, with a heart condition, and run off his feet. He could take the town for another couple of years, and we could handle the outlying areas and Aboriginal communities.’
‘We can’t start a base, Adam. They’re all in cities and big regional towns. It takes years, and we’d need a lot of funding. But … we could start a clinic, offering flying services to outlying areas,’ she said slowly.
‘So—do you like the idea?’
She looked out over the shining expanse of river in the direction of Macks Lake, realising that, in five short days, she’d grown to love the little town. ‘You know how to tap into my dreams, don’t you, Claudius? Being a doctor in remote areas, caring for those with little medical access, has been my dream since I began medical school. We could apply to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission for some funding, but it’s going to be hard.’
‘But will you think about it?’
The question was so tentative, so unsure, she wanted to kick Sharon’s butt for destroying his confidence. How could she have Adam, have his love, and want to change him? Yet …
‘Of course I’ll think about it. To have my dream come true with you— how could I not want it? Did—did you really mean it?’ She lifted her left hand, still bearing his grandmother’s ring, which shone in the filtered sunlight like a promise of forever she’d never been able to see before.
She gasped when he pulled her back to him, hard and fast, and kissed her. ‘I told you, I don’t play games with women. How could I ever just fool around with you—you more than any woman? How could you believe I would? Last night, I made a commitment to you.’ He looked into her eyes, and again she saw the haunting uncertainty. ‘I thought—hoped—you did, too.’
‘Your family would hate it.’
‘I disagree. Anyway, even if you are right, I told you that doesn’t bother me.’ Adam frowned, sensing something deeper than her words implied. ‘What did they do to make you think they’d hate the idea us being together?’
She shrugged, looking out over the water again. ‘I did it to myself. On your wedding night, I took off with your best man.’
He gasped. ‘Greg? He never said a word. Damn it, I’d have killed him! You were just a kid, and he—’
‘A kid who passed for eighteen at the nightclub and hotel room he took me to. Didn’t you look at me once that day, and see I wasn’t a kid anymore? No—you only had eyes for her.’ Her shoulders slumped. ‘I didn’t care what happened after you went. So when that guy hit on me, I went with him. I thought, At least he sees me, he wants to be with me …’
Dear God. She hadn’t even known Greg’s name. His poor wild child. Lonely, heartbroken Elly, leaping at Greg’s advances like the child she still was. Desperate for someone, anyone to care, she’d taken off with a stranger because he’d left her, too immersed in his happiness to see his little friend’s pain. So absorbed in his dreams of a life and woman that would never materialise, he’d left the best friend he’d ever known so completely and utterly alone. Worse, he’d never even noticed. He’d deserved the consequences his blindness had brought … in more ways than one.
He caressed her back, trying to defuse the grief she hadn’t yet put behind her after so many years. ‘What happened then?’
She shuddered. ‘I hated it when he kissed me. When he tried to touch me, I told him I was fifteen, that he’d lose his job in the police force if he had sex with an underage kid. He dropped me outside your grandparents’ farm, and bolted. It was three in the morning.’
After your wedding, she sat in her tree, pining for you so badly we feared for her.
He drew her head to his chest. ‘Then what happened?’
She hiccuped. ‘A couple of weeks later your grandparents told me about my Aboriginal family. They said they were sending me to Sydney to—to find another friend.’
Oh, yeah, he just bet they did—and he bet he knew who’d led the chorus. He could hear his father’s gleeful words: Is she pregnant? She’s so wild! It’s in the blood, you know. Thank God we got Adam out of her way! He could see it all: the lack of understanding, the unthinking bigotry poured over a confused little girl who’d just lost her best friend.
He even understood why she’d remained a virgin so long. At least she’d proved the truth to one Jepson.
Guilt at realising why she’d driven herself to success the past twelve years hit him like a brick. ‘Ah, Elly.’ He sighed, caressing her wet curls. ‘You were so scared I’d judge you for taking off with Greg, you wouldn’t let Aunty Hat call me. That’s why you waited so long to come to me, isn’t it?’
She shook her head, looking lost. ‘You weren’t mine any more. You belonged to her, and she wouldn’t even let us be friends.’
‘Why didn’t you come … later?’
‘I didn’t know if there was a point. I kept in touch through Aunty Hat. I wanted to come, but Aunty Hat said you’d gone into a world of your own, full of grief and guilt. I could hardly bear it when she told me about the shooting, and I couldn’t come to you. Danny was stalking me by then, and I couldn’t risk his hurting you or Zoe. But the last time I called, Aunty Hat said you’d retreated so far from life that Zoe would suffer.
Danny was in prison. You lived at the other end of the country from where he was. So I came, hoping I could help.’
He nodded. ‘Aunty Hat was right. I felt like I was dead, only going through the motions for Zoe’s sake. Then you came, and hit my life like a comet for a second time. Aunty Hat knew what she was doing.’ He sighed. ‘No one else could have done for me what you have.’
‘I’m glad I could help, for a little while.’ She looked out over the river.
‘It doesn’t have to be this way, darlin’,’ he said huskily. ‘You’re running away again, and for what?’
She only stared at him. ‘What else can I do?’
‘Stay with me, Elle,’ he whispered. ‘Start the clinic here with me. Give us a chance, Elle. Just stay.’
After another hiccup, she turned her face once more, looking at the water, glimmering grey-green with the sunlight filtering through the trees. ‘I feel as if you’ve handed me all my dreams in an hour—but we both know everything in my life’s on hold until Danny’s out of it forever. Until that’s guaranteed, I can’t make any promises, and with Zoe to protect, neither can you.’
He heard the farewell in her voice, and she was right—he couldn’t endanger Zoe. Neither could he push what he wanted on Elly until he was sure he could give her the life—and be the husband—she deserved. Until he knew what she wanted. ‘Tell me what you want, Elle. Not the work dreams, I get that. What do you want?’
She couldn’t look at him, but her fingers moved through his hair. Looking at her, he wondered if she knew what she wanted, or if she’d dared to dream beyond giving to others for the last decade or more. She’d run for so long, she didn’t know what else to do.
Then she looked at him, and he knew the answer.
He’d been her only dream.
Dear God, he’d never even begun to hope he could be so loved by any woman—but he had been for more than half his life, and not just by any woman, but one extraordinary woman who knew him, inside and out. If only …
‘You still don’t trust me. Why?’ he asked before he knew he was going to. ‘What have I left undone?’
Her wet hair sprayed him as she turned around, eyes touched by uncertainty, so haunting he knew the time had come.
‘Go on. Just say it, Elle. Get it out there.’
She gathered her resolution over long seconds where she bit her top lip, frowned and blinked. Looked at him. ‘Say her name, Adam.’
He almost smiled. One step ahead of her at last. He’d been waiting all morning for this. ‘Why?’ He made his voice rough, angry, to convince her he needed healing—needed her. ‘What will that achieve for you?’
‘Nothing for me, Adam. It’s for you.’ She spoke with an almost shining clarity, at odds with the fear in her eyes. ‘You have to leave her behind, say goodbye. Then you’ll finally start to heal, and live.’
‘This isn’t living?’ He swept his hand between them, indicating their intimacy.
‘This was you and me, saying the farewell we didn’t get last time. Maybe it was you stepping forward, too—but you’ll yank back sooner or later, because you’re still chained to her. You’re afraid to let go of her,’ she said quietly, eyes hurting him with their courage—not for her, for him. ‘Have you been to her grave, Adam? Have you left flowers, talked to her, told her it’s time you moved on, for Zoe’s sake and yours? Until you do, you’ll take her with you no matter where you go. You’ll feel her with you wherever you are. You’ll always be her widower.’
He saw the truth she’d been holding in the whole time she’d been here. And he faced it with rage in his heart so strong it contained the whole world—not at Elly, not even at Sharon; because that damned abyss he’d just climbed out of was so close, and they both knew it.
And yet, knowing this would come, he walked into that chasm. ‘You think it’s love that ties me to her? You’re wrong. I stopped loving her years ago, long before Zoe was born.’ He looked into her disbelieving eyes, and nodded. ‘But I was responsible for their deaths. I was so busy avoiding her that I avoided my kids, too—and when Zoe got a high fever, and Sharon called me to take them to the hospital, I was too busy getting useless info from some junkie’s pimp that I told her I’d meet her there. And the drunk driver hit her on the way, killing Zack instantly, and Sharon was gone before the next morning.’
Elly was so still he was tempted to tap her hand to force her to breathe again. ‘That’s a lot to walk away from,’ she said at last.
He nodded. ‘But I’ll do it,’ he said evenly, ‘if you do the same.’
‘Let go of you?’ A whole world of sadness in her question; oh, yeah, she’d known what he’d do, what he’d demand. Or she thought she’d known.
And until last night, she’d have been right.
‘No.’ Still quiet and even, as he held her chin in his hand. ‘Let go of Spencer, Elle. Walk out of the cage he’s put you in, leave his chains behind you, or you’ll feel him with you no matter where you are. You’ll always be his victim.’
She drew in a breath, and choked on it. Tears pooled in her eyes as he fought to breathe.
He patted her back. ‘If you don’t, you’ll face him over and over at the same disadvantage. Bullies are cowards at heart,’ he repeated as she kept coughing.
When she finally got control again, she stared at him with resentful eyes. ‘This must rank as the weirdest post-coital conversation in history. We’re still naked, for heaven’s sake.’
He shrugged. ‘We’re weird, Elle. We always were. So, I’ll go first.’ He faced her anger, almost but not quite smiling. ‘I said goodbye to Sharon last night, made my peace. She was wrong in thinking you’re bad for me. I finally understand that she was putting her own fears on me in making me promise never to find you.’ He kissed her, so softly. ‘Come with me to her grave, and Zack’s, if you like, but you’re right. I owe her and Zack better than that. But though I’ll always hold part of them with me, I’m no longer her widower. I’m ready to move on. Are you?’
She was still staring at him. ‘When did this become about me?’
He almost laughed at her confusion and resentment. ‘We’re two of a kind, so ready to rattle each other’s cages, but so afraid to even look at our own.’ When she still wouldn’t say it, he continued, though reluctantly: ‘I wasn’t afraid to let her go, Elle. I wanted to, but that last day—before she died—Sharon apologised for being a bad wife, as she put it, and told me why. A friend of the family had abused her from nine to twelve, and it made her what she was: afraid of everything in life, and terrified deep down that, if she wasn’t perfect, he’d come back and hurt her again. Sex was the least of it, and the worst, if that makes sense. Even she couldn’t sort it out, and going for help was never an option, when she’d never even told her parents. Her abuser threatened to kill them, and she’d believed it.’
Elly closed her eyes. ‘Oh, the poor child,’ she whispered, and he felt her kinship with the woman who’d been her enemy for so long. ‘I wish I’d known …’
‘She didn’t even want to tell me, but the relief and peace on her face, when she had—I was glad she told me.’
‘I understand now,’ she said softly. ‘It’s the same reason, for me. With Danny,’ she clarified when his confusion must have shown on his face. ‘Every time he hurts me, I see the lost child his grandfather abused. He has old cuts all over him, you know—whip marks. I asked him about it when I was treating him, and he said, “I needed to become a man, and stop crying for my mother.” He said it so casually. He told me his mother left when he was four.’
Now, at last, her acts made sense. He ought to have realised all along that Danny was another injured critter to her, and she hated that she couldn’t heal him. ‘It’s not the same, Elle. Sharon didn’t kill anyone. If she had, I’d have had her committed, for her safety and that of others.’
Silence greeted his words. How his Elly had always hated cages—almost as much as she hated her limitations. That she couldn’t heal everyone and everything
that suffered. At last she said, ‘I’m getting cold.’
Too late he remembered how many times she’d been to the police, how many times they’d let her down. ‘You know what I want now. I’ll let you think about it.’ He kissed her cheek and stood. ‘I’d better check in with Sarge. Anything could’ve happened in the past few hours.’
The phone was ringing as they reached the cabin. ‘Sarge?’
‘Well, it’s about bloody time you answered. I’ve been calling for almost an hour!’
Seeing Elly had followed him in, he shot her a grimace as he answered, ‘Sorry, Sarge.’
‘Thank God you’ve finally answered. Where the hell have you been? I told you to stay near the damn phone!’
He sobered. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘A priest got through the roadblock this morning. When Simon refused to give him information, the priest stabbed him and drove straight to the hospital, demanding to see Elly.’
That bloody priest. ‘Simon? How is he? Is he alive?’
Elly gasped, and began pulling on her clothes.
Sarge’s silence told him something was very, very wrong. ‘Come on, Sarge—just tell me if he’s alive!’
‘He is—for now,’ Sarge said tersely, ‘But he needs surgery.’
‘Where’s Dr Schumacher?’ More silence, and he saw the reflection of his own fear in Elly’s frantic shoe lacing, her search for her medical kit. ‘Sarge? Where’s Dr Schumacher?’
When he spoke, Sarge’s voice was sombre. ‘When he realised Elly wasn’t in town, Spencer set a homemade bomb off in the hospital carpark, killing one woman and injuring six people. Then he took Dr Schumacher hostage. Spencer’s waiting for Elly in the hallway to the OR with a suicide vest on and a gun to Dr Schumacher’s head.’
CHAPTER
18
‘Oh, my God.’ Adam almost dropped the phone.
Elly snatched it from him. ‘Hi, Jonas? What happened?’ She stiffened when Jonas filled her in. ‘Call every hospital or clinic in the region. We’ll need whoever they can send.’
Beneath the Skin Page 26
