by Lucy Clark
‘What happens when you wear the glasses out and people see that you have blue eyes instead of brown?’
‘Simple. I don’t wear my glasses out of the house. In fact, it’s very rare I wear them at all.’
‘But what if friends drop by unannounced?’
‘And bring dinner and their dog with them?’ Her words were pointed.
‘Exactly.’
‘I don’t have friends who drop by.’
‘Never?’ Arthur started eating the delicious spaghetti Bolognese he’d brought.
‘When you’re in witness protection it’s best if you don’t make friends, at least not ones who feel comfortable enough to drop around unannounced.’ She twirled a forkful of pasta before raising it to her lips and chewing, belatedly realising just how hungry she was. ‘Mmm… This is delicious.’
‘Good.’ He was looking at her with a slight frown creasing his forehead, a hint of sadness in his eyes. To have spent years keeping herself distant from others, from not making any real friends…he couldn’t fathom it. ‘I’ve also brought you one of their take-away menus.’
‘Thank you. That’s so kind.’ She gestured to the food. ‘This is kind, too. You’re still a kind man, Arthur.’
‘Thank you. However, I think I’ve changed quite a bit in twenty years, as, clearly, have you.’ He put down his fork and raised his coffee mug to her. ‘A toast.’ He waited while she followed suit. ‘To learning more about who we are today.’
‘Why? Why would you want to do that?’ When she made no move to bring her cup towards his, he clinked his cup to hers and then drank, sealing the toast.
‘Why would I want to get to know you?’ Arthur seemed surprised at the question. ‘Because you’re family,’ he stated, as though it was the only logical answer.
‘Family?’ She quickly lowered her cup to the table as a lump formed in her throat, the emotions of sadness and loss surprising her with their sudden appearance. ‘I don’t have family any more.’ The words were out before she could stop them.
Arthur put his fork down and reached out to place his hand over hers. ‘Your parents?’
The warmth of his touch, combined with the caring compassion in his tone, caused her to feel vulnerable. She shook her head, biting her lip in order to get the surge of sadness under control. ‘Mum’s been gone just over ten years now and Dad died four months ago.’
‘Oh, Maybelle.’ He shifted his chair around the small round table so he could be nearer to her. The next thing he did was to envelop her in his arms, drawing her closer. ‘You’re on your own? Is that why you’ve come back to this district? To a place where you felt comfortable?’
‘Yes, exactly.’ She’d forgotten what it was like to have someone comfort her and while she wanted to accept that comfort more than anything in the world, the ingrained training to keep her distance rose to the fore. She stiffened her spine, hoping to send the signal that she didn’t like being touched in such a way, but either Arthur didn’t pick up on it or ignored it completely. More than likely it was the latter. It reminded her that being in his arms, resting her head against his chest, feeling the heat from his body infuse into her own had made her feel so safe and secure. ‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘Because that’s exactly what I would have done in your place.’ Arthur watched as Maybelle tried to contain her emotions. It only took a minute and she was back under control. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through but the difference from the young teenage girl to this deeply controlled woman was vast. He dropped his arms and returned his attention to his food.
It was clear she didn’t want to talk about things too much and he was fine with listening to whatever she wanted to share and curbing his curiosity about what she didn’t want to say. Besides, his instinct to draw her into his arms, to offer comfort had been a huge mistake because now her fresh scent was lodged in his senses, enticing him to want more. The kiss they’d shared in the stockroom still lingered on his lips, begging him to repeat the action again and again.
Even at the nurses’ station, when he’d been looking deeply into her brown eyes, the need to kiss her had been intense and he’d forced himself to walk away, to put some distance between himself and this woman…this woman who could turn his world upside down with one simple smile.
Maybelle Freebourne was even more dangerous to his thoughts than May Fleming had been. Back then, he’d been an adolescent intrigued and bewitched by her. Now he was a grown man with more life experience and more willpower, yet here she was, bewitching him all over again. She was as dangerous to his thoughts as ever. Since he’d kissed her, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Like a moth to a flame, he’d ordered them dinner, using poor Juzzy as a diversion to gain access to her apartment. Desperate measures. That’s what he’d employed. Desperate measures in order to spend more time with her, to be with her, to breathe her in, to see if that spark he’d felt when he’d kissed her in the stockroom had been real or residual.
‘What can you tell me, about the witness protection, I mean?’ The question was necessary. He wanted to know and secretly hoped that she wanted to tell him, to open up to him, to share with him.
Maybelle ate another mouthful, chewing slowly as she considered his question. When she spoke, it was as though she was choosing her words very carefully. ‘My parents were scientists,’ she started.
‘Yes. I remember them working long hours in the lab and often forgetting they even had a daughter. Wasn’t that why you spent so much time at our house? Some weeks you were there for dinner every night.’
She smiled at the memory. ‘Yes. They were a little absent-minded and back then it did bother me that we weren’t a “normal” family.’ She laughed without humour at the words. ‘Anyway, remember how we sort of wondered if they’d cured cancer?’
‘You mean they did?’ Arthur was astonished. If that was what had happened, why wasn’t her parents’ discovery celebrated? Why had they needed to go into witness protection?
‘No, or not that I know of. My dad’s speciality was the human genome and my mother—’
‘Was into synthetic compounds,’ he finished.
‘You remember?’
He fixed her with a look, one that said that she shouldn’t underestimate his intelligence. ‘I spent a lot of time with you over the years and especially in those last few months, May…belle.’ She smiled at the way he’d connected her old name with her new name, and the action almost made him lose his train of thought, such was the power her smile still seemed to have over him. ‘I remember what your parents did.’
‘OK, then. Well, even though their individual research was in two different fields, they often used each other as sounding boards. Eventually that meant that their research…’ she linked her hands together ‘…combined, in probably the most scientifically interesting and yet earth-shattering way.’
‘What was it? I remember you saying, just before you vanished, that your parents had been arguing more than usual.’
‘And that was because they knew what they’d stumbled on.’
‘Can you tell me what it was?’
‘I can tell you the gist of it. As a safety measure, I wasn’t allowed to be privy to their work, even after I’d obtained my medical degree.’
‘So…in a nutshell?’
Maybelle sighed and actually leaned forward, closer to him, her voice dropping to a level just above a whisper. ‘They developed a synthetic compound that was originally supposed to attack the genetic mutation for bowel cancer but ended up becoming a silent killer.’
Arthur’s eyes widened at her words. ‘In what form?’
‘An injection of a minute amount could cause human death within seconds, leaving no trace of the synthetic compound upon autopsy.’
Arthur was stunned. It took a moment for him to wrap his head around what she was saying—and not saying. ‘Nothing?’
‘Nothing, and, believe me, even after we went into witness protection their work cont
inued, but this time, instead of being funded by a pharmaceutical company with connections to underground cell organisations, they were funded by the government. As long as they continued to work for the government, we could remain in witness protection.’
‘So it was still a restricted life.’
‘A very restricted life—for them.’
‘And for you?’
‘I was able to get a medical degree, even though I had to change medical schools twice.’
‘It was that bad?’
Maybelle closed her eyes for a moment, the food before her forgotten. ‘Yes.’ There was deep-seated pain in the word and when she opened her eyes he saw despair and hopelessness before they were quickly veiled. Anyone who had just met Maybelle Freebourne wouldn’t think twice about such a look but he hadn’t just met her. In fact, he knew her far better than she probably realised. He remembered everything about those few wonderful months they’d spent together, cuddling and kissing and talking. It was as though their souls had entwined in a way that even time and desperation could not separate. The realisation left him feeling a little shaken, especially as after his divorce he’d sworn off permanent relationships.
‘We don’t have to talk about it any more, Maybelle,’ he offered. He didn’t want her to feel despair and hopelessness any more. ‘The last time I saw you, your hair was flying into the breeze as you raced from my house to yours.’
‘You watched me?’
He nodded. ‘From my window, through the branches of the tree. Once you’d climbed the fence into your yard you disappeared from view, but then…just as you reached the top of your balcony, I caught the most fleeting glimpse of you as you went over the railing and into your bedroom.’ He put his thumbs and forefingers together, making a sort of rectangle shape. ‘It was only the slightest glimpse and back then I had no idea that would be the last time I would see you—until yesterday.’
‘I wanted to contact you, but…I didn’t know what to say.’
‘Clara told me that you sent her birthday cards.’
Maybelle nodded. ‘It was easier to lie to Clara. I didn’t want to but I could say to her that my dad had been transferred and she wouldn’t have asked any questions.’ She slipped her hand across the table and, to his surprise, laced her fingers with his. ‘I didn’t know what to write to you. I started several drafts but after what I said to you that night…’ She paused, almost waiting for him to say something, and when he didn’t she continued. ‘You do remember what I said?’
‘Uh…yeah. It’s a little difficult to forget.’
She smiled at his words but then the smile slowly slipped from her face. ‘That was the day the government entered our lives. The agents were downstairs, talking to my parents, when I came to see you.’
‘What? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t know what was going to happen next.’ Maybelle slipped her hand from his. She could hear the confusion in his tone, the slight hint of censure because she hadn’t told him why she’d behaved the way she had. ‘All I wanted right then and there was to escape from my life.’ She stood from the table and started to pace the room, agitated from talking about it. ‘The way I felt about you was so…encompassing and I thought if I could lose myself in you, even for a short while, I’d find some level of happiness, of contentment. I don’t know if I’ve ever been content.’
She paused, then angled her head to the side. ‘Except for when I was in your arms. That was when I could dream, when I could imagine myself a different sort of life, a life where my parents were normal, where we could tell our families we were together and not have to sneak about.’ Where they were grown-ups, in love with each other and wanting to spend the rest of their lives together. She bit back those last words because that clearly hadn’t happened.
Arthur was silent for a moment, clearly processing her words. ‘So I guess that explains why you demanded I make love to you.’
‘I’m sorry, Arthur. It was an adolescent mistake to put you on the spot like that but—’
‘Maybelle.’ He stood and walked to her side, hearing the break in her voice, seeing the tears shimmering beneath the surface.
‘I never meant to hurt you and I never meant to hurt me either because, believe me, I was hurting.’ The words were a whisper and Arthur gazed into her upturned face for what seemed an eternity before drawing her closer, their foreheads resting together as they absorbed the truth of that lost night all those years ago.
‘If only I’d realised…’
‘Would you have said yes?’ As she spoke the words, they were peppered with small hiccups as she tried to choke her emotions back where they belonged. It was only with this man that her vulnerabilities rose to the surface. Usually, she prided herself on staying in control.
‘I would have held onto you and never let you go.’ His voice was laced with a strong possessive streak and her heart leapt at the thought of just how much she’d meant to him back then. But what did she mean to him now? Was this…this thing between them simply residual? She pushed the question aside.
‘We were just kids, Arthur. We’d been secretly dating for all of nine weeks.’
‘Ten, actually.’
She was pleased to find his memory so precise. ‘What could you have possibly done?’
‘I don’t know, but I would have at least tried.’
‘Besides, even if I’d stayed, I’m not sure things would have lasted. You would have left home, gone to medical school. I still had two years left at high school and goodness knows what Clara would have thought of our relationship.’
‘She was happy about it.’
‘She knew?’ Maybelle pulled back to look at him, delighted at the small twitch at the corner of his mouth as he smiled.
‘She figured it out.’
‘How? We were so careful.’
‘So we thought.’ He rested his hands at her waist, needing to keep her close. ‘For the first four weeks after you left…well, let’s just say I was a little dark.’ He knew it had been longer than four weeks that he’d been angry at her but she didn’t need to know that.
‘A little dark, eh?’
‘Or, as Clara termed it, in a permanent black mood.’
‘Oh.’
‘When she pressed me on the matter, I sort of blurted out that we’d been seeing each other. She gloated and kept saying over and over that she knew it, until I threw her out of my room.’ He chuckled as he spoke, the sound floating over her like a welcome safety blanket. She liked it when he was happy. She liked his smile, the way his eyes twinkled, the way his lips twitched with mirth. Oh, those lips. Those lips had kissed her time and time again and she’d loved every moment of it. His thumbs were moving in tiny circles, rubbing at her waist, each stroke causing sparkles of desire to flood throughout her entire body.
Being this close to his delicious scent was making her want to breathe it in for ever, to resurrect the easygoing plans she’d had for her life all those years ago. At sixteen, she’d planned to finish high school, go to medical school and to marry Arthur. That’s all she’d ever wanted.
‘I wanted to say yes.’ At his soft words, she raised her gaze from staring at his mouth to meet his eyes. ‘That night. I wanted to say yes more than anything but I didn’t want you to have regrets.’ He lifted his head so he could look into her eyes, his clever fingers still creating havoc with her senses. ‘I didn’t want to have regrets. Now we both have regrets.’ It was his turn to stare at her mouth, indicating they were both on the same wavelength. ‘I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.’ He wrapped his arms about her waist, drawing her closer against his body. ‘I wish I could have saved you.’
And those words were her undoing. For years, that was all she’d wanted. She’d wanted Arthur to track her down, to come riding towards her on a white horse, her knight in shining armour, her King Arthur. In the end she’d had to learn how to save herself, but at what cost?
‘Arthur…’ She closed her eyes, unable to loo
k at him any longer, unable to see the certainty reflected in his gaze. She swallowed, her throat thick with repressed tears.
‘Hmm…?’
‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’
‘Be nice. Caring. Compassionate.’ She bit her lip in an effort to bite back the rising tide of emotions she’d kept locked away for far too many years. Only with Arthur was she ever this vulnerable and it appeared time and experience hadn’t changed a thing.
‘Why not?’ There was confusion in his tone as he tenderly brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. ‘If there’s one person in the world who deserves my compassion and understanding, it’s you.’
And those were the words that broke the dam of emotion she’d been holding at bay for far too long, and before she knew it she’d burst into tears.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE WAS CRYING. She was crying and Arthur was comforting her. He was holding her close as she leaned her head against his shoulder and cried. She never cried. She’d become as hard as nails and she never cried…at least, not in front of anyone.
‘We need you to be brave,’ her mother had told her a lot during that first year in witness protection.
‘She’s strong. Far stronger than we realise,’ her father had countered. ‘Our girl understands the gravity of the situation.’ He’d tapped the side of his head twice to indicate his daughter had intelligence. ‘You won’t catch this one breaking down at the drop of a hat.’
And she hadn’t. She’d been able to control her emotions, to quash her fears, to hide her feelings. Maybelle had found herself in some terrible situations over the years and she’d coped with them all…and now, with one small modicum of compassion from Arthur, she was a mess.
Why was it that when someone did something nice, especially if the intention was genuine, it was so difficult to accept? And how incredibly wonderful did it feel to lean on him, even if it was just for a moment. In that one split second, all the wishes and dreams she’d had as a young girl came flooding back. All she’d ever wanted had been for someone to look out for her. Not in a protective detail kind of way but rather in an emotional ‘I care about you’ way. Her parents hadn’t been able to provide her with that sort of care, as they’d been too busy providing it for each other. Then, after her mother’s death, she’d had to be the one to care for her father as he hadn’t known how to go on without the love of his life. How Maybelle had longed for such a love, for a man to be devoted to her in such a way… And with the way Arthur was holding her right now, it felt as though that sort of love might be possible, might one day become a reality.
