One look at Tess showed him he'd been kidding himself, blinding himself to the truth. He wanted to forget her; oh, dear God, how he wanted to put her behind him; but he knew he never would. She'd haunt him until his last breath.
He wouldn't fool himself again. Deeper waters than their shared daughter connected them; threads bound them in a tangled maze beyond their control. He wanted her, wanted her so bad he couldn't even think of her without getting so damn hard it hurt; but he wasn't a gullible kid any more, believing their love could leap all obstacles, survive any test. They could never make it together. There were too many strikes against them.
So keep the walls of ice in place. Keep your heart safe.
His body was another matter. If she wanted him, they could be lovers—for a day, a week, maybe even longer. If he was right in his belief that Beller had abused her sexually—even he had heard rumors of the barrister's strange sexual appetites—she might need to make love even more than he did. But he had to guard his heart, because once he'd found justice—once he'd thrown her father and brother into the dark purgatory he'd suffered for years—she'd walk away without a backward glance.
She no longer loved him; that much was crystal clear. So why did she still love those heartless sons of bitches after what they'd done to her, and to their daughter?
Tess returned to the living room in jeans and a V-necked T-shirt. He tried to concentrate on her words; but she was exotic, stunningly sexual in a simple pair of jeans, her hair encased in a thong clip. "—you said Cameron wanted you to go quietly away and forget me. Why didn't he offer to drop all charges if you'd divorce me? I'm sure he'd have made it worth your while."
"Yeah. He tried." His shoulders jerked; he heard his voice, flat and hard-edged with the strain of covering his carnal cravings. Envisioning her shimmying those jeans down long, silken thighs… "That was the original deal once be knew we were married. He'd drop the charges if I left Sydney and let you get on with life without me. But trusting him to keep his word's as stupid as leaving a dingo to guard a sheep's carcass." He shrugged. "Next he offered to drop the assault charge he'd added to the robbery."
Tessa's head fell. She felt sick. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "He left me alone for a while after I moved in with Belinda."
He had a woman. He'd made love to her. That woman had kissed him, touched him, loved his body. And though some part of her had realized he wouldn't wait for her forever, knowing the other woman's name made the pain worse. Belinda. Jirrah's lover.
After a moment she asked with near-perfect control, "Will our being together—um, looking for Emily, I mean—cause trouble for you with Belinda?"
"Not now." He ran a hand through his hair, making a mess of his banded ponytail. "She died in a car accident last year, about three months after she gave birth to our son."
Tessa stared at him in horror, then bit her thumb down hard, looking around the house. No bright colors adorned the walls—there were no finger marks, no spilled food, no animal mobiles, Sesame Street
posters or rainbow paintings anywhere. This house held none of the sunshine and warmth of a child's love. It was more like a prison of yesterday's anger. "Is your son alive?" she whispered, almost too terrified to ask, but she had to know.
He nodded. "Living with Leslie and her family."
She stared again, this time in disbelief. "Why leave him with your sister? Didn't you want to keep him?" If he'd been her son—
Jirrah looked at her, bleak and hard. "Of course I do. He's my son. I see him every weekend—but I can't offer him any sort of life. I can't even enroll him in preschool till my name's cleared and I'm declared alive again." He shrugged. "You know the system with Kooris," he said, using the term his people used for Aboriginals of his area. "Aunts and uncles have the same status as parents to us. Mikey knows who I am. Leslie knows she won't keep him forever. He's with her until I can take proper care of him. When I'm sure he's safe from Beller and your brother."
She turned from him. "Look, Jirrah, I didn't want this. I didn't ask them to persecute you. I didn't know you were alive!"
"No, you didn't," he agreed. "In their minds, I asked for it by having the gal to touch you in the first place."
She turned back to him, but there was nothing she could say.
After a few moments' silence, he went on. "Life was peaceful here until last Wednesday, when our storekeeper said a private eye was looking for a woman who fitted your description, and offered payment for info … he seemed to know you were in the area." He made a wry face. "My conscience gave me hell. I couldn't eat or sleep until I knew you were safe." He grinned then, seeming to finally find something to smile at. "I should've come by bus. Beller wouldn't have dared blow that up."
Tessa couldn't smile. "What can I say?" Her hands spread in a helpless gesture. "That I'm sorry? I am sorry. I can't understand his obsession with me, ruining your life to have a marriage that made us both miserable. Cameron could do so much better than me—most other women adore him. Yet he still follows me around."
The flat look in his fathomless eyes hurt her. "You don't have to say it. You didn't do it. I know that now."
"But you think I'm weak. You think I gave in without a fight." She passed a hand over her eyes. "I wasn't even twenty-one when I was told you'd died—and eight months later Emily died—and I died." She looked up, hoping against hope he'd see the truth behind her indefensible acts. "Everything I loved vanished from my life—you, my baby, my friends, my work, my car … and they gave me him. Throwing big parties, giving me things … always watching me. Touching me. He wanted me to be a socialite wife, a leader of Sydney's elite … to love being his wife … to fall in love with him. More, always wanting more. He couldn't see how I hated his life. I just wanted to hide. The blackness and emptiness of my heart and soul—I can't describe it. So I blocked everything out."
A long silence, in which they could only hear the ticking of a clock, and the wailing screech of a lone cockatoo outside. "Everything but the hate. You hang on to that because, in the end, it's all you've got left."
"You know," she said in wonder, almost sagging with relief because, for the first time, his eyes, his face, were soft with something besides pity. "You do understand."
He shrugged. "My cage was bricks and steel. Yours was golden."
"It was even uglier for that," she burst out. "An ugly sham. The money, house, cars, clothes—the jewelry he made me wear—and when he touched me. He was always touching me, even when I said no. I hated him for that—I hated him more than anything." Her voice shook. "I never knew I could hate anyone like I hate him. It eats me alive."
"Why, Tess?" Looking at him, she saw the still-festering pain, the half-hidden reproach. "Why did you marry him so soon after you married me, when you were pregnant with my child?"
She drew a harsh breath. "I didn't know what to do. I went to your family, but your dad said what happened to you was my fault and slammed the door in my face. I thought he meant your death. He said they never wanted to see me again. He didn't want to know about the baby." She buried her face in her hands.
"Pretty eloquent for my dad." He touched her arm. "Tell me what he said to you. I'm sure it went beyond that."
She gently pulled away. "It doesn't matter. He was right to blame me." She couldn't tell him the vile names his father had called her, the accusations he'd thrown. He'd only used words against her. Jirrah could claim far worse from her family.
She looked up, her eyes dark. "A week after they said you died, Cameron bought out Earldon Associates. I didn't even know they were in trouble. Cameron asked me to marry him. It was sick. He didn't care that I loved you. He said he'd change it—that we belonged together, and he'd prove it." She dragged in a breath. "Dad and Duncan begged me, over and over. They said when they needed help, Cameron saved them—and all he wanted in return was to belong to our family in every way. They reminded me of all they'd done to make my childhood happy, especially since my mother died. They kept nagging and nagging that
he truly loved me, as no other man had or would—that I'd be happy ever after as his wife." She choked on an almost hysterical laugh. "Happiness and Cameron is a dichotomy. He doesn't know how to be happy—he only knows how to want more and more. I don't think anyone but me can know what he's like, the warped nature he hides beneath that strange hypnotic charm of his. They didn't know then—they still don't now. They honestly thought it was best for me, but they made me commit bigamy." She heard herself laugh again, strange and wondering. "That's what's so weird about it. I could be the one to do time in prison for what they did to me."
"Since Beller and Duncan's testimonials in my court case two months later prove they knew I was alive, I doubt any charge laid against you would stick. But their charges'll sure as hell stick—aiding and abetting a felony, unlawful imprisonment of another and there's worse. Much worse."
She froze for a moment; then with consummate rejection of his words, she put her hand in front of her face. "This is my family. My brother, maybe even my father. I can't believe they meant to hurt me." She shuddered, knowing it was a lie even as she spoke. "I don't care what you've got on Cameron. I won't interfere. Let's just get on with finding Emily."
After a moment, he spoke. "There's something I don't get. You were born in Canada. You moved here when you were a year old, so you still have dual citizenship. Why didn't you ever call your family in Canada for help?"
She pressed her lips together. "My first plan, after Emily died, was to leave Australia, to find my grandparents, aunts and uncles. But he's had my passport hidden since I lost Emily. I apparently talked about how I hated him when they drugged me. He also has paid friends in the Department ready to notify him if I try to get another passport."
"Can't you get another one through the Canadian consulate?"
She gave him a wry look. "Not with a documented mental problem, I can't. I'm a danger to myself. The Canadians don't want a basket case entering their country in case I suicide there, and cause an embarrassing incident."
Though he closed his eyes, she could feel the fury simmering inside him … just like Cameron. The rage sheathed in a cool mask. The handsome face hiding the lonely, unhealed child beneath, abused by the social-climbing, violent doctor father she'd hated from first sight. "Don't bother. I wouldn't go now if I had a passport. Not now I know Emily's alive."
To her relief, he followed her lead. "Finding Emily won't be a picnic—more like walking a minefield." He looked in her eyes, asking the question. "You realize it means going to Sydney."
"Of course," she replied impatiently.
"I'll call an old friend this morning, a lawyer with the Aboriginal Legal Service, and ask him to hear our story. We'll start with the hospital. You can ask to look at Emily's birth records, or just talk to the staff. That should be our first priority. The sooner we find her, the sooner she's safe."
"We'll have to be careful. If we say one wrong word, the hospital staff will shut down on us. We have to make our story as innocent as possible."
He hesitated. "Tess, if we go ahead with this, it implicates your brother up to the neck. And we'll have to face Duncan and your Dad at some stage. You realize that, don't you?"
She exhaled, making her face a calm mask. "I don't care what I have to do or who I have to see. I have to know what happened to my baby."
"Even if you have to face Beller?"
The very air around her stilled. Oh, dear God. Facing Cameron, whose wealth, sophistication and blindingly handsome face covered a tortured soul and diseased mind, wanting more than she could give. A seething mass of inner contradictions who had fixed his voracious heart on a fifteen-year-old girl, waiting twelve years with undiminished hope and hunger for the love, the healing that could never come from her, the woman he claimed to love yet never knew. Looking again at the lean hungry face, the hot eager eyes…
Emily. She drew a deep breath. "Even that." She shuddered off the pinpoint shivers of revulsion that hurt her skin. "I have to know Emily's alive and happy. That's all that matters."
A long silence. Then he asked in a neutral tone, "How come you didn't have more kids? You always wanted heaps of 'em."
She allowed no expression to come into her eyes. "Do you think I'd want a permanent tie to Cameron by having his child?"
"I suppose not." He got to his feet and walked the room, reminding her of a dark panther stalking prey. "The hospital's the logical place to start. Where did you give birth?"
"Burragawang. A little town about four hundred kilometers northwest of Sydney."
Burragawang? Jirrah stopped pacing and stared at her. How had she never seen the truth of that one telling act? "Tess, didn't it seem strange that men obsessed with your social status took you to a place like that to have the baby?"
"Of course it did," she retorted witheringly. "I might have been naive, but I wasn't stupid. They wanted her born where no one—you know, people who mattered—would know about her. They knew she was your baby. I didn't let Cameron touch me until after the ceremony, and I skipped a period before the wedding."
"Fair enough." He nodded and sighed. "It never occurred to you they had another reason?" he asked carefully. "Like maybe they'd arranged an adoption behind your back?"
Her eyes flashed; she reared up like a fighting stallion. "Do you think I'd have wasted five years before I followed it up if it did? We're talking about my only child! Call me naive if it never occurred to me that my family sent my husband to prison, kidnapped my baby to adopt out, and told me they both died, without feeling a single twinge of guilt for than five years. I suppose I have a pretty unimaginative mind, huh? Most people suspect things like that about their families!"
"No—only the people whose daughters or sisters have been doin' it with a dirty half-breed," he retorted.
She whitened. "Don't call yourself that!"
He laughed, but it held only bitterness. "That's always been our problem—even now, you see me as a normal man. They see me as a bloody blackfella Abo—a pariah, a social disgrace to lock away and forget about. They put me inside for years and didn't care! Nobody but my family gave a damn what happened to me!"
After a small silence, she said softly, "I cared."
He stopped in his tracks, wheeling around to stare at her. Then he shook his head, laughing softly. "How do you do that to me? How do you shoot down my soapbox every time I try to get up on it, but make me feel like a million bucks while you do it?"
She smiled a little, and shrugged. "I don't know."
He hunkered down before her, his eyes dark and soft. "It's so good to see you smile. No woman can smile like you. It's crazy, but it makes your eyes look like molten gold dipped in honey. You're still beautiful, mulgu." He lifted a hand, hovering close to her face. "So beautiful it almost hurts to look at you."
Unnerved by the lovely totem name she'd never thought to hear again, Tessa could only stare—stare at the only man who knew her heart, who saw through to her soul, and still thought her lovely and desirable. A memory floated through her mind, of loving so tender, so giving and generous she'd become its addict with one taste. Addicted to him. Ngaya jirrah, my wild lover of the sea…
He crouched before her, his eyes steady, asking the question. Waiting for her permission.
Terrified of the touch, longing for it. Wanting to feel like a woman, denying she could want to be touched by a man again. She hated her confused reactions, but couldn't control them. She'd felt less than human for so long. Cameron's degrading ideas of sexuality had turned her into a pathetic mockery of a woman, hating male touch; her family's disbelief and loving guilt trips created a travesty of the trusting, loving girl she'd been.
Somewhere, somehow, it had to end; and only she could make the change. She closed her eyes, and nodded.
A tender hand caressed her cheek—just her cheek; and dark magic whispered through her, warm and soft like the touch of a firefly in the night. Giving, not demanding. Asking, not taking.
She couldn't stand it Trust and tenderness o
f touch had been denied too long. She pulled back, turning her face from a beauty too vivid, too strong to bear. "Don't touch me," she whispered.
Silence, long and total. When she finally opened her eyes, he was still there before her, watching her with little expression. "It'll never go away until you take control, Tess."
"I know what you want, and you can't have it!" Sudden fury flared at the grief filling her, hard, hurting. "I can't be that girl again. Don't you get it? She's gone!"
He shook his head. "No. You are a wild swan, Tess, still and always—the wild, beautiful girl who braved the world to follow her heart. We will be lovers again, but it'll be your choice—when and where you want to make love, it's your call. I can wait until you trust me." A finger touched her mouth before he moved away; yet her body betrayed her, quivering with a single caress.
The arousal she thought she'd never know again.
She got to her feet. "You don't get it. Being lovers isn't a game—not when Emily will be the one to pay the price for it. We can't afford to want each other. Making love is not an option when it puts our child in danger!" Her sleeve jerked back as she pulled at the door. "I don't know if I can go through with this—not if that's what you want."
The door closed with a quiet click behind her.
* * *
Chapter 6
« ^ »
"Tess, no! Come back! Beller could be on the main road. He could find you." Jirrah yelled, racing after her in desperation as she strode down the stairs. "Emily might need us—both of us. You grew up without your mother. Do you want that for Emily? Can't we show her a united front? For Emily's sake…"
Then he skidded to a halt, shocked by the words pouring from his mouth. Damn it, he was using blatant blackmail on her. Just like them. Suddenly he hoped with all his heart that she wouldn't fall for it. Go on, Tess, keep going. Find somewhere where you won't have to run. Find your strength and healing far away from your damnable family and what they want from you—and, yes, damn it, even from what I want. Even getting revenge on Beller isn't worth what it would do to you, my lovely wild swan.
Her Galahad Page 6
