‘Alex? Are you all right?’
Concern had deepened her tone. If he hung up now, she might be up half the night worrying. This might feel a thousand times more difficult than it should be but, for better or worse, he was committed.
He cleared his throat, pushed to his feet and rushed a hand through his hair.
‘There’s something I need to say. I’d rather say it in person, but I’m afraid it can’t wait.’ This had waited long enough. He swallowed his fear and confessed after twenty long years.
‘Annabelle, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I turned you away.’
A long silence echoed down the line before, sounding unsure, uneasy, his sister replied, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘That night.’ The night no one ever mentioned. ‘I’m sorry I was a jerk and booted you out of that party when I should have taken care of you. I’m sorry—’ His voice caught and he found himself swallowing hard against the pit in his throat. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you afterward. I didn’t know …’ He exhaled and, broken, admitted, ‘I felt guilty … I didn’t know what to say. How to say it.’
When more silence wound down the line, a withering feeling sailed through him. He shouldn’t have rung. Annabelle had built up a wall just as he had done. He had no right trying to break it down after so long. He should have left this buried—
But then he heard a snuffle, then a sigh, and a spark of hope lit in his chest.
‘All these years,’ Annabelle murmured, her voice soft and thick, ‘I thought you were angry with me for causing so much trouble that night.’
Astounded, Alex coughed. ‘What? No. I was never angry with you. I was angry with me.’
‘We were children.’ He heard the strain in her voice and imagined the glistening tears edging her eyes. ‘It was nobody’s fault.’
Wondering, Alex’s hand tightened around the phone. Nobody’s fault? Surely she hadn’t forgiven their father. But something kept him from asking. William Wolfe was the monster behind all this pain, but Alex didn’t want that name mentioned in this conversation. This was about him and Annabelle. About finally making it right between brother and his wounded and much loved sister.
‘Can you forgive me?’ he asked, trying not to flinch as his mind’s eye called up that single red welt marring her still-beautiful face.
‘Oh, Alex. No matter how far apart we’ve seemed, you’re my other half. You always will be.’
His eyes misting over, Alex lowered into the chair and as he and Annabelle spoke more, for the first time in his life he knew a sense of true belonging. When he’d finished that phone call, despite knowing the time difference now, he called and spoke to his old friend, Carter White, and vowed to keep in touch.
He was finally making peace with himself and people from his past but he wouldn’t rest until he had at least one other’s. The person who had set this all in motion.
He’d given Libby parts of himself he’d never allowed anyone else to glimpse. But he’d given her much more than that. He’d given her his heart.
God knows he hadn’t meant to. The very idea was as foreign as it was … healing. Although, after their argument today, he suspected Libby would rather consume hot coals than admit it, Alex more than sensed she felt the same way. He’d hurt her—deeply—just as he had Annabelle, and Libby wasn’t prepared to be hurt again. He couldn’t blame her. But now he knew to the depths of his soul what they could have together. What they both wanted and needed.
If it took the rest of his life, he wouldn’t take her no for an answer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘YOU amaze me, Libby. So many talents and you know your way around a hotplate as well.’
Collecting the plates from her dining table, Libby sent Payton an amused look. ‘Chicken and roast vegetables aren’t exactly haute cuisine.’
‘It is the way you do them,’ Payton said, following her friend into the kitchen.
Libby had invited Payton over for a meal, or rather Payton had suggested they go out, grab a bite, maybe catch a movie. But Libby had baulked at venturing out in public. Since breaking off with Alex last week, she’d tried her best to stay upbeat but, in truth, she hadn’t felt much like company.
Friday afternoon last, she’d confided in Payton about the goings-on of that morning. How she’d confronted Alex and things had taken a left turn. Although walking away that day was the right thing to do, her sense of loss cut so deep that sometimes it hurt to breathe. Reason told her that she had everything to live for and yet she had the hardest time convincing her heart to listen. When she forced her mind on work, she felt in some ways happier, but when she was alone she couldn’t help but remember and wish things had turned out differently. Payton had noticed her mood, which was why she’d prescribed some R and R tonight.
While Libby rinsed the plates, Payton put away the condiments. ‘If you’re not tired, I could go pick up a DVD. Or we could just talk.’
Libby appreciated the gesture, but it was getting late and they both had work tomorrow. She looked up from the running tap.
‘I’m fine, Payton, honest.’ She stacked the rinsed plates on the drainer. ‘You go home and get some shut-eye.’
‘Are you ready for bed?’
‘I might go for a walk.’
‘At this time of night?’ Payton disappeared into the living room. Libby found her shrugging into her bright pink coat. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Libby smiled. Payton could be a little on the flighty side but her heart was big and her concern was always sincere.
‘The path along the esplanade’s well lit.’ Joining Payton, Libby touched her friend’s arm. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Payton’s mouth pulled to one side before she let out a lungful of air. ‘Well, if you’re sure you don’t want the company.’ She lowered her gaze, then caught Libby’s again. ‘You know there’s no one I admire more than you. You’re the strongest person I know.’
Libby’s throat constricted. She’d always tried to tell herself strength was what mattered. If you kept that, you could do anything. She was alive and had wonderful family and a great practice and excellent friends. One day she’d find romantic love again.
One day …
After she and Payton said goodbye, Libby packed the dishwasher, then wandered over to the opened curtains. Feeling hollow, she let her gaze trail over the moonlit waters of tonight’s calm ocean. Once she’d been a mistress of those waves, and when that world had collapsed she’d knuckled down and had built another. In time this dull dead ache in her stomach would fade. Sometime in the future she would get over Alex Wolfe and his dazzling smile, his dynamite personality … the unbelievably beautiful way he made love….
Growling at herself, Libby grabbed a light jacket and headed out to find that fresh air. She needed to get over this bout of self-pity, she decided, taking the lift to the ground floor. Maybe she ought to learn how to jog again. Nothing cleared the cobwebs and left you exhausted like a solid four-k run. And she really needed a holiday. Perhaps Thredbo. If she could dip and do the tango, there was no reason she couldn’t relearn how to snow ski.
Five minutes later, she was moving down the same esplanade pathway Alex and she had enjoyed strolling along weeks earlier. The three-quarter moon smiled down, the powerful ocean breathed in and out, and yet, with all her tentative go-slay-’em plans, Libby’s heart still felt horribly empty.
Stopping at a stairway leading to the beach, her heartbeat began to skip. The only time she’d felt sand between her toes since her accident had been that incredible night she’d spent with Alex. He’d forced her to face that fear and she’d conquered it. It had been a gigantic step. Would she ever have found the courage if not for him?
Libby took in a lungful of air, and another, then headed down the stairs. When she hit the uneven soft sand, she tipped sideways but not nearly enough to fall. Regaining her balance, she focused on her feet, half buried. She lowered onto the bottom step and removed her shoes.
A moment later, her toes dug into the cool powdery grains and Libby’s heart flew to her throat as a thousand wonderful memories flooded her mind … of when she was a child with her family, then as a teen with the world at her feet, and finally as a woman, finding true courage again while falling in love.
Gradually she pushed to her feet, then drew the clamshell pearl charm from a pocket. As she rotated the piece in her palm, the moonlight caught the stones and threw back dazzling prisms of blue light. In some ways, at least, she must have meant something special to Alex.
Hadn’t she?
A bus roared past and Libby glanced off to the road. Tonight there seemed to be more traffic than usual—family cars, lorries, motorbikes. But their noise was gradually swallowed up by the throatiest, roughest engine ever slapped together. Libby pivoted further around and peered up the street. Was someone taking their steam train for a run?
The streetlights reflected in her eyes but when she squinted and refocused, she recognised the car. Her stomach pitched. It was one of a kind and she could imagine only one person ever driving it.
Same dull powder-blue paint job. Same massive dents and scratches. She took a few disbelieving steps nearer.
Why was Alex driving that wreck?
What was Alex doing here, full stop!
The car swerved into a park and the volcanic rumble from its engine shut down. Libby gathered herself as a rusty door squeaked and slammed shut. Alex glanced first at the building, then, as if guided by radar, swung his gaze around. With half a football field between them, their eyes connected. The next instant he was leaping the beach wall and landing with an athletic grace and determination that left her weak. Without missing a beat, he continued his beeline to the spot where she stood.
When he stopped before her, looking larger than life and more handsome than she’d ever seen him, Libby wished she had a prop to lean against. He left her off balance. Dizzy with a flurry of emotions.
As a sea breeze tugged at his hair and his billowing shirt, she swallowed against the great lump in her throat. The question Why did you come? burned the tip of her tongue but she didn’t feel ready to hear his response.
Instead she asked, ‘Why are you driving that wreck?’
He owned so many amazing cars. That one sounded as if it were ready to cough out its last breath.
‘I decided it was time to settle up with slices of my past and either unload or re-embrace them.’ He jerked a thumb back at the bomb. ‘I’m going to do her up again. She’s still beautiful despite the beating she took. I owe it to her—me too—to make it right.’
Libby quizzed his committed gaze. There was more to what he’d said—to the expression on his face—but before she could ask, he went on. ‘I didn’t expect to find you down here, walking on the sand.’
She stole a glance over her shoulder, saw the tide was on its way in, and instinctively took two steps toward the road … toward Alex. And that was dangerous. Whatever he was doing here—to apologise again, to seduce her because he knew he could—no matter what her heart said, she didn’t want to hear it.
‘I thought you’d be in another country by now,’ she stated stiffly.
Beneath the moon- and streetlight, a ghost of a smile touched his lips. ‘I have business to attend to.’
‘Business?’
Holding her with his eyes, he stepped closer. ‘Of the utmost importance.’
With her heartbeat pounding in her ears, she managed an offhanded shrug. ‘Something to do with your aftershave?’
‘Something to do with you, Libby. To do with us.’
When that smile reached his eyes, her skin flashed hot. She dropped her gaze to the wet sand at her feet and held herself tight. His coming here, playing with her like this … it wasn’t flattering or charming. After the way they’d parted, knowing the way she felt, this was plain cruel.
‘I need to go.’
She moved to angle around him but he blocked her path.
‘Libby, listen to me. Please.’
Trembling inside, she kept her gaze lowered on the damp ripples left on the sand by the tide. If she peered into those soft grey depths now, he might talk her into anything.
With a knuckle he lifted her chin and, when their eyes met, his searching hers so deeply, she felt her will being sucked away.
‘You said yourself. We understand each other. We appreciate each other too—’ his brows nudged together ‘—even if there were times I didn’t let you know like I should have. Maybe we wouldn’t share that understanding if our lives had been spared the tragedy. I wish my childhood had been different, that my father had been a loving, caring man who had cheered me on instead of either ignoring me or trying to crush me beneath his heel. I wish I’d known my mother.’ He took both her hands in his, so warm and firm. ‘And you must wish that you hadn’t gone into the surf that day. We’ve been dealt some bad cards but it’s the only hand we had to play.’ His arm slipped around her waist and he smiled softly. ‘We’re survivors. We brush ourselves off and we find a way to go on.’
A ragged breath caught in her chest. Her heart was squeezing so much her lungs hurt. And plump tears were rising, welling in her eyes. Dammit, he wasn’t playing fair.
‘You know how I feel about your childhood.’ She wished she’d been there as an adult to have rescued them all. ‘But what happened back then …’ She swallowed against raw emotion. ‘Alex, it doesn’t have anything to do with now.’
‘I think it does.’ His voice lowered. ‘Everyone’s destined to take some wrong turns, like me suggesting at the start that you go against your conscience. Like shutting you out that day.’ A pulse beat in his throat as he drew her gently near. ‘That was wrong. I knew it, but I was trying to convince myself that retaining the championship was more important. I wanted to keep what I had. What I knew. But being with you …’ His gaze intensified as it roamed her face. ‘You’ve taught me there’s more than wanting to drive fast cars. I’ve learned that I want more. Can give more. That I’m ready.’
Just as he’d asked, Libby had listened, with the wash of the waves coming closer and the hope of his words reaching mercilessly deep.
Her question was a hoarse anxious whisper. ‘How much more?’
‘I want it all,’ he said simply. ‘Marriage, kids. But only with you. I want us to have a life. Together I know we’ll do it right.’ His gaze dropped to her lips before finding her eyes again. ‘I love you, Libby. I love you so much.’
She sucked down a breath at the same time a hot tear sped down her cheek. Was this a dream? Had she heard right?
‘Are you saying …?’
‘I’m asking you to marry me.’ His warm lips brushed her temple. ‘God knows I can live without chequered flags. I can’t live without you.’
Another tear fell, and another. He wanted her to believe in him. He loved her. Couldn’t live without her. She wasn’t sure which way to turn. What to say.
She swallowed back disbelieving, happy tears again. ‘You’re sure?’
‘As sure as I know that together we can do anything. Go anywhere. Have everything.’
She gave in to the feelings that had haunted her these past days and, wanting so much to trust—to believe—she finally surrendered and let the words come.
‘I love you too.’ Her throat ached with the depth of her love. ‘You can’t imagine how much.’
Her words were barely out before his mouth claimed hers and every fibre in her body sparked like tinder and caught light. As his arms drew her closer still, she submitted, to his kiss, to his belief in them both. Most of all she submitted to their love.
A series of car horns, blaring from the street, brought her back. She and Alex glanced toward the road. Some young men in souped-up cars were beeping and hooting at the couple shamelessly embracing on the beach.
Laughing softly, Alex brought his gaze back to hers, then cocked a brow. ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’
‘We’ll probably wind up in tomo
rrow’s newspaper?’
‘In that case, let’s give them something to talk about.’
His left arm hooked under her legs and then her feet were swinging in the air and she was cradled firmly against his chest.
She gasped. ‘Be careful! Your shoulder.’
‘I’m strong enough for this.’
When he moved toward the water, Libby’s blood pressure dropped and she stiffened to a board. ‘What you are doing?’
‘Don’t worry. We’ll do it together.’
‘You mean go into the water? Now?’
‘Do it this once,’ he said, ‘then, if you want, you can put it behind you.’
Her head began to prickle. She broke out in an all-over sweat. ‘I … I can’t.’
But he began moving again, then she heard his feet swishing through the water and felt the cool spray of the sea on her skin.
‘I’ll keep you safe,’ he said. ‘From this moment on I’ll always be here for you. I’ll never turn away.’
Carefully she laced her arms around his neck but gasped when her foot swept through the cool wet.
Concerned, he pulled up. ‘You okay?’
She nodded, at first in reflex, then a second time knowing, remarkably, that she was, indeed, better than fine. Alex was right. She’d always needed to do this at least once, and now, safe in his arms, she knew that she could.
As the water reached higher, she told herself to relax and soon the familiar roll of the waves was lapping her body, as it had so many times before, and Alex was smiling down at her, love and pride shining in his eyes.
‘How’s that?’
‘A little weird,’ she admitted, ‘but mostly … like I’m saying hello to an old friend.’
His smile said he’d known it all along.
‘So how about it, Libby? Will you be my bride?’
Tears slid from the corners of her eyes. Happy tears. Tears that made her feel as if she were the luckiest, most beautiful woman alive.
Alex Wolfe, the man she loved with all her heart, wanted to marry her.
‘There’s nothing I want more.’ She held his bristled jaw in her palm as the gratitude inside her swelled. ‘I love you.’
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