by Incy Black
Shaking his head, his fingers deftly re-fastened the buttons on her blouse that she hadn’t even realized he’d undone.
Cheeks flaring like two beacons lighting the night, she raised her hands to help him.
He nudged them aside. “I’ll do it. Your fingers are shaking too much.”
She looked at his, watched them fumble over one stubborn fastening. “Yours are hardly rock-steady.”
His laugh was low, but rich, smooth like hot honey. “We’ll return to this later. I hate unfinished business. Hurts.”
Then, he leaned close and whispered the filthiest suggestion she’d ever heard, about what he meant by business and what he meant by “to finish.”
She clamped her thighs against the intimate rush of heat, the clench of her womb shocking her with a fast, mini-orgasm.
Jack grinned. She blushed.
“Later,” he promised.
…
Though he did so surreptitiously, it did not escape her notice that when they quit the relative safety of the Walled Garden, he again maneuvered himself to take up position on her exposed side. He really couldn’t help himself, she realized. He was as much a victim of his determination to protect as she’d been of her need to run. And though she never wanted to flee again, she knew he’d never change.
Her knees tangled. But for his sharp reflexes, she’d have stumbled into the one-armed, moss-covered stone statue of some ancient god.
The glow that had warmed her from the inside out stuttered and died. Goose bumps dimpled her skin. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms before folding them tight around her midriff. They didn’t have a future. Not her and Jack. There’d never be a happily-ever-after for them. They were too different, their views on how to survive too divergent. She wanted peace and to hide from the ills of the world; he needed to attack.
If she tried to change him, it would hollow him out, and she’d lose him. If she allowed him to be what he must be, she’d lose him. Because he would go back to the Service in some capacity or another. He’d find a way to make it work. And she needed the Service, every taint, every blight of it, the hell out of her life. Too many bad memories. To forgive, she needed to forget.
“What’s wrong?”
Numbness creeping her veins, she forced a smile, praying the darkness would disguise its lack of conviction. “Nothing,” she lied.
Richard was waiting impatiently for them on the terrace. He didn’t bother sugaring his words as they approached. “It’s your father, Lowry. I’m sorry. Despite the enhanced security around him, someone got to him.”
She raised her hand to her throat and squeezed. Patient Peter.
“Lowry, did you hear what Richard said? Your father is going to be okay.”
She was only dimly aware of Jack balling her shoulders with his rock-steady hands and giving her a gentle shake.
The giant fist that had punched through her chest found her heart and squeezed hard. Her father—always strong, unbreakable—was hurt, lying in pain, maybe even dying. Her fault.
Her father who didn’t communicate. He didn’t know how. But is his own silent way, he’d loved her. Back at that wreck of a factory, Marshall had said that learning about the rape had broken him. Richard has said her father believed her fears about corrupt manipulation within Service, and had set up a surveillance operation, a hugely expensive surveillance operation, because he’d trusted in her. Something Jack had confirmed.
That man, whose attention she’d fought for since childhood, had noticed. He’d heard her, he’d believed in her, and in his quiet, quiet way, he’d stood firm in her corner. She’d urged Jack into making amends, finding his peace with Richard. Could she stomach being that much of a hypocrite not to put her own ghosts to rest?
She shrugged away Jack’s hands. She ignored the concern reflecting in his eyes—concern he wasn’t supposed to know how to feel. She’d thought the same about her father and been wrong. Two men, men she loved, hurting because of her. She had to put that right. Starting with her father.
“I heard, Jack. My father’s going to be okay. Sure, he’s got a cracked sternum, fractured ribs, and he’s currently hooked up to a monitor to ensure his heart keeps beating, but, hell, everything is going to be just fine. But, as I’ve already told you, you can’t give me a lifetime guarantee. Not while Patient Peter is free to stride the corridors of Whitehall unchallenged.”
Still out on the terrace, night closing in, she swung to confront Richard. “Have they arrested him? Made any attempt even to take Patient Peter into custody? Or are they all too fucking preoccupied putting in place a damage limitation strategy to protect the reputation of the Service?”
Chapter Sixteen
She caught the save-me look Richard shot Jack.
“Lowry—”
“Forget it, Jack,” she said, holding up a hand to ward off his excuses for an administration so Machiavellian, doing what’s right had been forgotten. “And don’t even think about going after him on your own. Not for me. Not when you will stand unsupported, no official authority to cover your back. Promise me, Jack. Give me your word right now that you’ll leave Patient Peter alone.”
“I can’t do that. Playing by the book isn’t working. I—”
“Not ten minutes ago you were telling me how much you care for me,” she yelled. “Goddamnit, you showed me with damn near everything your body had to give. I’m calling you on that, Jack. Promise me, promise me right now, you’ll stay out of it.” She sucked in a breath. “And while we’re on the subject of the problem you seem to have with ‘caring’: Talk. To. Him.” She stabbed a finger in Richard’s direction.
The stone-clad look on his face was enough. He wouldn’t be making any promises tonight. And he certainly wouldn’t agree with her need to see her father.
Which left her no choice. She stepped past both men and retreated through the terrace doors. At least, she hoped they’d read it as a retreat. She bowed her head and slumped her shoulders to convince them. Both men had to believe in her defeat.
She felt no hand on her shoulder, heard no voice calling her back. Jack didn’t follow her. She hadn’t thought he would. Nor was she surprised when he didn’t check on her later that night. In fact, she’d counted on it. Jack didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep, or explain his actions to anyone, so he’d avoid her. A mistake he’d just have to live with. Because she owed her father a visit. She owed him so much more. She owed her father some daughterly solace. He deserved to know she loved him. Too important a message for anyone to relay on her behalf. She’d be careful, though Jack would likely never forgive her, but she was London bound.
…
His feet locked to the flagstones of the terrace, Jack couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold. Maybe the breeze drifting the terrace hadn’t realized it was supposed to be spring. Or maybe, he’d just forgotten that up here in the Lake District, everything seemed more extreme. The beauty. The weather… Damn it, the drama.
“I’m not sure what that was all about, but I’m betting you couldn’t do it? Lay yourself wide open and trust that she’d accept all that you are. Bet you fluffed your way through some half-assed declaration about ‘maybe having some feelings.’ Why, Jack? What the hell are you so afraid of?”
He turned to face his twin, his eyes fixing on the ever-accusatory wheelchair in which his brother was confined. “Do you really need to ask?”
“Fuck you, Jack.” Richard thumped his fists on his nerve-deadened thighs. “This was not your fault. I never blamed you. Nor did the rest of the family. But you suck, nevertheless, because you denied any of us the chance to prove it. You were too damned busy shouldering a blame, the weight of which would have shamed Atlas. Damn near ten years of self-imposed exile. What the hell were you thinking?”
“That it should have been me.” His bellow echoed against the facade of Hall, shocking them both.
Richard was the one to eventually break the frozen tableau. “Could have been, not should have been, Jack. We
were equally drunk, equally determined, equally stupid. It was a joint decision. And I’ll tell you straight, I’ll take this chair over the misplaced guilt you’ve been carrying any day. I lost the use of my legs, but you, you lost yourself. Lowry was your way back, yet it looks like you screwed that up again. Why?”
Jack scoured his face with both hands. Time to come clean. “Self-protection. Found out the hard way that getting too close, caring too much, can result in a shit load of hurt. Not sure I’d survive if I have to go through it again.”
“Never had you pegged as a coward,” his brother said, shaking his head. “You know that old saying about no pain, no gain? Looking at you, seeing the man you’ve become, no, the half man you’ve become, I’ve got to figure it to be true. Love is supposed to hurt, Jack, how the hell else are you supposed to know it’s real?”
Well…and didn’t those quietly spoken words, from a man who had allowed nothing to diminish him, just shame the hell out of him.
…
With her hair newly stripped back to its natural color, sandy blond with pale streaks of platinum, and wearing green scrubs she liberated from the hospital’s laundry room, Lowry reckoned she made for a passable junior doctor.
She was here to make her peace.
The dark shadows smudged beneath her eyes, and the fact she was harried had to lend an authenticity to her disguise. So, too, the stethoscope she’d pinched and draped round her neck, and the pair of those weird white clogs with rubber soles favored by medics.
Head upright but avoiding all eye-contact, she did her best to look confident and purposeful as she traipsed the disinfectant-scented corridors of the sprawling hospital in search of the private wing where she’d find her father.
The harassed Ward Manager, thin lipped with a bloodless pallor, didn’t deign to look up from her screen when she asked where she might find Harry Fisk. “Corner room, down there. Room 228.”
Lowry frowned, anxiety quickening the flow of blood already gushing her veins fit to blow a geyser. Security around her father should not be this slack. He was a target, and Patient Peter and his minions were still out there.
As for the two guards posted at the doors to her father’s room? Boredom appeared to have rendered them lifeless. Damn it, anyone could get to her father. Anyone. This security was piss-poor and tantamount to downright negligent.
Ducking her head, she pretended absorption in her clipboard and, muttering something incoherent about angina and blood tests, thrust into her father’s room. She closed the door firmly behind her.
“Bloody incompetents,” she breathed.
She waited for her anger to subside before approaching her father’s bed. The monitor to which her father was attached beeped rhythmically.
Her breathing fell into step with the sharp little sound. Someone had dimmed the lights and closed the curtains. He seemed peaceful. Bruised, horribly swollen in places, with butterfly strips sealing the lacerations to his face, but peaceful.
Too peaceful.
In a rush of panic, she crossed the room and placed fingers that shook against her father’s neck in search of a pulse.
His eyes flew open. She stepped back in fright, her heart fluttering uncontrollably. He shot a hand out to steady her. “Lowry? What are you doing here? And where the hell is Jack Ballentyne?”
“I don’t know. I’m not his keeper, and neither is he mine.” Relieved as she was that her father was alert, she couldn’t stop the same old mutiny coloring her tone. It had always been the same. Her father automatically put her on the defense. His disapproval had been a constant in her life, and so too, her responding need to defy.
She tried to wrest her wrist free. Coming here had been a huge mistake. She should have listened to the reassurances that Richard had offered that her father, though his injuries were extensive, would be fine.
Her father’s fingers tightened around her wrist. Such strength from hands upon which the skin looked paper-thin. “You need him with you, Lowry. It’s not safe. For God’s sake, what were you thinking?”
“That you might be relieved to see me—maybe even a little pleased.” Christ, how many voices did she have inside her that she didn’t recognize? This one was brittle as ancient bone.
Her father tugged her closer, close enough that she had to hitch her hip onto the edge of his bed. “Never, ever doubt I’m pleased to see you. But I’m also concerned. Patient Peter wants you. I trusted Jack Ballentyne to keep you safe. To keep you away.”
Her father wheezed a weak cough.
She squeezed his hand lightly, trying to hide her mounting anxiety.
“He doesn’t know. He’d never have let me come. And I had to. You and I, we’ve already wasted too much time. I needed to say I’m sorry and that I want to put that right, before it’s too late.”
“I thought it was already too late when I found out what had happened to you. That you hadn’t felt able to come to me when you needed me most. I would have understood, you know, about the rape. I would have taken care of you, helped you, had you just given me the chance.” There was nothing reprimanding in her father’s tone, just a deep regret and sadness.
The lump in her throat thickened. “Not the easiest thing in the world to confide,” she tried.
“And since when did you ever do easy?” her father asked gently.
She chanced a half smile. “True, and probably not since mum died. That’s about the time you and I stopped connecting.”
“Connecting yes, but I never stopped caring. I just didn’t know how to show it. Still don’t. You were a precocious six-year-old, but I should have tried harder. Found a way to reach you.”
The marked pain adding a harsh breathlessness to her father’s voice, thickened the lump riding her throat. “As I remember it, you did try. I was just…too angry to listen. With you, with mum for leaving me.”
“Yes. And I’d never missed your mother more. Where you were concerned, I relied on her to steer me in the right direction. Suddenly she wasn’t there to do so anymore. It was easier to bury myself in the job, as far as possible from the pain of knowing I was failing you.”
“And the more you pretended I didn’t exist, the harder I fought for your attention. I only joined the Service to get on your nerves. I wanted you to notice me, to be proud of me. Pathetic, really.”
The grip of his fingers around her wrist tightened again. “There was never a day that passed when I wasn’t proud of you. I still am. Fiercely so. But I will admit to an intense sense of relief when you followed a different path. Your art, Lowry. Now that would have made your mother very proud.”
The lump in her throat morphed from a stone to a boulder. She managed an embarrassed, “Oh.”
“But you can’t be here, Lowry. It isn’t safe,” her father said urgently.
“Maybe not, but this, what we’re doing, talking—makes the risk worth it.”
“Damn it, Lowry, I’m not about to lose you now. Get hold of Jack. He’s the only man I trust to keep you safe.”
The monitor bleeped alarmingly.
She raised her hands, placed them gently on her father’s shoulders—a man she hadn’t seen in four years, a man she hadn’t touched or comforted in two decades or more—and eased him back against the pillows. “Dad, knowing Jack, he’s already coming after me. Just get yourself well and back where you belong. Heading up the Service. I’ve a feeling Jack is going to need your support there in the not too distant future.”
She waited for him to settle, whispering silly things about the good times they’d enjoyed when they’d still been a family. Before her mother had died. She waited until his eyelids grew heavy, finally closed, and his breathing steadied to the even rhythm of deep sleep.
She edged her hip from the bed, dropped a kiss on her father’s brow. Yeah, having found this peace with her father, she dared Patient Peter to come after her.
She had been that bastard’s victim long enough. Now she’d make her stand. Her skills might be rusty, but once sh
e’d been good. With Jack’s help she would match and return anything Patient Peter threw at her.
When she stepped into the corridor outside her father’s darkened room, the harsh brightness blinded her for an instant.
That’s why she didn’t notice him until he fell into step beside her. “Hello, Lowry.”
She kept her eyes dead ahead. “Jack.”
“Want to tell me how you got out of the Hall without it being detected?”
Trust him to cut to the chase. “Not particularly. You’ll only yell.”
He held a door open for her, following through behind her as if they were two co-workers casually engaged in light chitchat and chivalry came easy to him.
A complete lie!
She could sense his anger strumming just below the surface.
“No, I won’t. I’m so far past yelling, I’ve crossed six horizons. I am, however, curious to know how you managed to get passed Seb. He was adamant he didn’t fall asleep.”
“If he says he didn’t, he didn’t. But I bet you bawled him out anyway. You’ll have to apologize to him.”
They’d left another two corridors behind them and had just stepped into the late afternoon sun outside the hospital’s main entrance before he spoke again.
“Even knowing what happened to Richard, you climbed down didn’t you? Four fucking stories!”
She didn’t think an answer was merited.
She paused at the head of the short flight of stairs leading to the sidewalk, closed her eyes, and tilted her head slightly to catch the sun. “Do me one last favor, Jack. Arrange for the security detail protecting my father to be replaced. This lot are hopeless. Next to useless.”
“I’m still persona non grata with the Service, Lowry. Or had you forgotten?”
“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” she said softly. “But you have contacts, and you’ll soon be back. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone might be wrong.”
“Please, Jack, if you don’t want to use the Service, give me the name of a private firm I can contact—a good one. The best.”