“That’s when you decided to leave Australia,” Murphy said.
I shrugged. “I didn’t have anything there to stay for.”
He winced again like I’d hit him. Please. Like he felt that bad about it. I’d seen the pictures. Still, leaving had been hard. But only because I left my baby there, deep in an earthly embrace.
Susan Etsam was the one to suggest I call Noelle. Within hours of hearing my mostly incoherent story, she flew out, got me discharged from the hospital, helped with the funeral arrangements I insisted on for my baby, and booked me on a flight back here. Susan flew out to visit me and try to talk me out of leaving, but by then “She’s So Bad” was the number one song in Australia and New Zealand and had begun to climb up the charts in Europe and the United States. Murphy rocketed to stardom as I buried my dreams. Wrong though it was, I couldn’t, just could not see the man I’d loved so deeply sing about what a bitch I was to the rest of the world.
While Susan resisted my need to break away from Murphy and the failures of our relationship, she’d respected my decision and helped me get out of the country once she realized how poorly I was handling Kyle’s death.
Funny. All I ever wanted was a stable home, a loving relationship—the exact opposite of what my childhood was. Instead, the need to run once again built, consuming me. I couldn’t breathe in this space. I pulled my hand away.
For someone who craved stability, I was damn good at going walkabout.
8
Murphy
Mila pulled back. Way back and slammed multiple steel doors between us. Deserved, of course.
As we sat at a stoplight, I made a decision. Hayden had asked how long I planned to stay here, in Seattle. My meeting with a producer in LA about a new project was in a few weeks.
The secondary reason for the trip just became much more vital. Once Harry realized I wasn’t excited about flying home to Sydney, he’d talked me into sticking around for a few days to sing at a charity event for a Seattle-area battered women and children, something he knew I cared about—more so now that I’d heard Mila’s story. Always trying to improve my image, Harry was, but I didn’t care about my image. I cared about the women and children in situations like Mila’s—situations not of their making who needed a safe place to go so they didn’t end up near-dead, as Mila had.
Seeing Hayden holding Briar earlier brought forth two issues: I needed to work through my shit with him by explaining my reasons for trying to keep them apart, bloody terrible though they were, and by begging their forgiveness. Something to work on while I played Mila’s knight, the second but just as important issue to resolve. I sucked on my lip ring, considering my options.
The light turned green and I pressed on the gas. Driving on this side of the road took a lot of concentration. Why would Yanks want to be to the right? We hit another light, and I was glad for surrounding cars, keeping me in line.
Mila deserved better than she’d gotten. Better than I’d given her. I considered what “She’s So Bad” must have been like to hear from her perspective, especially knowing she ended up in the hospital trying to protect me. My stomach heaved. Why didn’t I stop to think?
But—and this was bloody important—she’d broken up with me. Left me. So why did I feel guilty for the song? Why should I? I gripped the steering wheel and tried to ease the ache in my neck and chest.
The officer pulled up behind us as I slid the car into park in Mila’s driveway. “Can I give him your keys, Mila? He’s going to do a walk-through. Make sure your house is safe.”
She handed me her key ring. Three keys: one to her place, one to her friend’s, I’d bet since Noelle said Mila stayed there often, and a car key. The black plastic on the last told me she drove an Audi. Nice car. Her place was small—probably a two-bedroom—the exterior neat. Different from her mum’s house, which stayed one step above ramshackle.
Lush roses bobbed in the late morning sun, a rainbow of pinks, reds, and yellows. The shaker-wood siding was painted a dark gray with lighter trim around the windows. A deep porch ran the length of the front, featuring white swing in the far corner. Mila’d always wanted a white porch swing, a perfect location to sit out with her coffee in the morning and her occasional glass of wine in the evening. I’d stake my fortune she sat out here at least once a day.
I rolled down the window of the car and dropped the keys into the patrolman’s waiting palm. He’d undone the holster of his gun and his lips tensed. His eyes darted quickly around the space, taking in all the details in one thorough sweep.
“My backup should pull up any second. I’ll go in when she shows. She’s going to monitor my progress, but I want you to sit tight. Hear anything and drive to the closest police station.”
“And that would be where?” I asked, overstating my accent.
His lip curled up slightly, but he didn’t look away from the house as he rattled off the address. “Plug it into your GPS now so you know where you’re going.”
I did, grumbling. Mila pressed her lips together, flattening the plump fullness under the hard line of her will. I reached out, wanting to bring her head to my shoulder. Instead, I brushed my hand over the crown over her head, willing her to understand the comfort I needed to offer even as another part of me shook with the need to rail at her for dumping me.
Officer Reims tapped on the glass. A tall woman stood slightly behind him, dressed in her blue uniform, hand resting on her holster. “We’re heading on in. Keep the car running.”
I nodded, eyes trained on the front door. Tension built as we waited for the officers to exit or for shots to be fired. Officer Reims stepped back out onto the white-washed porch and my neck muscles eased. I didn’t want anything to happen to these police personnel.
Kevin would be back from Sea-Tac in a couple of hours with a few extra security guards he and Harry were in process of vetting. Couldn’t be soon enough. Just as us moving on from Mila’s cute bungalow couldn’t come soon enough.
“Ready?” I asked Mila. She’d turned to me in profile, and my gaze followed the soft line of her cheek up to her brow. The skin under her eyes shaded purple, a sure sign she wasn’t sleeping well.
She opened her car door and stood, wobbly as a newborn colt. She dropped her eyes almost as soon as she glanced at my face, and leaning down, she grabbed her purse. Her phone slid out just as it beeped again. I scooped it up, planning to hand it back until I caught a glance at the words on the screen.
You disobeyed me. I’ll start with Susan. Just like I did before.
“That fucking piece of shit,” I snarled. “I’d kill him myself if I could get away with it.”
Mila’s eyes finally met mine; her lids rimmed with red, but her eyes surprisingly dry. If I was her, I’d be crying buckets. But no, Mila remained quiet, almost solemn as she held my gaze.
“You can leave,” she said. Her voice stayed soft but firm. “This is my fight with my demon.”
I handed the phone over to Officer Reims, my eyes never leaving hers.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “This was always our fight. I just didn’t know it.”
9
Mila
My breathing escalated. Murphy’s voice dripped sincerity, just as it had when he’d told me he wanted a life with me. No. I couldn’t lean on him. Could not. Because he would leave—his glamorous rock-star lifestyle would dictate he fly off to do some concert or charity event or something. And then I’d be alone. Again.
No, that’s why I had Alpie. So I wouldn’t be alone.
I bolted up the steps and practically fell into my living room. Not good enough. He was still too close, tempting me. I scrambled toward my bedroom, self-preservation my only focus. A locked door. That’s what I needed. Distance. Space. Time to consider how best to deal with him. How best to get over him.
I made it to the hall when his fingers wrapped around my wrist. My momentum stopped and my breathing slowed. I hated that he still exuded power over my will. He didn’t pull me closer, and I yearn
ed to pull away and close the door. I eyed it even as my body relaxed back into Murphy’s warmth.
“Hello!” Alpie called from the corner of the room, fluttering her wings and lifting her crown of feathers.
“Hiya, Alpie. How are you?”
“What the fuck is that?” Murphy asked, clearly appalled.
“That’s my pet,” I walked toward her and she screeched, high-pitched with happiness. Her beak wrapped around the bars of the cage and she fluffed her pink feathers. Her black eyes locked on me. I opened her cage and let her hop onto my wrist. She side-stepped her way up my arm to my shoulder where she stroked her beak against my cheek.
“You broke up with me and bought a fucking cockatoo?”
“Fu-‘atoo,” Alpie shouted in her screechy bird voice.
Murphy stumbled back. “Make her stop talking.”
“Fu-‘atoo!”
“What the hell is it saying anyway?”
“She’s repeating you.”
“Fu-‘atoo!”
“I didn’t say that.”
“She’s a cockatoo, not a parrot. She does better with intonation than words.”
“Put it back in its cage.” Murphy stepped forward until Alpie spread her wings, her head swiveling to glare at him with her black eyes. “Now.”
“Why should I? Alpie likes to be out. Don’t you, sweetie?”
“Mila. I need to talk to you. We have important details to discuss.”
Alpie brushed her beak down my cheek, making that shushing sound she repeated whenever she sensed my roiling emotions. She hadn’t made that noise in a few weeks—more than a month. Clearly, Murphy was bad for my emotional health. “You need to go, Murphy.”
“Not till we finish talking,” he said.
I stayed stiff and still. I’d called him, needed him, but some other woman was already in my place. Anger burned away the threat of tears.
“You made it very clear over the past year you no longer want me.”
He stepped forward ignoring Alpie’s spread wings and her dipping head—clear signs of her own agitation. “Don’t you dare put words in my mouth. You have no idea how much I missed you, how often I’ve thought of you. You hurt me when you left.”
Thoughts swirled through my head. But only one mattered.
“I used to sing to him. I wanted him to be ready to play music with you one day.”
Murphy dipped his head and rested his cheek against my forehead. Was he comforting me or drawing strength from our contact?
“I would have loved that. If I could go back, I would. You have to know that, Mila. I would have been thrilled to be his dad.”
Kyle. Yes, of course, he wanted his son. He rubbed his palm up and down my back, soothing me with his warmth and touch. My arms crept around his waist and my shivers stopped. I rested my cheek against his chest and sighed. Murphy pulled me a little closer and our breaths synchronized. We could comfort each other now, but this moment wouldn’t mean anything later. He’d go back to his touring and I’d continue to survive.
“Bloody hell!” he yelped.
Alpie flew off my shoulder and landed on the bookshelf across the room. A thin line of red oozed from the cut on Murphy’s neck. He touched it, cursing when his fingers came away smeared with blood, but he didn’t say anything further. Neither did I.
“When you chucked me over,” he said in a voice as raw as I felt, “I figured I didn’t meet your expectation somehow. That’s what hurt the most—the idea that I wasn’t enough for you. It never occurred to me you’d lie to protect me.”
I sighed as I stepped back. “Perhaps I could have told you then,” I said, my voice filled with doubt, “but my mum hadn’t believed me, the staff at uni, even the police didn’t believe me.” Some things seemed destined to be repeated.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I became someone even Jake hated. I’ve fucked up my band near as bad as I fucked up with you. So. I need to hear the rest, know what I’m dealing with. So I can sort this.”
“You want to sort me? Salvage your relationship with the band? With Hayden? Didn’t seem like he’s interested in being best mates anymore, and I’m guessing it’s because of something that happened with Briar.”
Murphy pressed his head back against the wall and swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple bob downward. “Yeah, I tried to keep them apart.”
I wasn’t surprised; the feud between Murphy and Hayden hit the pages of both the music and gossip sites. Word was Hayden had stepped up when Murphy quit writing songs. Their musical differences poured over into their personal lives. Most music journalists didn’t expect Jackaroo to make another record.
“The hurt’s been bigger than my anger since I saw you again and talked to my mum. Stupid as it sounds, I miss the bub.”
“My baby’s death is separate from your problems with the band, Murphy. Don’t you dare try to use it to your advantage.”
He met my gaze and hurt built there, deep in his eyes. “That’s what you think of me? That I’d feed the media or Hayden some sanitized version of our story so they’d realize how wrong they’d been about me?”
“Don’t tell me it didn’t cross your mind,” I snapped. I didn’t really know this man, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
10
Murphy
She called me on it. But then, Mila always called me on my shit because it was just that—complete shit. “Is that why you didn’t tell me?” I bit my lip ring, fiddled with it, trying to find a calmer place. Nope. Not happening. “You never gave me the chance to know about the bub.”
“I protected you!” she cried. Her eyes were wild, her breathing short. “I did what I thought was best. Jordan wanted to kill you, and I couldn’t get anyone to listen. And, yes, before you ask, of course, I went to the police.” She shoved at my chest but I didn’t move. Instead, I clamped one of my hands over hers.
“I could have protected myself,” I ground out. “You and Kyle, too, if you’d let me.”
She narrowed her eyes, her lips a thin line of disapproval. “Oh, please. You’d give up the opportunity to be where you are now in this gilded lifestyle to raise a child in the same neighborhood we grew up in?”
“Yes.” The word ripped from my chest. I didn’t have to think about it. Mila’s eyes widened, her mouth parted.
“Fucking hell, Mila.” My hands tunneled through my hair. “I wanted you more than you could ever know. Any child that had come from us, yes—hell, yes, I wanted the chance at that. And as for the song . . . I’m a dickhead. Jake’s said it, Hayden’s thought it. I’m sure Flip has, too. I’m a complete arse, and that song was a fluke. We got lucky. I held lightning in a bottle. It hasn’t been anywhere near what I hoped.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Just all the sex, all the women fawning over you. You were living high on the lifestyle.”
“Because you lied to me!” I yelled. I slammed my fist into the wall. Alpie screeched long and loud, adding to the pounding building behind my eyes. “I didn’t know it was because you were trying to protect me, did I? So what did you expect? Me to mope around, waiting for you to come back so I could roll over at your feet.”
“Yes,” she shot back. Then she closed her eyes and sucked in a breath, but her answer, straight from her heart told me so much more than the rational argument she was going to make now. I knew Mila, and while she tried to look at every aspect of an argument, tried to remain rational and logical, her first gut instinct was led by her moral compass, which meant, no matter what she said now, she’d wanted me to wait around. To give her another chance. Hell, like any woman, she’d probably wanted me to fight for her—something I’d refused to do out of pride and hurt.
“No, that’s not fair.” Mila sighed, rubbing her temples. “I left to protect you, so how could you know? But . . . but I wanted you to because I would have if I could have. I would have done anything to protect you.”
My chest tightened as I held her gaze, the green swirls flaring through her eyes. “I
don’t know what to do with that,” I murmured. “Mila, I’m so—”
“I can’t do this right now. There’s so much baggage between us. And, quite frankly, I don’t want to hear some half-assed apology. You knew me.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and her lower lip trembled. “I need some space.”
With that, she stepped into her room and closed the door. The lock clicked into place.
No, she couldn’t leave yet! How badly had Jordan hurt her? Bollocks. I’d gotten sidetracked, then angry. The not knowing what the bloke did to her ripped at me. I turned to stare at the bird, which was watching me with its head tilted at an unnatural angle.
“She got a bloody bird,” I said. “Just stay over there.” Great. Now I was talking to feathered rat.
Since Mila wouldn’t talk to me, I called her friend, Noelle. She’d given me her mobile number earlier, before Mila came to the hospital, so I had someone to contact in case Mila refused to see me—Noelle’s words.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mila’s fine. Just mad at me.”
“She has a right to be.”
“My mum says I got enough stubborn for six people.”
I liked Noelle even more because she didn’t respond to my obvious opening.
“Why are you calling me?” she asked.
I sighed. I wandered out to the living room and crossed my arm over my chest. “How bad did her uncle hurt her?”
“Why don’t you ask Mila?”
“Reckon I did.”
“And she said she doesn’t talk about that, I bet. Well, I can’t say. She doesn’t talk about it.”
“Please, Noelle. I want to help her.”
“Help her, or assuage your guilt?”
I rubbed my hand up the back of my neck and then fiddled with the piercing in my eyebrow. “I never stopped caring about her. And up until today, I had no idea why she broke up with me.”
Hold You Close (Seattle Sound Series Book 3) Page 8