by Trish Wylie
He took a deep breath. ‘I still feel like I have ten years’ worth of presents to make up for—Christmases, birthdays, all that. A pony and a dog don’t seem to me to be that much in the great scheme of things. I’m not trying to buy her affection.’
When he turned away Rhiannon felt a bubble of disappointment grow in the pit of her stomach; it felt as if they had just taken a step backwards. And she really didn’t want that to happen.
It left her floundering for a way back to where they had only just tentatively managed to get. And only one question came into her mind—the one that had been causing her the most headaches of late from trying to find an answer on her own.
Because there’d been a catalyst for her reactions all those years ago; that initial action that had driven her to make the choices she had, even though she now knew they hadn’t been the right ones. And the guilt she now carried drove her to want to understand why he had disappeared when he had. The need to know growing exponentially, day by day, to almost consume her as she got to know him all over again.
And there was only one way to find an answer, wasn’t there? So the question jumped out.
‘Why did you disappear?’
Kane stopped suddenly. As if an invisible wall had appeared in front of him. Then his head turned and he looked over his shoulder, his eyes focused on a point on the ground in front of her feet. ‘When?’
‘You know when.’
‘It doesn’t really matter now. We’re making an effort to fix things. Let’s just let it go at that.’
She followed him when he stepped away again, her voice low. ‘I don’t think I can. I can’t go back and change things. But every action has a reaction. Maybe I might have pushed harder to make sure you knew if you’d been remotely in the area of approachable.’ She laughed a nervous laugh, fully aware that she was rambling. ‘But you were some kind of ghost that was there one minute and gone the next. It was like you didn’t even exist any more until you formed your company and made the announcement to the press with Mattie. Lizzie was almost three, then.’
She stopped when he stopped and then took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop rambling long enough to make sense of what she was trying to say.
‘So now that I know I made a mistake not finding you to tell you, I need to know. Where did you go in those missing years? What made you drop out of Trinity early?’
Kane looked over his shoulder again. A muscle in his jaw flexed, his gaze shifted from her face to focus on a random point on the stone wall beside him. And in that instant, the minute movements told Rhiannon that, whatever it had been, it was something he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
Thick, dark lashes flickered slightly as he searched the wall, taking the time to decide whether or not to answer her most likely. So Rhiannon tried again, feeling distinctly as if she were walking on eggshells as she braved another step closer to him, to where it would have taken very little effort to reach out and touch him.
Instead her arms hung redundantly at her sides, her cold fingers flexing in and out of her palms while she bit down on her bottom lip, willing him to give her a reason to understand, to complete the picture.
She really needed to know because, for her, it was the missing part of the puzzle. And it might only have been a moment or two longer while she waited for him to answer, but it felt like an eternity.
And still he seemed to be struggling inwardly. So Rhiannon tried to make it easier. ‘I need to know.’
His gaze flickered briefly in her direction again, dark brow quirking, possibly in reaction to the somewhat breathless sincerity in her voice.
‘It doesn’t really matter any more, does it? We both made decisions then that we could have had no idea would stretch forward this far.’
The fact that he was trying to share the responsibility for the mistakes that’d been made softened a part of her she’d been protecting since he’d reappeared in her life. But it also made her need to know even stronger.
‘It matters to me.’ Rhiannon realized she had barely spoken the words aloud, so she cleared her throat. ‘The reasons I had for doing the things I did then still matter to you, don’t they? So why should your reasons be less important to me? It’s all part and parcel of the same mess.’
‘Maybe.’ His voice was equally as soft, held a husky edge that drew her step closer to him. ‘But I’ve been thinking some and what I think is that knowing doesn’t change anything. And we’re starting to make some progress, I think. Not arguing was a step in the right direction. And we agreed—this isn’t about us—it’s about Lizzie.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She knew he was right about that—there was too much water under the proverbial bridge. ‘But I still need to know.’
He turned away, forcing Rhiannon to look at the back of his head. So she sighed and tried one last time, silently promising herself it would be the last time; she couldn’t keep showing how much it still mattered. Because he was right about that too—it shouldn’t matter any more.
‘I’ve watched you with her, Kane, and the way you are reminds me of the way you used to be. You’re right; I didn’t hate you when we were together. And I don’t want to carry around all the hatred I had for you afterwards any more either. But when you left and I found out I was pregnant, I was scared. And there was no one for me to talk to about that because the father of my baby was gone. I got through it on my own, but I don’t think I ever forgave you for that.’
One last step and she was right behind him, her eyes focused on the short strands of hair against the column of his neck. ‘I’d really like to understand it all so I can let it go. That’s all.’
‘Just like that? I tell you why I left and you put aside ten years of hating me? You have a tight control on your emotions, don’t you, Rhiannon?’
She could hear the disbelieving edge of sarcastic humour to his deep voice. It was the last straw. She had tried. And, no matter what thoughtful, humorous, warm or even sensual roads he made into her psyche from here on in, she would burn in hell before she’d hold out an olive branch to their past again.
So she sidestepped around his massive frame and mumbled on her way past, ‘Don’t ever say I didn’t try.’
She was almost through the arch when his voice sounded again, low, deep, rumbling, but with a flat matter-of-fact tone, so that she knew he still wasn’t happy with telling her the truth. ‘I was sick.’
Rhiannon froze. Without thinking about it, she found herself doing exactly what he had done only a matter of moments before—focusing on the stone wall, staring at the old cobwebs that had woven along the concrete lines within the irregular surface. While the words echoed inside her brain.
Like some kind of cruel cosmic echo of the day that Mattie had said, ‘I’m sick.’
‘Sick—how?’
She forced her heavy feet to pivot round so that she could search his face for the same fatalistic expression Mattie had worn that day. And Kane’s eyes rose to lock with hers, the blue so dark across the distance between them that they looked as black as they had that first night in the kitchen.
He shrugged his broad shoulders, his hands pushing deep down into his pockets again. ‘Sick enough to have to go and make the time to deal with it.’
Tilting her head to one side, she tried searching his face for the information she couldn’t get from his eyes. ‘What kind of sick?’
‘Not with anything you could have caught—if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Damn, but he could be cruel when he wanted to be!
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
Maybe it was the way she choked the words out, maybe it was simply the fact that she was staring at him with such wide eyes. Whatever the reason, his shoulders relaxed a little.
But he still glanced away before clearing his throat and saying what she had prayed he wouldn’t say. ‘A form of cancer.’
No!
He must have read the anguish on her face because he immediately made an attemp
t to negate it. ‘I’ve been in remission for a long time.’
Slowly, so very slowly, little snippets of memories rose inside her head to form a different picture.
‘That’s why you and Mattie suddenly became such good friends.’
They had been friends in university, but not in the same way they had been maybe four or five years after. It was the same way all over the world, she had reasoned—networks of friends forming because of their ties to one person and not necessarily because they got on with the whole ensemble. But, even though Rhiannon had always wondered why the relationship had changed, she’d never sat herself down to figure it out, until now.
‘You had something in common.’ Mattie had fought leukaemia for most of his short life.
‘Yes.’ A dark frown creased his forehead again. ‘Except that I won and he lost.’
And he actually sounded as if he felt guilty about that!
Rhiannon felt as if her world had tilted beneath her feet. Everything she had thought she had known—everything she had judged him on—
‘He knew that was why you left when you did.’
Kane stepped closer to her, while Rhiannon’s gaze dropped, focusing on the smattering of dark hair she could see peeking above the V of his shirt.
‘Not until he got sick again a few years back, no. He knew the truth about Lizzie too, didn’t he?’
Rhiannon nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘I thought he had to have.’ He shook his head, a wry smile on his mouth. ‘I should have worked it out for myself. It’s something that’s been driving me crazy this last while. I should have worked it out.’
‘No, I should have found you and told you. If I’d known—’ She flung one of her redundant arms out to the side, then lifted both arms and wrapped them around her waist, squeezing in tight. ‘Why didn’t he tell me you were sick?’
When he didn’t answer her gaze rose, and when she was finally looking into his eyes he smiled, his gaze softening in a way that reminded her again of the way he had been with her before.
She’d been so very wrong about him, hadn’t she?
‘If I had to take a guess I’d say that you weren’t any more prepared to allow him to tell me than I was to let him tell anyone I’d been sick.’
He was right again—about her, anyway. The first time Mattie had asked her outright if Lizzie was Kane’s, she’d made him promise never to bring it up with Kane. Ever. Or she would never forgive him. As her best friend, he had respected that—argued it, but respected it.
As far as she’d been concerned, she’d made the effort. She’d known exactly why she’d done the things she had, or rather, had convinced herself she had.
But Kane, wait a minute—Her eyes widened in question. ‘You didn’t tell anyone?’
He shrugged again, as if he was discussing the damn weather. ‘My immediate family knew. But making it public knowledge wasn’t exactly the best plan when setting up a new business and trying to attract investors. I wouldn’t want shareholders to know now either.’
‘But you said you were in remission.’ Having hated him for so long, she was stunned to the core by the flash of excruciating pain that cramped across her midriff. She wasn’t sure she could go through that again with someone she cared about.
She frowned hard. ‘Are you saying—’
Varying emotions crossed swiftly through the blue of his eyes, but were immediately hidden with the unreadable, hooded gaze that she was all too familiar with. ‘No, I’m not. I’ve been clear for eight years. But the word cancer has a tendency to strike fear into the people who have money invested in you. That’s all.’
Not to mention the fact that they looked at you differently. Mattie had made jokes in private about it, but Kane wasn’t that type. Anything he felt ran deep. And the changes in him from when she had known him before made more sense with her new found knowledge. He’d shut himself off, had disappeared from the world, had dealt with it alone—had learnt how to hide his thoughts and emotions from the people around him.
And Rhiannon understood that, maybe better than most. The immediate rapport with Lizzie, the open affection, the complete honesty he had with her—the very things she had been so jealous of—had only made her feel so alone because she so badly needed to be all of those things with Lizzie too.
The realization must have shown in her eyes because Kane frowned in response. ‘Thanks, anyway, but I don’t need your pity, Rhiannon. I was sick; now I’m not. End of story.’
For all the times he had read her correctly, he was way, way off base with how she was feeling this time. ‘I’m not—’
‘Yes, you are.’
No, not in the way he thought she was. It wasn’t pity; if anything, it was a new found understanding and respect. If she had known back then what she knew now…
Kane took a deep breath, his shoulders rising again as he dragged his large hands out of his pockets. Then he stepped closer and Rhiannon held her breath while she waited to see what he would do next.
She almost sighed as she breathed in the cinnamon scent of him up close. She almost closed her eyes as his closeness overwhelmed her.
He leaned his head in a little, his breath stirring the hair against her neck while he focused on a point past her ear. ‘So now you know. As to the spoiling Lizzie issue that we started this with, you’ll have to get used to it for a little while. But I’m not trying to buy her affection.’
Rhiannon turned her head slowly, tilting her chin upwards at the same time in one fluid motion so that she could look into his eyes up close. But when she did, she couldn’t seem to find words, even ones to reason with him on the subject of spoiling Lizzie. All she could do was stare, as if she was suddenly seeing him for the first time.
Kane’s eyes studied her in a similar way, his gaze rising to sweep over the hair against her forehead, over each of her arched eyebrows, from one eye to the other.
And Rhiannon couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t remember ever wanting someone to kiss her so badly.
But his thick lashes merely brushed against his tanned skin a couple of times before he spoke in a husky whisper. ‘I do want her to love me of her own free will. Of course I want that. What father wouldn’t?’
‘She already does.’
‘I hope so. She’s the only child I’m ever likely to have, thanks to the cancer.’
CHAPTER NINE
THEY slipped into a routine; one nowhere near as dreadful as Rhiannon had once thought it would be, but not completely comfortable either. Because fairly soon she was all too aware of the fact that she had gone back to relying on Lizzie as a shield.
And that just wasn’t right. She should be able to have at least some kind of relationship with her child’s father, shouldn’t she? It had even seemed possible for a fleeting moment—tentative maybe, but a place to start. And true, she was discovering there was much more to like about him than hate, but she still couldn’t let herself relax when he was around.
So each day became some kind of test, with a whole new set of thoughts and feelings for her to resolve. She would watch him when he couldn’t see her doing it, she would listen carefully to his voice when he spoke, would try to put all the pieces of his personality together so that he made sense to her, all the while so very aware of him. Because her nerve-endings would tingle with anticipation when he walked into the room, her pulse would skip through her veins every time his body was close to hers, she would smile without stopping to think about it when he laughed, and most of all her heart would twist when he let his guard down with his child and his affection for her shone in his blue eyes.
Maybe because she now knew that this child he cared so much for might be the only one he ever had and that broke her heart. Lizzie was so amazing—not that her mother was at all biased, of course—but the thought of her being the only one of her there would ever be…
It was almost too painful to think about. Not to mention being too confusing to think about, because it’d never occurred to Rhiannon to h
ave another child after Lizzie, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know why she was suddenly so obsessed by the thought of another one.
But none of that was anywhere near as consuming as the ache she felt when she thought of Kane having to fight a battle with his illness alone. If she’d been given the choice, even without love to bind them together, she now accepted that she’d been attached enough to the young man he’d been to have wanted to be there. Through all of it.
So although only recently she’d been jealous of the time he spent with her daughter, she now found she was jealous of Lizzie’s time with him. And that was unreasonable as hell from the woman who hadn’t been able to stand in the same room as him until very recently.
But she hadn’t known then what she knew now.
Meanwhile, he had slipped into his role as Lizzie’s father as if he’d always been there. He liked taking turns doing the school run, he loved her chatter in the car when they were together and how she would run out through the gates to tell him about her day. He liked spending time doing homework with her, he loved being astounded by her intelligence and her ability to problem solve—the latter another reminder of something he was good at himself. And Rhiannon knew all those things from the chatter around the table at night, which was the time she loved the most.
She loved it because they would all sit together in the warm room as Lizzie bounced the conversation back and forth between them all, forcing Rhiannon to laugh out loud when she knew she would have felt awkward letting go that much if it was just Kane there. But even that special time was laced with a bitter sweetness—allowing her a small glimpse of what family life could be like if he was a permanent feature, if things were different…
So, in between sharing the daily tasks, Rhiannon launched herself wholeheartedly into learning about the intricacies of running a house the size of Brookfield. It kept her mind focused for a few hours each day when their ‘buffer’ was at school. It was important, she told herself. After all, Kane would be gone soon but Brookfield would remain, even if her owning Brookfield and Kane owning the estate tied them together all over again. Apparently there was no escaping him.