Megan grabbed the bottle from her hand. It was almost empty. She tossed the bottle aside, hoping most of the Tequila had dribbled past Isobel’s mouth. She threw her arm around Isobel and said softly, “What happened?”
Isobel pushed away with surprising strength.
“What the bloody hell did Ian do?” Kate demanded as she reached them.
The look Isobel gave Kate was glassy and wild. “Don’t eveh shmention that bastard’s name again.”
The alcohol must have just hit her bloodstream, Which meant she hadn’t been sitting on that porch for long. “Let’s go inside, okay?” Megan tried to wrap her arm around Isobel again as she mouthed ‘Coffee’ at Kate.
“He can rot in shell.” Isobel struggled loose and stumbled forward. “I shope his balls shrivel to tiny prunes and attack him in the shnight.”
Kate and Megan caught her before she landed face-down and, between the two of them, managed to haul her up the steps and inside. Which wasn’t their best idea, Megan realised, when Isobel started smashing random objects against the wall.
“She’s a back-shtabbing bitch.” A blue-veined Ming vase that Megan knew had been in the family for centuries went flying.
Megan dived for it, too late. The fragile China shattered into a million pieces.
“She?” Kate asked, smoothing her voice into trance-like calm as she took tentative steps closer to Isobel. “Is Ian having an affair?”
Isobel’s bitter laugh cut through the air. Her eyes focussed and her tongue sharpened. “You know what’s sad? I wouldn’t care half as much if it had been with anyone other than Camelia. I’m just as bad as her.” She laughed again, but this time it was a high-pitched cackle of the temporarily demented. She picked up a spindle-legged side table and lobbed it across the room. The delicate legs splintered as the table bounced on the oak-slatted floor.
Camelia. That was the name of one of Isobel’s cousins from Finn’s Lodge opening. The brunette girl who would’ve been quite beautiful if she unpinched her face once in a while.
“Finn,” Megan called out to Kate. “Call Finn.”
Kate backed off in the direction of the kitchen, nodding.
Fury seemed to have burned through the alcohol in Isobel’s blood. Now she was merely frothing fury. She kicked out at a nearby chair and grabbed a lamp.
Megan’s heart pounded in fear and concern. Not just fury. Isobel was having a genuine meltdown. She dithered between restraining Isobel and saving the valuables. What would be more cathartic?
Smashing things, Megan decided. Isobel was flinging everything against the wall on the opposite side of the room, so there was no danger she’d hurt herself with flying debris. Megan hauled a set of nested tables closer and fed them to Isobel one by one, leading her further from the mantelpiece as she did so. The porcelain miniatures lining the mantelpiece included photographs of Isobel’s mother and she’d never forgive herself if she trashed those.
Kate returned and quickly caught on to the change in tactics, helping Megan rescue the odd item that might have sentimental value. There wasn’t much left of Isobel’s front room by the time Finn appeared at the door. Jack was right behind him.
Isobel took one look at Finn, then ran into his arms and collapsed against his chest in a sobbing heap.
Megan made her way to Jack and led him outside. Her fingers trembled with the aftershock.
“Are you okay?” Jack’s hands came out, stroking her hair, tilting her face up for inspection. “What happened?”
“Didn’t Finn tell you?” Kate answered. She’d followed them outside.
Jack glanced at her. “He just said Isobel needed him and then he clammed up.” His gaze came back to Megan. “I knew you girls were together and I was worried.”
“We’re fine,” Megan assured him, linking her hand in his. Their fingers twined together, feeding warmth into her shivers and sweeping away the tremors.
“Well,” Kate informed him, “the wedding’s off. That’s what happened.”
“The party,” Megan yelped. The least of their worries, but there were ten girls waiting for the fun to start.
“I’ll go,” Kate offered. “Keys in the car?”
Megan nodded. “Thanks.”
“Do you want a ride home?” Jack asked Megan.
“I’ll wait here for Kate,” she told him. “Isobel might still need us.”
She shook her head, slightly dazed at the events that had unfolded. She’d never seen Isobel lose her composure, let alone go on a rampage like that. And Ian… Isobel and Ian. Their happiness was supposed to have been locked up and sealed. Happiness guaranteed. But it had all fallen apart in the blink of an eye.
Jack’s grip around her fingers tightened a fraction. “Would you like to take a walk?”
Her gaze went up to the clouds rolling over the blue sky, driven by a wind that had gathered a lot more momentum since the last time she’d looked. The air carried the scent of a brewing, salty storm. The air also carried the memory of another storm, rattling the hatches of Smugglers Inn and trapping them in a fire-roasted room.
She gave Jack’s hand a tug and walked down the path with him, through the gate. On the other side of the road, she paused to remove her boots before sinking her feet into the cool, grainy sand. He went on ahead, then turned to face her with that ragged grin. Words of love rumbled inside her chest, needing out, threatening to burst through the walls and fracture her heart into as many pieces as Isobel’s Ming vase.
She ran to Jack, then past him, and kept running until the waves lapped her feet. She dug her toes into the wet sand and kept her gaze on the horizon. Gulped down huge breaths. Okay, so she’d tell him how she felt. Hope for the best. Expect the worst. Maybe her and Jack would never have a smoothe ride. Maybe their future would hold a tempest of storms, one brewing on the tail of the next. Maybe he’d leave in the morning.
But nothing came with guarantees.
Look at Isobel.
She sensed him at her side before he spoke. “It’s peaceful, isn’t it?”
Peace. He was nesting next door. She wouldn’t risk chasing him out when he’d only just begun to carve his space into the only house he’d ever attempted to turn into a home.
At all costs, she had to protect that. And as she brought her gaze in from the ocean and onto him, she thought she knew exactly how. She dropped onto the sand and patted the spot beside her.
He sat behind her instead, folding his arms around her waist and pulling her back between his drawn up knees so she was lying against his chest, his hands folded across her belly and stroking mindlessly.
She closed her eyes and breathed the words out, “I’m putting 21b on the market.” She held her next breath, but that hadn’t been nearly as hard as she’d thought. “I’m offering you first option, if you want it.”
“You love your house.” His hands stilled on her belly. “I don’t understand.” His arms around her stiffened. “Is this because of us?”
“Not just because of us,” she lied. She loved her house, but she loved Jack more and she couldn’t keep it inside a moment longer. But if he didn’t want her love, she’d be the one to leave so he could stay and she wanted him to know that up front.
“People are flawed,” she went on, searching for the best way to explain. “Love is flawed. Nothing’s guaranteed and it’s not meant to be easy.” She smiled as she finally understood what he’d been saying that morning at bunny island about the uncertainty and surprise being part of the perfect shot. “If we don’t work out, you won’t want us to be living on top of each other and neither would I. Our house…your home, has no bearing on what happens between us.”
It wasn’t coming out quite right, Megan knew, but she didn’t have a better way to put it. If he loved her, if they found their forever, then it wouldn’t matter who owned what portion of the house. If he didn’t, or if he couldn’t, then she wouldn’t be the one to drive him from his home.
She turned in his embrace to look at him, to tell him
how very much in love with him she was. Once he knew that, he’d figure out what she’d been trying to explain.
Chapter 12
Jack couldn’t breathe. There was a pressure on his lungs, pressing out the air and refusing to let fresh oxygen in. Megan turned within his arms, looked up at him. Her face was blurred. He blinked, but his vision didn’t clear.
“Jack?”
He scrambled backward and shot to his feet. He tried to suck in a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to reach his lungs. He staggered back another a foot. “Megan, I’m sorry.”
He couldn’t do this.
“What?” She got to her feet. “Jack, what are—”
“I can’t.” He held a hand out, shaking his head. “I’ve got to go.”
He shouldn’t even think of driving. The images were pounding at his head, pounding out what little oxygen was left in his lungs. He put one foot in front of the other, going through the motions without thought, barely capable. The same scene kept attacking his mind, battering down carefully constructed walls.
He was seven years old again, creeping down the stairwell of his uncle’s home. Jack hadn’t spoken a single word since Nanny Anne had pulled him into her arms and told him. Mommy and daddy were gone. No, not just gone. Dead. Gone forever. Then the grey-haired lady had come to take him away, put him in that place with rows of beds and a room full of noise. Kids older than him. Kids younger than him.
He didn’t know how many days he’d been there before the other lady had come, put him on the plane and sat with him. She’d explained about England, about Uncle Frank. He knew Uncle Frank. Mom and dad had brought him over here to England, to the farm, a few times. Uncle Frank was okay. He liked to swing Jack up high and tickle him until he screamed. Uncle Frank was fun, but Jack didn’t want his uncle now. He wanted his mom. He wanted Nanny Anne. He wanted his dad and he wanted to be in his own bedroom.
He was also thirsty, which was why he’d left the strange bed he didn’t want to be in and was creeping down the stairs. When he reached the bottom, he paused. The voices were coming from the kitchen. The door was partially open, casting a circle of light across the threshold.
“What about his grandfather?” That voice belonged to Aunty Mary. He’d met her for the first time today. Uncle Frank’s new wife. “The old man can take him.”
“Jack doesn’t know Neville, you know that. And why would he want Jack when he hasn’t spoken to his daughter since she married John?”
“I don’t want him either. This isn’t fair, Frank. This isn’t what I’d planned for.”
“And I didn’t plan for my little brother to die, Mary.” Uncle Frank sounded cross. The type of cross Jack had never heard before. It sounded a little like a sour orange he’d once bitten into and had had to spit out. “Besides, Neville is bedridden. How much longer do you think he has to live?”
“But why do we have to be burdened with him?”
“Because we don’t have a choice. He has nowhere else to go.”
“Give him to the state.”
“Mary.” Now Uncle Frank sounded like a bear growling. “How can I do that to John?”
Jack stepped back, no longer thirsty.
“Well, I’m not having it,” Aunty Mary said. “This is my life, not his. He has no right to push his way in here and drive me out.”
“Jack’s not pushing—”
“I’m not going to raise another woman’s child! You’ll have to make a choice. Either he goes or I do.”
Jack heard nothing more. He raced up the stairs and dived beneath the covers. His heart raced so fast, he wondered if it would fly out of his chest.
Jack was sitting behind the wheel of the Land Rover, parked outside his home. He didn’t know how he’d gotten here. He must have driven from the beach, unaware and unseeing. His breaths came a little easier, but the pressure was still clamping his lungs. He climbed out of the car and moved quickly, up the porch steps, through the front door, up the stairs to his bedroom. His body was still on auto-pilot, functioning without his input.
He’d chased his aunt from her marriage, from her home, from the life she was supposed to live. He’d been complacent, had known he shouldn’t stay, but he had and now he was doing the same thing to Megan. Kicking her out of her home.
In the bedroom, he pulled his bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and flung it on top of the bed. This was what he’d always feared. If he stayed in one place too long, he’d fuck up. Mess up other people’s perfect lives. He marched between the wardrobe and the bed, stripping shirts from hangers, scooping the shelves clear, cramming everything into the bag.
The sooner he got out of here, the sooner Megan could get her life back and this time, he wouldn’t return to fuck it up again.
He zipped the bag and hauled it from the bed. But instead of lugging it down the stairs, he stood in place, staring at the wall between this room and Megan’s.
Megan. He’d promised her he wouldn’t do this.
He closed his eyes, allowing pictures of her to swarm his head. He hadn’t just been complacent. He’d being falling in love. And now he was going to break his promise to the one person he’d sworn to never hurt again. He couldn’t do it. He sucked down deep breaths, and this time the air filled his lungs.
He wouldn’t walk out on her again. This time, he’d stay to end it properly.
Megan slept in fits and starts. In the waking moments, the heaviness inside her chest shared space with disbelief and numbing anger.
She couldn’t believe it.
He’d done it again.
Okay, last time she’d checked through the window, the Land Rover was still outside. He hadn’t left yet. But that didn’t fool her this time. When he’d said, “I’ve got to go,” she knew exactly what he meant. The very thing she’d been expecting from the start.
And she hadn’t even gotten around to saying she loved him. So what had chased him off? If he didn’t want the house, well, she hadn’t insisted he be the one to buy it. Maybe that had been one of her more stupid ideas, but she’d been fresh out of clever ones.
Morning arrived with the chiming of her doorbell. It could be any number of people. Kate knew what had happened. She’d wanted Megan to stay with her the night, but Megan needed to be alone. It could be Isobel, recovered and come to apologise for freaking out, although Megan didn’t blame her. It could be Finn, come to fill her in on any new developments, although God knew how much more she could take. Hell, it could even be Bill, the postman.
But she knew it would be Jack even before she dragged herself down the stairs and opened the door. She wore her favourite pair of threadbare sweater pants and hadn’t bothered running a brush through her hair. She didn’t care if she looked a fright.
“Morning,” he said, his voice as solemn as his gaze.
She swung from the doorway without a word and marched down the hall into the kitchen. He could stay or he could go. She prepared the espresso pot and set it on the gas hob to boil.
He followed through to the kitchen. “Megan, I brought you this.”
She turned.
He held a wad of loose papers in his hand. “Contract of sale for 21a.”
“How long have you had that?”
“I had the contract drawn up a couple of weeks ago. The selling price is what I paid for the place four years ago. I know how much you love this house and I always intended to offer 21a to you.”
Confirmation that her instincts had been spot on from the very beginning. He’d been planning to leave the moment he’d arrived in Corkscrew Bay. How on earth had she become so deluded along the way?
Her glare moved from the contract to him. “You could have slipped it under the door.”
A pale impression of his usual grin tugged at the side of his mouth. “Is that your way of kicking me out?”
A sigh started below her ribs and threatened to drag up a sob as it left her lips. “What are you doing here, Jack? You said you had to go. Well, just go.”
He l
ooked at her a long moment. “I will, but I’ve got a promise to keep first. I said I wouldn’t bolt in the middle of the night. I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”
“You’re kidding!” She turned her back on him and pulled a mug down from the cupboard. Damned if she’d offer him coffee. “Your sense of honour is so screwed up, you don’t even know the point at which a promise becomes absolutely worthless.”
“It’s not much,” he agreed in a gruff voice. The slap of paper on wood was followed by his footsteps down the hall.
The door closed with a click, and then it was just her and the whistling espresso pot and the stack of white papers on the kitchen table. The proof of her stupidity. She’d let her guard down, slept in his arms and put off tomorrow. Well, tomorrow had arrived and she wasn’t prepared.
She poured her coffee, added a large dollop of cream to the black syrup and took it with her upstairs.
She got nothing done that day, couldn’t think straight with the sounds of him rustling about next door. Knowing he was right there, so close and yet completely out of reach, was a poison festering the ache in her heart. But would he leave? Oh, no! He’d made a promise and he was keeping it. Why did he have to be so bloody noble?
Well, night had come and gone. He hadn’t bolted. Promise #1 to him. Did he seriously intend to hang around until she was okay?
She grabbed her phone and started typing. I’m okay.
The reply was instant. I don’t believe you.
His arrogance tipped the bucket. She tossed the phone across her desk and stormed down the stairs. Hopped across the hedge and banged on his door.
“What did I say that was so terrible?” she demanded the moment the door opened.
Not the words she’d come to say. She’d meant to tell him exactly where he and his promises could go, and to take his patronising assumptions with him.
But she’d missed the tell-tale signs this morning. Looking at him now, the stubble grazing his jaw, his hooded gaze, she saw that he was far from okay himself. “Is this about my idea to put my house on the market?”
Falling for the Guy Next Door Page 14