by Lucy Clark
Tears started to bite at the back of her eyes but it was too late. Her mind had gone to the place she never usually allowed it to go. ‘No.’ The word was an agonised whisper as she started to feel, to smell, to panic.
The flames. The heat. The terror. She’d woken. Sat up with a start, instinct telling her something was wrong. She’d immediately reached out to shake Tim, to wake him up.
‘Tim. Tim!’
‘What? Did the hospital call?’
She’d always marvelled that for an obstetrician who was used to delivering babies at all hours, Tim was able to sleep so deeply and sometimes didn’t hear the phone ring unless it was right beside his ear.
‘Something’s wrong.’ She’d listened carefully and then she’d breathed in deeply. ‘Smoke! Tim. I can smell smoke.’
He’d turned over, still half-groggy. ‘Why are you whispering? If the house is on fire, whispering isn’t going to make it go away.’ He’d grinned at her, that stupid silly grin that had made her fall in love with him in the first place.
‘Tim!’ The seriousness in her voice had stopped him from teasing and he’d sat up, sniffing the air. Then his eyes had widened and he’d sat up straighter. He’d breathed deeper.
‘I do smell smoke. It’s very acrid.’ He cautiously climbed from the bed and walked to their bedroom door. Iris swallowed over the lump in her throat as she watched him, her hands clenched tightly around the bedsheets. She was usually a woman of action, a woman who liked to take charge, to be in control, but at that moment she was gripped with such overpowering terror and fear that movement was impossible.
‘Be careful.’ The words had no sound as they came from her lips but when he opened the door and padded into the hallway, she heard him start to cough. A moment later the smoke alarms started blaring, beeping their warning signal. It was enough of a shock to break her from her trance and Iris sprang out of bed, pulled on the first set of clothes she found and started shoving as much as she could into a bag.
Clothes. Jewellery. Photographs. Trinkets. Things. Useless things she’d realised much later as she’d woken up in hospital, lying on her stomach in the burns unit. The fire had well and truly taken hold at the rear of their house, which had backed onto a national park. Of course, Tim, being the big damn hero that he was, had decided to fight the fire, to put it out, to save their home.
Iris turned her head from side to side, her hair knotting and sliding around her face, the tears breaking over her in one wave after the other. ‘No. No! Why didn’t you listen?’
She’d screamed for him to come back. She’d shoved the bag of things out of the front bedroom window and gone to get her husband. They’d needed to get out of the house. Nothing else had mattered but their lives. Everything could be replaced…everything except human life.
‘Stupid. Why? Why?’ she whispered, anger at his idiocy coursing through her.
She sat upright, her vision completely blurred by the tears sliding down her cheeks as she cried. Grabbing the nearest object she could find, she picked it up and hurled it against the wall with mounting fury.
The loud sound pierced her reverie and it took a split second for her to realise what she’d done. She’d smashed a vase. An empty vase, which had been provided with the rest of the furnishings. A vase that didn’t belong to her. Wiping at her eyes and swallowing over the lumps in her throat, she scrambled across the floor and started to pick up the pieces, illogically trying to fit them back together again. When her trembling fingers couldn’t make them stick, a fresh wave of tears erupted and she crouched in the corner, her anger, her frustration, her pain seeping from her as it never had before.
‘Iris?’
‘I don’t want this,’ she whimpered, her face almost covered over with her wild hair.
‘Iris. It’s me. Dex.’
‘I don’t want this,’ she said again, her words more forceful. She was still in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees as she slowly lifted her head to look blindly at the man before her.
‘Dex?’ Her tone was almost confused at finding him there.
‘Shh.’ Dex bent down and sat on the floor near her, mindful of the broken glass. So that’s what had shattered against the wall, startling him beyond belief. He’d stopped making his dinner, ensuring everything was switched off, before heading next door. The door had been locked but thankfully he had a master key. As an owner of the clinic, it was a security measure both he and Joss employed, although this was the first time he’d ever used the key.
‘I hate it.’ Iris’s tone was full of fear.
‘I know.’
Dex didn’t make any attempt to touch her. No, of course he wouldn’t. She was the elephant queen. She was scarred, she was broken. What man in their right mind would ever want her?
‘Iris. What is it?’ Dex could hardly see her face through her mass of hair, hair his fingers itched to touch, to smooth away from her face, but now was not the time. She needed him and he’d be here for her. The feeling that he could help, that he could really do something for her, filled him with a warmth he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Perhaps because he’d been so self-centred, so self-focused as he’d tried to heal his own hurts, he’d forgotten just how good it felt to help someone else.
He waited a while for her to answer but she kept staring out into nothingness, hiccuping now and then as the tears dried on her cheeks. He looked around the room and spotted a box of tissues on the coffee table. He leaned over for them, reaching with his hand and only just managing to grab them. He placed them on the floor next to her. She didn’t seem to notice.
‘Iris?’ He tried again and this time put a hand on her arm. Her gaze flicked up to glare at him as she flinched. Dex immediately withdrew his hand. ‘Sorry. I just want to help.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not sure how, though.’ The last he muttered more to himself than to her.
Iris looked away and Dex was once again left trying to decide what to do. Should he leave? No. She was in a far worse state than she’d been the last time he’d seen her like this. Perhaps he should give her some space. Go and put the kettle on, or see if she had anything stronger than tea. Whisky. Brandy. If she didn’t have any, he could run down to the pub and get some. Whatever she needed, he’d be there to help with.
‘Idiot.’
Dex looked at Iris. ‘All right. Not what I was going for. Hero. Gallant knight. Rescuer even. I’d have settled for any one of those.’
Iris closed her eyes, feeling a lot of the tension leave her at his words. This time when she opened her eyes to look at him, she was really looking at him, able to focus on the present, not the past.
‘I didn’t mean you.’
‘Oh, well, that’s pleasing to know.’ He withdrew a tissue from the box and held it out to her. She took it. ‘I hope that means I’m still in with a chance for one of my options, then.’
Iris couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips, although it was a rather tired one. ‘I wouldn’t want your ego to swell.’ She accepted the tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
Dex chuckled. ‘Fair enough.’
‘I must look a sight.’
‘No. You look…’ Unable to stop himself, he reached out and brushed her hair from her face, the soft silky strands smooth and glorious as he tucked them behind her ears. He brushed a thumb over the smattering of freckles that kissed her nose and cheeks. ‘Lovely.’
‘Liar.’
He nodded at that, realising she was incapable of accepting his truth. ‘Possibly, but it’s been my experience to tell the occasional white lie, especially when a woman has been crying.’
‘Experience.’ She breathed in, her breath catching as she recovered from crying. ‘You’ve had plenty of that.’
‘I meant my sister.’
‘Melissa?’ Total confusion reigned through her clouded mind. ‘When was she ups—?’
‘Not Melissa. My other sister.’
Iris stopped at that, sort of pleased he wasn’t pushing her to talk about her past
. She felt foolish enough that he’d come in to witness her breakdown. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Xandi. Alexandria is her full name.’ He almost sighed as he spoke.
‘You miss her?’
‘I do, and Mason too. They’re twins.’
‘How much younger?’ Iris knew a bit about Dex but it was more of the background as to why he’d been adopted in the first place, rather than the actual life he’d led.
‘Almost seven years.’ He shook his head. ‘So many clues. They were all there. You think I would have twigged.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I remember my mother going to the doctor’s a lot. Of course, most of her appointments were whilst I was at school but now I know she’d been going to an in vitro fertilisation clinic. It’s how she became pregnant with the twins. It’s why we’re so far apart in age. It’s why we don’t look anything like each other. Xandi’s almost the spitting image of my mother and Mason, well, let’s just say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it.’
‘You’re still hurting.’ It was a statement as the tone of his voice had become quite dark and vehement.
‘I was stupid.’
‘You weren’t stupid, Dex.’
‘No. I was an idiot. You were right before.’
‘I didn’t call you an idiot,’ she pointed out.
‘Who did you call an idiot?’ His sudden change of subject surprised her. ‘Who was it who made you throw that vase? Who made you cry so badly, it looks as though your heart’s been broken all over again?’ Dex was pretty sure he knew the answer but he guessed Iris had a few things of her own she hadn’t faced.
They were a pair. Both of them running from their pasts. He’d needed to turn the conversation back onto her to get the focus off himself. Thinking about his siblings only made him angry and he didn’t want to be angry right now. He wanted to be supportive.
Apart from that, he wanted to know about her past, her tragedy…the fire. The woman had not only been plaguing his dreams but his daytime thoughts as well. More often than not, he found himself wondering what exactly had happened to her. Why had she decided to come to Didja? Why now? He also wanted to discover if there was anything specific that was triggering these outbursts of hers. If so, why were they coming now? From what she’d said before, it had been quite a few years since her husband had died. Why were old memories, thoughts, events surfacing now? What had happened to trigger it all again?
Or perhaps, it wasn’t ‘again’. Perhaps Iris had locked her thoughts, her inner most feelings away so deeply that they were only now beginning to surface. She’d left Sydney, she’d stepped outside of her comfort zone and perhaps that was all the catalyst she’d needed to get her through to the next stage in her grieving process.
‘If it wasn’t me,’ he pushed again, ‘then who? Who are you so mad at?’
‘My husband. Tim.’ Her words were flat, deflated, and yet the pain was still there.
‘He died in the fire?’ It was the best guess and one his gut instinct told him was spot on.
‘Yes.’ Iris looked past him, her words soft and matter-of-fact. ‘I called to him. I told him to come back. To get out. But he wouldn’t listen.’
She was back there. Back in the smoke-filled corridor of her house, running in slow motion to where Tim was in the kitchen.
‘He was filling buckets of water and tossing them onto the flames that were licking at the doorway from the back of the house. The heat was intense. The smoke was rolling on the ceiling. The fire alarms were beeping. I grabbed his arm. I tried to pull him from the room. He wanted to fight the stupid fire. Idiot.’
‘You’re angry with him.’
Iris blinked and looked over at Dex, only then realising she’d been speaking out loud. ‘Yes. The house was irrelevant. Everything was irrelevant. Nothing mattered. In that one instant nothing mattered. Not the house or the things in it. Not the cars, not the status in the neighbourhood or at work. Nothing mattered more than our lives and Tim…he just didn’t seem to realise that. He kept saying it wasn’t too bad. That he could put the fire out. He told me to go. Told me to ring the neighbours. To warn them. To call the fire brigade. He was in management mode. He was in charge and you didn’t argue with Tim when he was in charge.’ There was angry humour in her words.
‘Except he wasn’t,’ Dex guessed.
‘No. The fire was.’ Iris raised a hand to cover her eyes as a fresh bout of tears loomed. ‘He was an idiot.’
‘He was acting on instinct.’
Iris dropped her hand and glared at him. ‘Then his instincts were wrong.’
‘Yes. They were. He made a mistake. He paid the ultimate price. It’s tragic but you lived, Iris. You survived.’
‘I went back for him.’ She shook her head. ‘It was wrong but I couldn’t…I just couldn’t.’ The tears came again and she didn’t try to stop them. She needed to talk. She needed to say these words out loud, words she hadn’t spoken to anyone—ever.
‘He was lying there. A beam had fallen.’ She swallowed. ‘It didn’t matter. It had knocked him unconscious so he didn’t feel a thing. I tried to get him out. I grabbed his arms and I pulled. I probably severed his spinal c—’ She stopped and looked at Dex. ‘The heat was so intense. The smoke filled my lungs, stung at my eyes. It was trying to choke me. I fell down, still tugging at Tim’s hands, silently begging him to get out. He didn’t. He left me. He loved the status, the house, the cars, the…the everything more than he loved me. He left me!’
‘I doubt it was a conscious decision, Iris. He was just trying to protect his home.’
‘Why didn’t he try to protect me?’ The words were spoken quietly. ‘Why didn’t he choose to come with me? To stay with me? To listen to me?’
‘I don’t know, but he didn’t and you need to accept that. He’s gone.’ Dex placed a hand on her cheek, cupping the smooth skin. The fire hadn’t touched her face. There were no scars there, not that he cared. He knew some people thought him shallow, that he went from one woman to the next because he was too afraid of commitment, but it wasn’t shallowness that kept him from seeking out a permanent relationship.
It was the fear of getting hurt. Pure and simple.
No, he didn’t care about Iris’s scars. She was incredibly beautiful and he was sure she had no idea of that fact. He hoped she’d let him show her, let her see how she was perceived through another person’s eyes. He was also pleased with the fact that she wasn’t shrinking away from his touch.
‘I hate him for leaving me.’
‘And you have every right to feel that way.’
Iris looked at him then. Her big green eyes were filled with uncertainty. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Iris, your emotions are your own. No one can tell you what to do, what to think, or what’s right or wrong. If you feel a certain way, then feel it. Be angry at him. Hate him for leaving you, because once you acknowledge the emotion, only then can you start to heal.’ After he’d spoken these words, he slowly dropped his hand. It was as though he was also talking to himself.
‘Wow.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. You continually surprise me, Dex Crawford.’ Iris shook her head, pulled out another tissue and blew her nose. ‘How do you know so much? You did a minor in psychology?’
‘No.’ He shook his head and started to carefully gather up the pieces of broken vase. ‘The way you feel about your husband is how I feel about my parents.’
‘Because they lied to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’ve been owning your emotions?’ There was a hint of scepticism in her words.
He laughed without humour. ‘Only within the last few weeks. It’s as though something’s changed, something’s happened in my life, and things are…well, they’re different.’
‘Is it Melissa?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever it is, it has me thinking about my brother and sister again. It has me won
dering what my parents are doing.’
‘You want to see them again?’
‘I don’t know if I’d go that far just yet, but the fact that I’m thinking about it…’
‘Acknowledging your emotions.’ Iris nodded slowly as she pushed her hair back from her face.
‘Exactly.’ He stood and carried the broken fragments to the bin in the kitchen. Was that what his life was like? Broken fragments? If so, how on earth was he supposed to piece it back together?
When he returned, Iris was starting to stand up. She wobbled, her leg having fallen asleep in the cramped position, and Dex’s arms instantly came around her.
‘You all right?’ he asked, his breath fanning across her face, wisps of her strawberry-blonde hair rising slightly. Gosh, she smelled good. Did she have any idea just how insane she made him feel?
‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ She leaned into him, feeling highly self-conscious as his hands touched her back. It felt so good to be touched. Did he have any idea of just how good he felt? Iris closed her eyes for a second, savouring the moment of being in his arms once more. She half expected him to let go because what man in his right mind would want her? She was defective.
She shifted and put weight on her leg then winced with the sparkling pain.
‘Pins and needles?’ he asked, and she eased back a little, opening her eyes so she could look at him. They were close. Their breath mingling together as the atmosphere around them grew tense with intimacy.
‘Uhuh.’ Iris swallowed over the sudden dryness in her throat. Dex was looking down at her, his brown eyes intense and powerful. His gaze dropped to her mouth and her lips parted at the same time her heart rate increased. ‘Dex.’ His name was a whisper upon her lips.
‘Iris.’ He shook his head very slowly from side to side. ‘Forgive me.’
She’d been about to ask for what when he quickly lowered his head, claiming her lips with his own.