by Lori Wilde
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
She didn’t say a word, but he knew she understood. She always did.
They ordered in for dinner—Thai takeout from the place around the corner. Elizabeth insisted on them sharing a bath afterward and her skin was still damp when they made love for the second time later that night.
She fell asleep afterward. Nate waited until she was breathing deeply before climbing out of bed and walking barefoot to Olivia’s room.
The doorknob was cool in his hand and he hesitated a moment. Did he really want to do this? He closed his eyes for a long beat. Then he twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. He flicked the light on and blinked in the sudden bright.
Everything was as she’d left it. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think his sister had simply stepped out for the night. Her iPod lay abandoned on her bedside table, the wires for her earphones dangling to the floor. A pair of jeans were thrown over the end of the bed and her usual clutter covered her dressing table—makeup and books and notes to herself and jewelry. He fingered one of her rings, picked up a book and opened it to where she’d bent the page to mark her spot.
He returned to the bed and sat on it. He knew he should pack up her room, that it was morbid and maybe even unhealthy to leave it this way, but there was so much of her in here: the photos she’d taped to the walls, the quilt she’d made for the bed and the curtains for the window. He didn’t want to pack it away. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.
Grief closed his throat and he reached for her iPod to distract himself. The battery was dead, so he opened the bedside drawer instead. Her diary was in there, along with a jumble of pens and the old slide phone she’d abandoned when the iPhone became the must-have accessory of the year. The dull shine of light on foil caught his eye and he shifted her diary to one side and picked up the small, square packet. A condom.
He ran his thumb over the giveaway circle beneath the foil. Six months ago he would have been unthrilled in the extreme to find this in his sister’s drawer. Like any big brother, he’d hated the idea of her being hurt or taken advantage of or vulnerable.
Now, he hoped like hell that she’d had the pleasure of being skin to skin with someone she cared about before she died. He hoped she’d experienced lust and joy and desire. He hoped—
He closed his hand, crushing the foil packet within his fist. For a long moment he sat, his head bowed. Then he stood and flicked off the light and went back to bed.
NATE WAS QUIET IN THE morning and Elizabeth did her best to lighten his mood. She insisted that he take her to his favorite local breakfast place, then she suggested a walk through the nearby market. By the time they returned to the house and Nate had grabbed some extra clothes from his wardrobe it was midafternoon and he was smiling more readily.
She couldn’t help wondering if that was because she’d done such a great job distracting him or because they were leaving this beautiful, sad house and its ghosts behind.
She kept up a steady stream of chatter as she drove to the island, telling him what she’d bought for her grandparents for Christmas and challenging him to guess what she’d bought for him. She’d been hoping he might reciprocate by talking about his experience at Smartsell the previous day but he didn’t and she reminded herself that Nate had been living in his self-created, hermetically sealed isolation for a long time. When he was ready to share, he would.
They drove over the San Remo bridge just after five. They stopped in town to get groceries, and it was nearly six by the time she turned into their street. A shiny black sports car was parked in the driveway at Nate’s place and she slowed as she approached the house.
“That’s Jarvie’s car, isn’t it?” she asked, recognizing it from Jarvie’s last visit. “Yeah.”
The driver’s door on the sports car opened as she parked at the curb, and Nate’s business partner stood, pulling off his sunglasses and tossing them into the car. He stared through the windshield at Nate, his expression grim.
“What’s going on, Nate?” she asked, but he was already opening his door and getting out.
She didn’t understand why Jarvie was here and why he was looking so thunderous. He and Nate had spent almost the whole day together yesterday, and even though Nate hadn’t spoken about it last night, he’d seemed happy enough with his day’s work. So why was Jarvie looking as if he wanted to rip the head off something?
She scrambled to exit the car and was in time to see Jarvie toss a folder at Nate. Nate was too slow to catch it and the folder hit his chest and bounced off, sending a sheaf of closely typed pages fanning across the front lawn.
“No. Never gonna happen. You got that?” Jarvie said.
Nate shrugged. “If you don’t want it, I’ll offer it to someone else.”
“You can’t do that,” Jarvie said.
“According to my lawyer, I can. If I offer my half of the business to you and you don’t want it, I’m free to sell it to someone who is mutually acceptable to both of us.”
Elizabeth stood to one side, trying to catch up with what was going on. Nate was selling his half of the business? And why was he talking about his lawyers?
“No one is going to be acceptable to me. We started that business together, Nate. You and me.”
“If you look over the offer, it’s more than fair. I know you can raise the funds. In a couple of years, you’ll be debt free and Smartsell will be all yours.”
Nate’s voice and demeanor were very calm and reasonable and she realized that he’d been expecting this. Which was why he hadn’t seemed surprised to see Jarvie waiting for them when they pulled up.
“You didn’t go to Smartsell yesterday,” she guessed. “You went to your lawyer, didn’t you?”
Nate glanced at her. She saw the answer in his eyes.
“What’s wrong with the way things have been going?” Jarvie said. “I know I’ve been bugging you, and I’ll back off if that’s what you want. But selling out is a mistake, Nate. When you’ve had some more time, when you’re ready to come back into the business—”
“That’s never going to happen.”
“Bullshit. I know the accident knocked you around. You’re cut up about Olivia. But you’ll get past it and you’ll want back in and I’m more than happy to wait—”
“You need to listen to what I’m saying, okay? It’s over. Smartsell isn’t fine, it needs more focus. You need to move on, and I’m holding you back. Take the offer, Jarvie.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll sell to someone else.”
Jarvie’s jaw bunched. He took a step toward Nate. Elizabeth tensed, worried things were going to get physical. Jarvie was so wound up and Nate so determined….
“Don’t do this. You don’t need to. Smartsell will wait. We’ll wait as long as it takes.”
“Trust me. In a few days’ time, you’ll realize this is the best option for everyone.”
Nate turned to go but Jarvie grabbed the front of his shirt in both fists.
“You can’t just walk away. Not this time. I won’t let you. This was our dream, man. We freaking well clawed that business up out of nothing. You can’t flush all that away.” Jarvie’s face was stark with anger and grief. “I don’t want to do this without you, man,” he said, his voice catching. “Please, think about what you’re doing.”
Elizabeth pressed her fingertips against her lips. The emotion on Jarvie’s face was so raw, so intimate, she had to look away.
“Let me go,” Nate said. He tried to pull free but Jarvie wouldn’t release him.
“You can’t throw everything away because of one bad thing, Nate. You’ve got a life, a good life. You can’t trash it. You can’t walk away from everything, change everything…”
Jarvie’s voice broke and he lowered his head, his knuckles showing white as he clasped Nate’s shirt. Nate didn’t say anything, simply waited patiently as he stared over Jarvie’s shoulder.
The expression on his face made Elizabeth’s bl
ood run cold. She’d thought he was getting better, slowly but surely. She’d thought yesterday had been a huge step forward. But the bleakness she saw, the resignation…
After a long, tense moment, Jarvie unclenched his hands. Nate hovered for a beat as though some other force held him, then he turned and strode into the street and took the track to the beach.
12
ELIZABETH GLANCED AT JARVIE. The other man’s face was twisted with grief and she immediately looked away again. She bent and began collecting the papers strewn across the lawn to give him a moment to compose himself. After a short beat, Jarvie joined her. They worked in silence, then she stood and handed her stack of papers over to him.
“Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?”
He shook his head. “I need to get back. But thanks.”
He walked to his car. She wanted to say more to him, to reassure him that Nate would change his mind, that this decision to opt out of the business once and for all was only a knee-jerk reaction. But she knew it hadn’t been. Nate had stayed up half the night reviewing the accumulated Smartsell paperwork. Then he’d made a very cold, very considered decision and asked her to drive him to the city so he could act on it.
Jarvie’s engine fired and she stepped to one side as the car shot out into the street. Gravel spurted under the wide tires as the car took off.
She walked up the driveway, and with each step her anger grew. Nate had made huge decisions—major, life-changing decisions—and hadn’t said a word to her during the two-hour drive to the city. He hadn’t said a word last night, either, or this afternoon when they drove home again. She’d told him about her plans to apply for a teaching job in Melbourne—to move countries, goddamn it—and he’d been sitting on this huge, monumental decision all along.
She unlocked the house, then stood in the kitchen frowning and fuming and feeling helpless. Nate selling his half of the business was a mistake—a huge one. The life he was living now—this small niche he’d carved out for himself of sun and surf and sex and beer—was a coping mechanism, a holding pattern. It wasn’t forever. It certainly wasn’t the measure of his world. She understood that perhaps he couldn’t see that right now, that he was too busy surviving one day at a time and keeping his demons at bay, but she could and she knew that he would regret divesting himself of what was once obviously a huge part of his life.
So many times over the past few weeks she’d bitten her tongue and chosen not to push Nate. But maybe she should have. Maybe she should have urged him to find a therapist, or return to his therapist, if he’d ever had one. She’d been quietly encouraging him to drink less and open up more, but maybe she should have forced him to talk every time he clammed up instead of waiting for him to talk in his own stubborn time.
She sighed and pushed her fingers through her hair. She didn’t know. She wasn’t an expert. She’d simply been following her instincts where he was concerned, but maybe they’d been wrong.
She looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. He’d been gone for nearly half an hour. If he was acting true to form, he wouldn’t be back for hours yet.
It was nearly full dark by now. She paced a little, then decided to have a quick shower to wash away the stress of the past few hours. Maybe by the time she was done Nate would be back and they could have the heart-to-heart they so sorely needed.
She headed into the bathroom and turned the shower on. Water sprayed out onto the bathroom floor and she tugged the shower door closed to stop the tiles from getting soaked while she undressed. The door slid two inches before jumping its tracks and wedging itself open. She ground her teeth. This was exactly what she didn’t need. She gave the screen an experimental tug, but it didn’t budge.
Is it too much to ask for this one thing to go right? This one little thing?
Setting her jaw, she got a grip on the jammed panel and tried to force it into moving. For some reason it seemed incredibly important that she solve this problem right now.
“Stupid blooming thing.”
She and the door remained locked in mortal combat for a full twenty seconds as she grunted and pushed and pulled. She was about to give up when the door suddenly gave with a clattering rush. She staggered, off balance, and her feet slipped on the wet tiles.
Instinctively she flailed to try and regain her balance. Her hand smashed into the glass of the shower door and it splintered with an almighty crack. She felt a lancing pain as jagged glass slashed into her arm. She barely had time to register the sting before blood spurted from the wound.
It was so red and there seemed to be so much of it so quickly that for a moment she simply stood there, transfixed. There was blood dripping down her arm, blood on the glass, blood circling the shower drain, blood on the bathroom floor.
In the back of her mind, a calm voice told her that she needed to stop the flow—quickly. The towel was on the floor and she squatted to pick it up. The world went black around the edges at the movement and she dropped to her knees.
She blinked, fighting the dizziness. The last thing she wanted to do right now was faint. Not while her arm was bleeding freely.
Warmth dripped from her fingers in an unending stream and she folded the towel with her left hand and wrapped it around her right forearm. She glanced down at the wound as she did so and immediately wished she hadn’t. A long, gaping slit bisected her forearm and she could see the deep red of muscle.
The dizziness hit again and she pressed the towel tightly over the gash. She remembered that she’d read somewhere that she should raise it, too, to keep the wound above her heart. Or was that for a snake bite? She shook her head. It was hard to think straight.
Belatedly it occurred to her that she needed an ambulance.
Talk about being slow off the mark—an ambulance should have been the first thing she’d thought of. Her right arm pressed to her side and her left hand clamped over the towel, she leaned her shoulder against the bathroom wall and tried to stand so she could reach the phone in the kitchen. Her thighs quivered with the effort and her vision got dark around the edges again. She sank back onto the floor.
Fine. She’d crawl to the phone. Not a problem.
But even that was beyond her trembling limbs. She looked down and saw that the towel was soaked through and it occurred to her that she was in big trouble. Really big.
She closed her eyes, and all she could think of was Nate. If she didn’t get to a phone, she’d never see him again. The past few weeks would be it. Short and sweet. She would never see him recover. She would never get a chance to tell him that she loved him. He would come home and find her and the blood…God, no, she couldn’t do that to him. She had to move. Had to.
Somehow she rolled onto her knees. Her shoulder against the wall, she made it to the hallway. She stared at the distant rectangle of the kitchen doorway. It seemed a very long way away. But she had to keep moving.
Move or die, Lizzy.
The voice in her head spoke with Nate’s voice, in the exact tone he used when he was ordering her about on the Ducky. She tucked her head into her chest and shuffled forward another foot.
Come on, Lizzy. Pick it up. Snoozers are losers.
She grit her teeth and fought against the horrible weakness stealing over her. It was only fifteen feet away. She could crawl fifteen feet. Of course she could.
NATE SAT ON THE BEACH until it was almost full dark. He thought about going to the pub, but he knew Elizabeth was waiting for him at home. With questions, no doubt.
He’d done the right thing. For Smartsell, for Jarvie. For himself. He had. Absolutely.
And yet doubt still gnawed at him. He and Jarvie had spent countless hours sweating in his rental apartment while they perfected the code for Smartsell 1.0. They’d recruited a handful of retailers and offered the prototype software for free, then they’d risked everything they owned to get a business loan to finance their start-up. Nathan had been so determined to make it work. His mother had been sick by then and he’d known it woul
d soon be just him and Olivia. He’d been terrified of letting her down, not providing for her, not giving her everything she would have had if their parents were alive. He’d worked around the clock, tirelessly. He’d given the business his blood, sweat and tears and he’d loved every minute of it. Been fiercely proud and more than a little bit cocky. For a while he’d even gone a little overboard—the expensive car, the big house, lots of splashy dinners. Then he and Jarvie had settled into their success and starting really digging in and building the business.
And then he’d had the accident, and the world had shifted on its axis and all the rules had changed.
Olivia was gone. All that effort, and she was gone and none of it meant a thing. The money, the house, the success—he’d swap it all in a heartbeat to have her back. But that was never going to happen.
The tide was starting to come in. He watched the waves chase each other up the sand for a few more minutes, then pushed himself to his feet. Shoes in hand, he trudged up the beach.
The kitchen light was on as he walked up the driveway. He tossed his shoes beside the back steps and entered the house.
He’d expected to find Elizabeth making dinner, but the kitchen was empty. He was about to go check the studio to see if she was out there when something caught the corner of his eye. He glanced toward the hallway and saw a figure huddled on the carpet. Dread thumped low in his belly and he lunged forward.
She was unconscious, her face gray, and there was blood everywhere—on her chest, down her jeans, smeared along the carpet. A towel was wrapped around her forearm, the fabric stained crimson. “Lizzy. Jesus.”
He threw himself to his knees and pressed his trembling fingers to her neck. A pulse throbbed faintly against his fingers. He let his breath out on a relieved hiss.
She was alive. Thank God.
He and Jarvie had insisted all their staff have first-aid training, and snatches of information flashed across his mind. He needed to stop the bleeding by binding it and elevating her arm. Then he needed to get her to help because she’d lost a lot of blood.