Endurance

by Amy Daws

  I feel my guard coming up as I file through the hallway with the Harris clan. It’s rising up over the knots in my stomach, that tickle on my back, and the heaviness in my chest. It’s climbing to numb my mind and push me back to a safe distance.

  I’m an outsider in this group. I’ve been amongst them for barely a month, and they have no idea that I’m nothing like them. I never speak to my brother. My mother is a vapid, emotionless ice queen who shames emotion. My father all but told me there’s no reality in this world where Tanner Harris could ever commit to me, let alone love me.

  The Harrises all lean on each other and talk to each other and have silent conversations by giving each other a simple look. They do public displays of affection and have a waiting room bursting with loved ones.

  That’s not me. Those aren’t my people. My people are like Indie, who understands crazy eyes and side-eyes and emotional outbursts. We’re exactly alike. Or we used to be before she found Camden.

  We’re different in the sense that she grew up in boarding schools and never knew her parents, whereas I had a home life with mine. But our pasts are one in the same. She was two plus two; I was three plus one. Our equations were different, but we both resulted in the same sum.

  Our families don’t sit in waiting rooms.

  And now I have something different right on the tips of my fingers like Indie does with Camden. A different life. A different equation. A different sum.

  Yet all I’m feeling is that bloody tickle on my shoulder blade again.

  We reach the door to Vi’s patient suite. I hesitate in the hallway while everyone else moves their way inside like they belong, including Indie.

  Tanner pauses when he realises I’m no longer beside him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I smile brightly at him. Too bright. “I’m…not going in,” I stammer. “You go ahead.”

  He moves closer to me. “Why don’t you want to come in?”

  I scoff awkwardly. “I think it’s inappropriate. Your family barely knows me. Vi just had surgery. They don’t need an outsider in there.”

  He frowns. “They know you’re important to me. What else is there to know?”

  “I know, but I’m not, you know, a part of the family.”

  “So what? Neither is Indie and she’s in there.”

  I roll my eyes. “Indie and Camden are different.”

  “Different than what?” he asks, a serious look in his eyes. “Different than you and me?”

  My jaw drops at the shock registering all over his face, as if what I’m saying is ludicrous. “Don’t be daft, Tanner. You know they are. I’m just going to grab a cab home. Call me tomorrow.”

  I move to kiss his cheek, but he jerks away from me as if I slapped him.

  “No,” he barks.

  “No, what?” I hiss, frustrated that he’s being so dramatic.

  “No, I don’t want you to leave. No, I don’t think we’re different than Cam and Indie. No, I don’t want you to believe that you’re not a part of this.”

  His words are spoken, but I don’t hear them. I chew on my lip, protective rage crescendoing inside of me like a tea kettle whistle.

  “Tanner, don’t push this,” I whisper. “I’m barely keeping it together right now. Don’t go poking the bear.”

  “Keeping what together?”

  “My mind!” I exclaim and then lower my voice as I step closer to him, looking up into his eyes. “Hayden almost lost Vi and his baby girl. Just like that. And they love each other, Tanner. Like, truly love each other. If I stay here with you, I’m going to go nuts. I’m not used to relationships and families. I feel too much. My emotions are too strong. I have no barrier with you and it’s all just…crushing me. I don’t do relationships because of this very reason. I go crazy. I get jealous and become irrational, all because my emotions allow me to get invested. Then I think of the future and I go completely off the rails with happily ever after thoughts, and you don’t want that mess! You don’t need that crazy shit coming at you in the night!”

  Tanner opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again, the brow of his forehead crinkled deep in thought.

  “See!” I exclaim, tears welling in my eyes. His silence is enough confirmation for me. “This is why I told you not to poke the bear.” I turn to walk away, mortified that I’ve shown all my true colours like an ugly, paint-splattered mural.

  He catches hold of my arm, swirling me to a halt against the wall. His fierce eyes pin me to my place. “Don’t do this, Belle. Don’t start pulling away,” he begs, cupping my face in his hands. “I adore the ground you walk on. You have to see that!”

  I shake my head, my voice trembling as I reply, “Is that enough? Is that enough for you to want a future with me? Your whole family bleeds for each other! I’m never going to be like them. I’m not built that way! Do you honestly and truly want someone who can’t give you all of that?” I point to the hospital door. “If your answer isn’t a resounding yes, we should cut our losses because, if we push this, it’s only going to make it that much harder when it all implodes.”

  Air gusts out of my mouth. My shoulders rise and fall in rapid succession as I’ve officially dropped the gauntlet and left it all on him.

  “For fuck’s sake, Belle!” Tanner jams a hand through his hair, his eyes flooded with desperation and confusion. “My sister just had a baby and emergency surgery, and you’re throwing all of this at me on top of it. I can barely see straight, let alone think straight. Isn’t it enough for me to just want you to stay with me?”

  I drag in a deep, cleansing breath. “I wish it was.”

  She walks away. She turns and walks away after unloading what felt like a fucking mountain of baggage onto me. I want to grab her and kiss her. I want to toss her arse into a utility room and fuck her until she admits what we have.

  But there’s one thing anchoring me in place that’s bigger than our crazy.

  My family.

  My sister could have died today. My niece almost didn’t make it. Whatever Belle needs from me pales in comparison to that. I’m a Harris. That name and my family has been my identity for twenty-six years. Our lives haven’t been easy. The loss of our mother left us in a dark hole where the only light we had was each other. I can’t discredit that.

  I steel myself to walk into the hospital room, sticking my hand under the antibacterial machine by the door as I go in. All I see are backs huddled around a bed. I can’t even see a glimpse of Vi, Hayden, or the baby, so I pause, resting my hand on the nearby bassinet. It has clear walls and looks clinical and sterile, but inside is a tiny pink hat. I reach in and pick it up, rubbing my fingers over the knitted ridges. It’s so small. So innocent. So—

  “Come over and see why we don’t have the heart to put it on her head.” Vi’s voice cuts into my internal reverie.

  I look over and see a sliver of her between my dad and Booker. They separate so she can see me better, and I feel my knees wobble when her tired, tear-soaked blue eyes find mine. “Hiya, Tan,” she smiles.

  I swallow. “Hiya, Vi.”

  “Would you like to meet your niece?” I nod and move closer to the bed, the baby entering my eye line as I approach. My breath is pulled from my body. “Now you can see why she’s not wearing the hat.”

  I gaze down at the tiny bundle resting against Vi’s chest and note the huge mass of golden blonde hair sticking straight out all over her head. It’s shiny, bone straight, and thicker than any baby’s hair I’ve ever seen in movies or in real life.

  Vi’s hospital gown is split open across her chest and there they lie together. Skin to skin, heart to heart. A soft baby cheek pressing against Vi’s collarbone. A pink blanket covers the baby’s back and Vi’s exposed chest.

  “That hair.” I reach out and brush my fingertips along the feathery soft ends.

  Vi sniffles. “I know. The nurse said they usually wait to do their first baths, but with everything that happened…” She pauses and looks at Hayden for re
assurance. His grey eyes are already locked on her in silent devotion. “They thought I’d like to wake up to her all clean and ready to be loved on.” She drops a soft kiss to the fluff. “They want us to do skin to skin like this for a while since I didn’t get to bond with her when she came out.” Her chin trembles as tears fall freely down her cheeks.

  “You’ve got her now,” I reassure her. “And she’s perfect, Vi.”

  She laughs with a garbled cry mixed in. “That she is, even if she did scare the shit out of us.”

  Everybody chuckles awkwardly except for Hayden. He lowers his head to Vi and kisses her temple, breathing her in for a moment before he repeats the gesture to the baby.

  “What’s her name?” I ask, looking between the two of them.

  Vi swallows around a smile. “Well, none of our choices suited her. Then Hayden suggested Adrienne from Rocky because she had a bit of a rocky entrance, and well…” Her lips crumple with the onslaught of more tears and my eyes fill right along with hers.

  I reach out and grab Vi’s hand, squeezing hard and ignoring the IV and medical bracelets littering her small wrists. Suddenly, my sister who has always been bigger than life to me, seems so small, so young, so tired, yet magically stronger than I’ve ever seen her look.

  I move my hand from Vi’s to the baby’s, picking up her tiny clenched fist and testing the weight of it. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Rocky.” I smile and Vi laughs, the sadness in her eyes depleting fractionally.

  “Where’s Belle?” she asks, looking around the room like she must be standing in a corner somewhere.

  I swallow and divert my attention back to the baby. “She wanted to give you guys some privacy.”

  Vi tilts her head. “Privacy? What the bloody hell is that? She was seconds away from delivering the baby herself.”

  “I know.” My gaze lifts to hers and I silently will her to leave it be.

  Gareth’s voice rescues me from a Vi interrogation. “You never mentioned what her middle name is.”

  Vi nods and looks past me to Dad. “It’s Vilma.” A sad smile breaks across her face as she utters our mother’s name aloud. Vi’s given birth name, actually, even though she’s always just been our Vi.

  I turn and see Dad’s eyes are red-rimmed as the presence of our mum’s memory grows in the room. He nods stiffly, turning away to hide the pain and regret shimmering deep in his eyes.

  Gareth’s voice breaks the heavy silence. “She’d be very proud, Vi.” He clears his throat and pulls himself up tall. “You’re going to make a wonderful mum, just like her.”

  Dad and Gareth exchange a look that’s equal parts emotional and tense. What they experienced together—caring for Mum when she was sick at the end—is such an unspoken territory to the rest of us. There’s a pain between them that none of us can ever truly know. Camden places a hand on Gareth’s shoulder, which causes him to blink and a single tear slips down his cheek.

  “Gareth’s right,” Dad says, his brow furrowed in determination. “It will be nice to continue her name in the family.”

  I hear a shaky intake of air come from Vi as she clutches Adrienne to her chest, eyes closed, tears flowing. Hayden folds over on her, rubbing the baby’s back and pulling Vi’s attention to him. The three of them finding strength in their own little family.

  They gaze into each other’s eyes, saying things that none of us could ever understand. Only them.

  I watch them in amazement. Hayden almost lost everything tonight, yet I’ve never seen him look happier or more proud. He’s suffered great loss before. His grief over his sister’s death almost killed him, yet here he is, taking risks, because the reward of the climb surpasses the risk of the fall.

  And it always will.

  As soon as we’re out of the hospital, I turn to Booker. “I need to take the truck.”

  He frowns and nods at me. “Okay, I can ride home with Dad. Everything all right?”

  Camden and Indie walk up on our conversation as he asks. I glance at Indie and reply, “I hope so.”

  Indie fishes into her purse and hands me her keys. “For the flat, although”—she pauses and looks at her watch—“she might not be home yet.”

  My brows knit. “Why wouldn’t she be home?”

  Indie looks uncomfortable. “She might have walked home.”

  “Walked?” I exclaim. “At this time of night?”

  She cringes and shrugs. “Yeah, it’s about a twenty minute stretch. She walked it all the time when we worked here.”

  Camden scoffs Indie’s name, but I don’t stay to listen to them quarrel. I’m already jogging for the truck. I was desperate to see Belle before. Now, thinking of her out here by herself makes me vibrate with urgency.

  I drive down the road I think she would have taken. It’s a relatively straight shot to her building from here and the area doesn’t look too dangerous, but I’m still not comforted. My eyes swerve everywhere the entire trip, searching for her and regretting that I let her leave at all.

  When I see someone wearing a bright green shirt walking in a dark corner off in the distance, I exhale in relief. I punch the gas and turn onto the road she’s preparing to cross, forcing her to jump back from the curb. I park with a hefty screech of the tyres and fly out of the vehicle, not even bothering to close the door as I march straight toward her.

  “Are you bloody kidding me, Ryan?” I growl. “It’s after midnight and you decide to walk your arse home? Do you not have any sense?”

  Her dark eyes shift from shock to annoyance. “I’ve walked this road a million times. I worked at that hospital for years, Tanner.”

  “Oh, so you’re psychic now? You can predict whether a rapist is going to come driving down this road or not?”

  “Maybe I am psychic!” she snaps. “You don’t know me.”

  “The fuck I don’t,” I roar, my voice reaching high octaves that probably make the residents wonder if I’m a rapist.

  When she moves to turn away from me, the yellow streetlight catches her face, illuminating her features more clearly. Her eyes are puffy and her skin is blotchy.

  “Have you been crying?” I ask, circling around her to see her face.

  She continues avoiding my gaze. “No, all right. Just…leave it, Tanner.”

  “I will not bloody leave it, and I will not leave you. We’re following a pattern here, Belle. Don’t you see it?”

  She scoffs, “What are you going on about?”

  “Fighting and making up. Fighting and making up. You flip out on me, I chase after you. I hurt you, you make me pay for it. And I’m okay with it. I’ll endure these ups and downs with you. But eventually, you’re going to have to stop thinking it’s the end every time we fight.”

  “Well, maybe you should just end it and save us both such an emotional rollercoaster!” she retorts.

  “I like the ride!” I explode, shoving a hand through my hair. “I like that frightening twinkle you get in your eyes when you go off the rails.”

  “Christ, I can’t understand why. I’m a fucking mess,” she dejects.

  “So your crazy is showing. Who gives a fuck!” I bark, grabbing the crook of her arm to twist her until she has to look into my eyes. “It’s not scaring me off, Belle. Don’t you see? It’s pulling me in. It’s wrapping it’s way around me and binding me to you in a way that makes me want to protect you…indefinitely.”

  I pause, shocking myself with the last word and how right it feels falling out of my mouth. It’s like the words I just spoke open some vault deep inside me because I’m suddenly seeing everything so much clearer.

  Belle looks at my face like she’s seeing something brand new. Like she’s seeing and feeling the shift. Her voice is quiet when she asks, “Why do you want me? Seriously, Tanner. You’re going to want someone better than me. You will. I know it.”

  I reach out and brush my thumb down her cheek. Her dark eyes swim with emotion. Her freckles like a canvas I could have painted myself. “Belle, my soul has grown wi
th you. So much so, I wonder if it would have shrunk into nothing if I’d never met you.”

  Her jaw drops as she huffs out a self-deprecating sort of laugh. Shaking her head, she replies, “I could have never seen you coming, Tanner.”

  “I hope that’s a good thing,” I reply with a small smile.

  She slow blinks and her face softens into my beautiful, warm Belle. Then she giggles, a look of disbelief twinkling in her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re the same man who told me women called you the thigh tickler!”

  This makes me laugh. Hard. She joins in, too, and the sound of it mixed with mine soothes my troubled soul. Aching to feel her again, I lean down and crush her body to mine, encasing her with one arm behind her neck and the other around her ribcage. I use my lips to turn her smile into a kiss as I tip her back and breathe in the wildfire that is so quintessentially Belle.

  Belle Ryan is unpredictable and the exact opposite of easy. But her spirit calls to me on some deep level that I cannot stay away from.

  I straighten her back up and press my forehead to hers. “You inspire poetry, woman.”

  She hugs me, rubbing her hands down my back. “I’m sorry for freaking out back there. I’ll apologise to your sister tomorrow.”

  “Don’t even worry about it,” I reply, looking down at her. “Vi is in her own little bubble right now. I’ve never seen a happier family.”

  Her brows lift. “You Harrises seem to have happiness figured out rather well.”

  I frown. “We aren’t perfect. Far from it. You’ve got your family issues, I’ve got mine. If you share yours with me, I’ll share mine with you. Maybe then we can figure out the meaning of life.” I waggle my brows at her playfully.

  “The meaning of life, you say?” She bites her lip around a sexy half-smile that makes my dick jolt. Her eyes narrow conspiratorially. “Let’s go ponder that over some chocolate.”

  My brows climb. “As long as the chocolate is drizzled on your body, this thigh tickler is definitely in.”

  Tanner and I visit Vi and Hayden at the hospital the next day. I was warned by Tanner that the baby was beautiful, but nothing could have prepared me for her hair. Adrienne, or Rocky, as all the Harris Brothers have apparently taken to calling her, is simply magic. I couldn’t stop touching her feathery hair as I held her for nearly an hour in their hospital suite.