by Lucy Clark
Jane wanted to close her eyes, to hide from him as she recalled the next bit, but if she did, she’d miss gauging Sean’s reaction to her disfigured body. She didn’t want to witness the repulsion she knew would come but if she didn’t put herself through this now, it would only make it more difficult for her to get over him later.
She pursed her lips together and forced her breathing to remain calm as she continued. ‘I felt as though I’d been sitting on an ejector seat. One moment I was looking back at Daina and the next I experienced searing pain as the windscreen glass cut into my face, arms and hands. I could see the ground beneath me, as though I was frozen in time, but it loomed closer and closer until I thudded down, skidding a little. The pain in my hands, my wrists was the first wave I felt. It was blindingly agonising and yet another pain made itself known.’ She paused and gripped the edge of the shirt with both hands, slowly removing it to reveal the thin singlet top beneath.
She saw Sean’s gaze dip to look at her arms, seeing the scars running up her arms. Would he realise that these scars were why she always wore long-sleeved tops and shirts? She heard his sharp intake of breath as she lifted the singlet top to reveal the large area around her side and abdomen, covered in scars and three different skin grafts.
‘I landed on a large stick, which did quite a bit of internal damage.’ She turned slightly so he could see the full effect. Her skin was disfigured and stretched, looking like a very bad patchwork quilt. ‘I required kidney surgery and bowel surgery to fix the internal organs and then the skin grafts began, not all of them working the first time.’ She twisted her shoulder to show him the ten-centimetre-long scar that had, over time, faded to become a paler shade of pink.
‘Not only was I disfigured on the outside, I was broken on the inside. My parents died in that accident, my father of a fatal blow to the head and my mother bled out internally. And although they may not have been the best of parents, certainly having their fair share of problems, they were still my parents and I grieved deeply for them.’
Sean continued to stare at her, and she continued to carefully watch his expression. His brow was puckered in a slight frown but she hoped it was a frown of empathy rather than one of disgust. Was he looking at her with a clinical eye? Switching his mind from sensual mode to practical mode? Would he ever be able to regard her as a desirable woman? An object of beauty? A woman he wasn’t too repulsed to touch and caress? Could he accept her? Would he ever tenderly caress and touch her badly stitched-together skin?
Jane held her breath, trying desperately to figure out what he was thinking. She simply stood there before him, not only baring her body but baring her soul. Couldn’t he see how important this was to her? How she needed to be reassured? To be told that her life wasn’t going to remain as lonely and as devoid of personal emotional connections as it had been for far too long? Was he the man who might love her as she hoped?
‘I don’t remember Daina having any scars.’ His voice was deep yet distant and Jane’s eyelids fluttered closed as horrified pain pierced her heart. She’d made another mistake. She’d opened up the box that contained her darkest fears and exposed herself to him…and all he could think about was Daina.
She worked hard to control the tears that were rising up within her, her head feeling incredibly heavy with the instant headache pounding against her temples. You idiot. You stupid, disfigured nobody. She couldn’t stop the voice that penetrated her mind, the voice that always sounded exactly like Daina’s. Whatever made you think a man, especially one like Sean, so handsome and sexy, could love you?
‘Jane?’
She paused the voice in her head, knowing it would definitely continue later, and opened her eyes, glaring at him as she quickly pulled her clothes back over her body, turning her back to him as she attempted to button up her shirt, even though her trembling fingers made it nigh on impossible. She forced herself to concentrate on the menial task, to push away those other thoughts, to push away the answer to her initial question. Would Sean be able to accept her for who she was, scars and all? Clearly, he could not.
‘She had bruises and cuts but they quickly disappeared,’ Jane remarked woodenly. All she wanted now was for Sean to go, to leave her alone, to let her deal with the wounds he’d just inflicted. Why had she hoped for tender words? For a level of understanding about why she’d needed to literally bare her soul to him?
He was the same as all other men. More interested in himself, his world, his life. Why had she thought he might be any different? Couldn’t he see, didn’t he understand that she needed reassurance? She knew she was broken but she wasn’t relying on him to fix her, she was relying on him to accept her, to not care about Daina or any other woman, not here, not right now.
The first tear rolled down her cheek and she impatiently brushed it away. She didn’t want to guilt Sean with her tears, to have him hold her, offering insincere comfort. Not now, not when he’d shown his true nature.
She must have stood there with her back to him for longer than she’d realised because when he spoke her name, she heard the questioning urgency in the tone.
‘Jane?’ He placed his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged away from his touch, not realising he’d moved from the chair. ‘Jane, what is it?’
‘What is it?’ she asked, her words angry, her tears choking in her throat. She shook her head and sniffed, knowing she should get control over her emotions but realising she might have passed the point where logical thought was possible. ‘How can you even ask me that? I…’ She walked stiffly away from him, her movements stilted as though her brain was having difficulty sending signals to her limbs.
‘I’m not sure I underst—’
‘Of course you don’t.’ She rolled her eyes and shook her head. ‘Why? Why did I even bother?’ she whispered, more to herself than to him.
Sean stepped forward and placed both hands on her shoulders, wanting her to look at him. ‘Jane?’
‘Get your hands off me,’ she growled, her voice low but steady. He gazed down into her face for a whole three seconds before doing as she’d asked. He stepped back and thrust both hands into his hair before placing them on his hips and looking at her as though she were a puzzle he simply couldn’t figure out.
Jane drew in a breath, trying to muster as much civility as she could. The emotions were beginning to erupt and she knew of old that if she tried to quell them too much, it only made matters worse.
‘I think you should leave.’
Sean shifted his stance, still staring at her in utter confusion. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it again before shaking his head. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘It is.’
‘Then I’ll go.’
Although he said the words, he still didn’t move for a good ten seconds, the two of them standing there, staring at each other. There was no way she could decipher his expression and right now she was too distraught to care. The only thought that kept spinning around in her mind was that although she may have felt some sort of bond with Sean, although they may have acknowledged an attraction to each other, that attraction had abruptly come to an end the instant he’d seen her disfigurement.
He nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I’ll go.’
With that, he walked past her to the door and without looking back opened it and left.
As the door slowly closed behind him, the rush of pain, anguish and loneliness, all the emotions she’d been fighting for far too long, washed over her like a raging torrent, flooding her mind. With her legs no longer able to support her, she crumpled to the floor as the first sobs of heartbreak began to rack her body.
Despite the way Sean loved his family, despite the way he loved his son, there was no denying the fact that he could never love a freak like her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR THE NEXT three days Sean had the distinct impression that Jane was doing her best to avoid him. Initially he’d thought she was embarrassed at having shown him
her body, that she needed some time to come to terms with her vulnerability, but every time he walked onto the ward, she would leave at her earliest convenience, not even bothering to utter an excuse.
He knew she’d been to Maternity to check on both Carly and the baby because when he’d gone to see how mother and baby were doing, Carly had sung Jane’s praises, letting Sean know how wonderful she was.
‘She told me that when she was a teenager she was also in a car accident like me. She opened up to me, she told me she knew exactly what I was feeling and why it was important for me to speak to a psychologist about it now, rather than letting the emotions build up and get the better of me.’
‘Wise words,’ Sean had remarked, already having read in Carly’s file that she’d bluntly refused to see the psychologist.
‘I can’t believe she opened up to me like she did. She didn’t have to but because she did I can see that she’s not just spouting hospital rules at me but that she really does care because she understands.’
‘Yes.’ Sean knew Carly wasn’t the only patient to be saying such things about the wonderful Jane Diamond. Tessa, who was beginning to show definite signs of improvement as far as her eating habits went, continued to be glued to Jane’s side as much as possible. He’d read in Tessa’s notes that Jane had sat in on every counselling session with the parents, offering helpful suggestions as to ways they could support both their daughters—the one who was bullying and the one who was being bullied.
Jane had also dropped around to spend some time with Spencer, or so his mother had told him late yesterday evening. Sean found it interesting that Jane had chosen to see her nephew on the evening when she knew he’d be in departmental meetings. In fact, it seemed that Jane had time for everyone…except him.
Perhaps the kisses they’d shared had been enough to scare her off? Perhaps she now wanted to just be friends and not be romantically involved…but if that was the case, why had she shown him her scars in the first place? He couldn’t believe how amazing she was, how brave and incredibly beautiful, and now she seemed to want nothing to do with him.
He’d left her messages on her phone. Some jokingly jovial, telling her he couldn’t sleep and needed her to sing him a lullaby over the phone, and when she hadn’t returned any of his calls he’d left messages that were filled with concern and confusion. No reply.
He still wanted to pursue the attraction he felt for her, to figure out what had gone wrong and why she was bent on avoiding him. He knew she felt the same way, too, or at least she had. So why had she shut him out? What had he done? Said? He was at a loss to figure it out and it had been constantly at the back of his mind for the past three days, ever since she’d asked him to leave her room.
Sean flicked back the bed sheet and stalked from his bedroom, deciding it was better to give up on attempts to sleep and try and catch up on some paperwork. ‘At least the bureaucracy of the hospital will help get your mind off Jane,’ he murmured as he made himself a cup of tea.
He worked solidly for half an hour, the light over his paper-strewn dining-room table sufficiently illuminating the area as the clock in the hallway ticked steadily towards dawn.
‘Sean?’
He heard his mother’s voice at the top of the stairs. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Mum? Come on down.’
Louise did as he asked, coming into the room, her summer dressing gown pulled tight around her. ‘Can’t sleep either?’ she asked rhetorically. Sean’s answer was a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Problem at the hospital?’
‘Not really.’
‘Problem with Spencer?’
‘No. He’s fine.’
Louise settled herself at the table and looked closely at her son for a moment. ‘Problem with…Jane?’
Sean eyed his mother cautiously. ‘What makes you ask that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. When she was here she kept changing the subject every time I mentioned your name.’
Sean put his pen down and groaned, resting his head in his hands. So she really was avoiding him, not just being super-busy and efficient at work. He’d hoped it was the latter, he’d hoped he was reading the signals incorrectly, but if his mother had picked up on something—and she was usually incredibly astute—then there was definitely something wrong.
‘I thought the two of you were getting along very well,’ Louise stated. ‘It certainly looked that way when we were at the beach.’
‘The beach.’ He lifted his head from his hands. ‘That seems so long ago now.’
‘I’m sorry if you think I’m prying, son, but how do you feel about Jane? Tell me to shut up and mind my own business if you want but I only ask because I care about you, and about Jane and about Spencer. Whether you like it or not, your son became very much involved in all of this the instant you gave Jane access to him.’
‘You think I should have kept her away?’
‘No. Heavens, no. From what I can observe, Jane hasn’t had the easiest of lives and it’s a credit to her that she’s such a strong survivor.’
‘Yes.’ Sean thought back to the way she’d bravely revealed her scars to him, the way her big eyes had been wide with fear, like a scared little rabbit, and yet she’d done it. She’d conquered her fear and shown him her deepest, darkest secret and then…
‘It’s as though she sometimes gets swamped with the emotions from her past,’ he said out loud, standing and pacing the room. ‘I thought she was steering clear of me because she…well, she opened up to me.’ He stopped pacing and raked a hand through his hair. ‘But if she was avoiding talking about me, then it must have been… But what did I do?’
‘How did she open up to you?’ Louise asked.
Sean looked at the floor then met his mother’s eyes. ‘She showed me her scars.’
‘From the car accident when she was a teenager? The one where her parents died?’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head. ‘What she must have endured.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Huh?’
‘After she’d bared her soul to you—because that’s what she was doing, darling—what did you say?’
Sean frowned. ‘I didn’t…say…’ He tried to recollect what had happened next. ‘She showed me her scars, she told me her parents had died in that accident. I was surprised that Daina hadn’t been scarred in any way, given the severity of the accident.’
Louise gaped at her son. ‘Tell me you didn’t mention Daina.’
‘What? I just said I didn’t remember Daina being scar—’ He stopped talking and closed his eyes, slowly shaking his head from side to side. ‘She thought I was comparing them. Her and Daina.’ And that had been when she’d turned away from him, that had been when she’d finally stared at him with the eyes of a stranger and told him to leave. He’d only done as she asked because he’d thought it had all been too much for her and that she wanted to be alone.
‘Has Jane ever had a serious relationship before?’
‘Yes.’ The answer was a whisper as he quickly recalled what she’d told him. ‘She said he broke off the engagement because she kept herself hidden, that she was secretive, and that in the end she wasn’t the woman he wanted.’ Regret pierced Sean’s soul at the thought of the pain he’d caused Jane.
If she was under the impression that he thought her scars ugly and disfiguring then he had to change her mind. He had to show her that she’d become important to him, that she’d somehow managed to open his heart, helped him to heal from his past pain and to risk loving again.
‘Loving?’ His eyes widened as the word tripped off his tongue. He glanced at his mother to find her watching him intently.
‘I don’t know what just went on inside your head, son.’ She chuckled as she stood and tightened the belt of her dressing gown. ‘But it was funny watching a multitude of emotions work their way across your face.’ She leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek. ‘Let me know if your father or I can be of any help.’
‘Can you look after
Spencer when he wakes up in about half an hour?’ Sean’s mind was working at a rate of knots. ‘I need to fix this. I need to let Jane know that’s not how things are, that’s not how I feel, and I think I know exactly how to accomplish that.’
Louise nodded. ‘I’m still only getting half the picture but that’s all right. I’ll wait until the ending’s written.’ She pointed a finger at him, her tone filled with mock warning. ‘Just make it a happy one.’
As Louise headed back up the stairs, yawning as she went, Sean looked at the clock on the wall. ‘Half past five.’ He walked to his phone, his gut telling him that Jane would not be asleep, that she’d no doubt be somewhere in the ward, helping her patients through the night. ‘Anthea?’ he said when the phone on the ward was answered. ‘It’s Sean. Is Jane on the ward?’
‘Yes, she is. Do you want me to get her for you?’
‘Er…no. No. It’s fine.’ He was about to say goodbye but added quickly, ‘Don’t tell her I called. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And if possible, can you keep her on the ward until I get there? Shouldn’t be more than half an hour or so.’
‘OK,’ Anthea said again, her tone a little curious. ‘Are you feeling all right, Sean?’
Sean grinned as his plan began to solidify. ‘Anthea, I’ve never been better in my life!’
*
Jane sat by Tessa’s bedside, pleased with the progress the young girl had made over the past few weeks. It made her feel wonderful to be able to help someone because it was a small way of righting the wrongs that had been done to her. Tessa was due to be discharged tomorrow and was naturally apprehensive at going home.
‘I’m safe here. Why can’t I stay here?’ she’d asked Jane only a few hours ago, the rest of the ward quiet as the two of them had talked softly.
‘Because you need to grow stronger at home. Staying here will do nothing for you, Tessa. Facing your darkest fears is…’ Jane had stopped, as the image of Sean’s gaze on her disfigured body, the look of disbelief in his eyes, had come immediately to mind. She’d pushed it aside. ‘Is how you become strong. Your parents know what your sister was doing to you and they’ve been able to find out what was wrong with your sister, why she felt it necessary to bully you.’