Scarred Surrender (Scarred Series Book 6)

by Jackie Williams

  James had taken one step towards her and she had fallen against him, sobbing as though her heart had broken into a million pieces. He’d wrapped her in his arms, holding her shaking body until she cried herself dry.

  And then he’d held her some more.

  The memory of her stillness, her gentle breath against the bare flesh above his collar made him swallow again. More shards of glass tore at his throat. If he didn’t know better he would have thought he had the beginnings of a throat infection and he suddenly frowned as he wondered again about Adam’s own sore throat and if it had anything to do with the subsequent pneumonia. He wanted to kick himself for not checking that Adam had actually gone to his doctor’s appointment. The man had been so involved with his love life that James, who hadn’t wanted to hear all the gory details of Adam’s most recent date, had forgotten to ask if the symptoms had amounted to anything serious.

  He queried it later at the hospital, of course, but they had no records from the doctor and James had been so busy since, he’d not thought about it again. The girls certainly knew nothing about it. They had both been at college and were adamant that their father had been with Saskia almost all the time. She had been the one who came running out of their home gym, screaming that their father was having trouble breathing. All hell let loose, but nothing the paramedics or medical staff had done had been able to help. The pneumonia was too far advanced by then.

  James shoved the nagging doubts from his mind as the music changed. Crystal glanced up at him with watery blue eyes before turning towards the side door and leading the mourning party out into the receiving room. James held back a sigh. He hated seeing either of Adam’s daughters suffering, but where Emily let everything out in her art and appeared to cope, Crystal’s sorrow felt like a physical punch in his chest. A sharp jab followed by intense heat, almost like a bad case of constant heartburn.

  He cleared his throat and took a deep breath as he watched the young woman hook a soft tendril of glossy hair behind her ear. Despite being wrecked by grief she was breathtakingly beautiful. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin as she walked. Looking just like her father, resolute and determined in the face of any challenge.

  He tore his eyes from her and turned to give Emily an encouraging smile, standing back until she caught up with her sister. Saskia raised an over-plucked eyebrow as he motioned her forward. She looked him up and down as she passed, her face betraying her feelings as her eyes remained locked on his legs for a moment too long before she followed the two girls into the reception area.

  The funeral party became more animated as the afternoon wore on. The beer flowed and many of Adam’s friends, although shocked at his sudden demise, reminisced and joked about the big soldier’s antics while in active service. David and Joe, both of whom had been in Adam’s regiment, came to stand beside James who refused to let Adam’s girls remain alone with Saskia. The leggy blonde took one look at the two scarred men who had joined them and suddenly decided that she needed to go to the ladies room.

  “Good riddance!” Emily muttered far too loudly, as she glared at the gym owner’s retreating back. She reached up and gave both David and Joe a kiss on the cheek as they greeted her.

  Crystal nudged her younger sister while fighting a sympathetic smile.

  “Don’t go into one now, Em. I feel the same as you, but we don’t have to show it today. She’ll be out of our lives soon enough.” She accepted kisses from the men as well.

  Emily glowered up at her and muttered loudly.

  “I don’t know why she was in our lives anyway. For someone who was meant to be going out with our dad, she’s been missing a lot the past couple of weeks. She didn’t even come to the hospital to see him when he was dying. You heard what she said. She can’t stand hospital smells. Good grief! What did dad ever see in her? I think he must have lost the plot or known something we didn’t. She’s enough to drive anyone to an early grave. Maybe he knew he wasn’t going to last much longer and was just having a final fling.” She ignored Crystals shocked intake of breath and carried on in an outraged whisper. “All that fake crying! She’s shallower than mum’s old birdbath. Everyone knows Saskia was only after dad’s money.” She almost shook with pent up anger.

  Crystal sighed and shrugged.

  “Dad was happy with her, Em. You couldn’t begrudge him that.”

  The teenager rolled her eyes.

  “No, I don’t begrudge him enjoying himself, but I’m not sure that he was entirely happy either. Oh, he might have been in the beginning, but recently he looked more as if he was resigned to his fate. You should have been there when she was forcing him to eat carrots. He hated carrots but she insisted they were good for his health, like he needed her to tell him anything. He looked like he was going to throw up.” She sighed deeply and shook her head. “Not that it makes any difference now, but I just wish he’d been more sensible in his choice. I mean, anyone could have told him that she’s a money-grabbing super-bitch. He went mad at me last year for going out with someone he thought unsuitable, but he never listened to a word I said when I told him what I thought of that cow.”

  Crystal let out her first laugh of the day.

  “But dad was right. Simon Johnson was an idiot and totally wrong for you. Proved it too when he was caught during that hit on the jewellery shop. Honestly Emily, your radar was completely off when you met that twerp. At least Saskia runs her own business.”

  Emily gave a knowing look and lowered her voice further.

  “But for how much longer, eh? I hear the gym is in trouble. A couple of my friends’ parents went there. Eloise told me that her mum said that people had been leaving in droves over some scandal. She said that she’d heard dad was going to buy into the place to help Saskia out. Do you think that’s true?” It was clear she hoped it wasn’t.

  Crystal frowned at her sister and then glanced over at James whose eyebrows had suddenly flattened into a stiff line.

  “Did you know dad was going to do that? He hadn’t said anything to me. Do you think he would have thought the place a good investment?”

  James shook his head.

  “No idea. I barely know the place. He hadn’t mentioned buying into the gym to me either, but who knows. He was spending a lot of time there.” He ran a finger around inside his collar.

  Crystal’s gaze passed over James’ broad shoulders and expansive chest as her expression suddenly became curious.

  “He was, but you weren’t. You obviously keep yourself in shape too, but I don’t think you ever went there. Why not?”

  James glanced at both David and Joe before answering her. They were all more than merely fit, their shirts and jackets straining over their muscled frames. He shrugged his huge shoulders.

  “I just do my own thing. Maybe I’m just lucky, or perhaps it’s because I’m younger than your dad, but though I have my spare room set up as a gym I don’t actually work out much. Going to an organized place just isn’t for me. If I’m going to work out I’d prefer to chop logs or dig trenches. Stuff like that.” He shuffled his feet and glanced at his friends a little coyly before speaking again. “Look, you can call me a coward if you like, but Adam put me right off joining her place or any other when he had so much trouble there to begin with. It was bad enough that he couldn’t use his legs. Imagine what she would have been like if I’d turned up without any. And then what would happen if I had an attack of phantom limb.” He shifted uncomfortably and felt the heat rise in his cheeks. “She’d think I’m pathetic and weak.” He swallowed hard as Crystal lay her hand on his arm and stared up at him.

  “You are not weak, James. It was a horrible decision that you had to make. Not many people would have been strong enough to do what you did.” She spoke so quietly that he had to bend to listen over the sounds of the other mourners in the hall. A waft of Crystal’s delicate perfume caught him unawares and he drew in a deep breath, savouring the subtle hint of fresh peaches.

  A sudden cough at his othe
r side startled him and he stood straight quickly. Emily tapped her foot impatiently on the floor.

  “Well, we all know why dad insisted on staying there although she was a cow to him. He was simply too stubborn to move somewhere else. It was only after she found out about the money that she started fawning all over him.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I met him there a couple of times after school. The way she prances about in that lycra! She loves all the guys ogling her. And they encourage her. All that strutting and preening down at the gym when she’s about. I swear she was having sex with half of them. My dad included. It’s utterly sickening.” Her face blanched as she eyed the corridor that led to the toilets.

  David, Joe, and James chuckled knowingly. While Adam’s sex life may have been restricted in some areas, and he never spoke of anything so personal and specific, they were pretty sure something was going on. The glint in his eye had told them all that.

  Emily stuck her fingers in her mouth and pretended to gag. Crystal nudged her sister again, not wanting to think about their father having sex with anyone, let alone with the nubile gym owner.

  “Come on, Em. Don’t get wound up about it now. Just stop thinking about it. We have more important things to consider. We still have to go to the solicitors later today. I can’t put off sorting out dad’s affair’s any longer.” She changed the subject as she glanced over the mass of army personnel who had come to the funeral before looking back to James. “You are still coming with us? I know you want to see your friends while they are here but I don’t think I can face going without you.” Her voice trembled with emotion.

  James gave her a quick smile, wishing with all his heart that he could do something to take her pain away. The burning in his chest turned into an inferno as she blinked back more tears. He couldn’t bear to see her in this type of agony. He’d known both girls since their childhood and they meant far more to him than they probably should.

  “Of course I’m coming, if you still want me to.” His strangled tones surprised him. He glanced around their group and suppressed the suffocating sadness that attempted to swamp him. “And don’t worry about me seeing my friends. I’ve just promised David and Joe that if Alex doesn’t mind holding things down at work, I’ll go over to France in the next couple of weeks, so long as you don’t need me for anything.”

  Emily moved closer to the big man. It was obvious that although she had an outlet for her distress, she felt the loss of her father deeply.

  “We’ll always need you, James. Don’t ever think that we won’t. You’ve been as much of a dad to us over the years as our own was.” Water suddenly welled in the girl’s eyes.

  James wrapped a muscled arm around her and gave her a small hug as he smiled down at the young woman. At almost eighteen she was a still handful, but her stop at nothing attitude had endeared her to both him and all her father’s army friends. Seeing this vulnerable side surprised him.

  “Well, I’m not quite as old as your dad was. Actually, I’m nowhere near how old your dad was, but I know what you mean. We have known each other a long time. I can remember the first time I met the pair of you, as clear as day.”

  Crystal groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “I wish you couldn’t. Landing on one’s backside after steering their bike into a sloe bush is hardly the way I want to be remembered. I might have been thirteen at the time, but I still seem to recall dad thinking it was okay to throw me over his knee and pluck the flipping thorns from my backside while you stood there watching. I was so embarrassed.” Her cheeks flushed crimson at the memory.

  James let out a loud laugh which he cut off quickly as several people turned to stare at him. He lowered his voice.

  “I wasn’t watching you. Well, not at first. I was trying to retrieve your bike, but you were making a lot of noise. I couldn’t believe a little bit of a girl could scream so loud. Mind you, it was a nightmare of a bush. I’d never seen one with such an impressive display of weaponry. Who would have thought collecting a few berries for some sloe gin for your mum, would turn out to be so excruciating.” His slate grey eyes sparkled at her as he remembered her beetroot red face and her cries of misery.

  It had all happened so long ago, before all the pain and distress of disability and amputations. James had been about to start his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. Adam had been in the army for a lot longer. The man lived for it and loved it. He’d met James in the base mess after an intense set of training sessions, and liking the younger man’s bold enthusiasm instantly, had asked if he wanted to come and meet his family before they were both called into action. Not having any family of his own, James had accepted delightedly.

  Crystal opened her mouth to answer again, but clipping heels alerted them to Saskia’s reappearance. The woman glanced at James, David and Joe and gave a slight shudder. She turned her back to them and lay her hand on Crystal’s arm.

  “Darling, as James is looking after Adam’s friends, I think we can leave now. I have a three o’clock appointment with the solicitor and I don’t want to miss it.” The woman’s sickly tones matched her newly applied lip-gloss.

  Emily took Saskia’s hand from Crystal’s arm as she forced her way between her sister and the gym owner. She tilted her head towards the taller woman and folded her arms to stop herself knocking Saskia off her five-inch heels.

  “Who said anything about you coming? James is taking us. We don’t need you interfering.” She didn’t bother hiding her feelings on the matter.

  Saskia drew in a sharp breath and opened her mouth, but Crystal spoke quickly to cut off any argument.

  “Emily is right, Saskia. We’re going to Gaitlor and Gaitlor with James, and he’s only coming for moral support. We can drop you off at your flat, or at the gym if you like, but we’re perfectly capable of sorting this out ourselves. You don’t need to come with us.”

  Saskia gave another sugary smile.

  “Oh, but I have to be there. Didn’t your father tell you that he was changing his will? I’ll probably need to collect some papers and sign things. I really don’t want to be late.” She glanced pointedly at the slim golden watch on her wrist.

  James frowned curiously, the pain that had niggled his legs all day suddenly forgotten as he saw the distress in Crystal and Emily’s eyes. He moved around the women and slid an arm around Crystal’s waist, holding her tightly as she looked about to faint. He inclined his head towards Saskia and leaned in, daring her to turn her back on him again.

  “What’s this? Adam didn’t mention anything to me, not that he had to, but it would have been nice to have been forewarned of any changes rather than them being sprung on the girls at the man’s wake.” Anger tore at him as he felt Crystal’s knees wobble. He held onto her more tightly, clutching her slim waist beneath his strong hand and holding onto her as though it was his life that depended upon it. “Do you have a copy of this new will?” He asked under his breath, desperately hoping that no one was watching the unfolding scene.

  Saskia waved her hand vaguely.

  “Oh, I don’t actually have a copy. I expect that would be in amongst his paperwork at home, but I know exactly what was in it. We discussed it at great length and Adam wrote it all down. He made an appointment to see his solicitor the next day so I know that he implemented all our ideas.” Her brittle smile didn’t reach her eyes. She looked at her watch again. “We’d best get going if you want to bother to come, girls. Not that there will be much to concern you, but there’s going to be a lot for me to sort out and I really want to start today.” She swivelled quickly and wiggled through the groups of mourners as she made her way to the exit without a backward glance at the scene she was leaving behind.

  David watched her for a moment before glancing between Joe, James, and the two younger women. He’d not overheard the whole conversation but after hearing the words ‘will’, ‘solicitor’, and ‘not much to concern you’, he realized immediately from the grim look covering James’ face as he prevented Crystal col
lapsing on the floor, that something had gone badly wrong. He didn’t bother enquiring what might have made his friend’s skin pale and his jaws clench so tightly. He gave his friend a quick nod.

  “You go with the girls, James. Joe and I will stay here and help with anything that needs sorting out. The lads want to go into the pub later to make sure Adam gets a good send off. You have our numbers. Call me or Joe, or anyone else if you need anything done. You know we’ll all be here for them.” He glanced between Crystal and Emily.

  James nodded quickly and spoke quietly to both David and Joe.

  “Thanks. I appreciate this. Look, this sounds as though it’s going to become complicated, but I’ll call you when I know what’s happening.” He turned back to the women. “Come on. Whatever your dad did, there’s no point in putting off hearing it. The quicker we get this sorted out the better.” And after some swift goodbyes the three of them left the hall.

  Chapter Two

  Two hours later James sat in the car, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering wheel. He stared blindly out of the front window, wishing he was at home in his flat where he could take his pain out on his punching bag even while wondering if the last hours had really happened. A voice behind him woke him from his reverie.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I can’t say that I’m completely happy about it, but if it stops the super-bitch getting her hands on anything, I’m prepared to put up with it.” Emily didn’t sound exactly pleased, but she wasn’t as angry as she might have been.

  Crystal blinked away her confusion and twisted in her seat to look at her sister.

  “I just don’t get why I wasn’t made your guardian. I’m twenty four. I know that there’s a seven year age gap between us, but really. I’m perfectly capable of looking after my own sister. I can’t believe dad didn’t trust me to do it.” Shock and disappointment hollowed her tones.

  James wiped his forearm across his brow as he listened. He looked at the unopened padded envelope that he had almost crushed in his hand. He flattened it and turned it over to look at the signed seals as he spoke.