by Nikki Logan
‘I think you’d use anything at your disposal once you’d built up a bit of momentum.’
The silence grew thick. ‘This isn’t about me. It’s about Morgan’s.’
Laney snorted.
‘It’s hard for her, Elliott.’
Her mother’s words were excruciatingly kind, but all they did was rile Laney up. ‘Not you, too, Mum. I’m just not interested!’
‘Why aren’t you interested?’ Elliott pushed, without really understanding why. It just felt really critical. ‘When it’s such a great opportunity?’
‘I love it here. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want it to change.’
‘It’s all she knows,’ Ellen piped up, her voice a study in compassion but her eyes closely focussed on her daughter.
And suddenly Elliott wondered if Ellen Morgan was quite as sweet and passive as she seemed. Her words seemed very...calculated.
‘I’m not afraid!’ Laney insisted, reading very neatly between the lines.
‘No, no. Of course not,’ her mother gushed.
But the concept was hanging out there in public now, and—in a master stroke on her mother’s part—it was Laney who’d put it there.
Her father spoke up again. ‘I’m sure a country like the United States is very accommodating for people with vision impairment. And if they’re not—’
Laney shot to her feet. ‘It doesn’t matter, because I’m not going to America.’
‘I’ll go,’ Owen said, waving a lazy arm in the air as if he expected to be completely ignored. Which he pretty much was.
‘We’ll hire someone,’ Robert went on.
Elliott tried not to be buoyed by his use of the future tense.
‘Oh, please—you know me.’ Laney sighed ‘Do you think I’ll be happy with the way anyone else does it? I’ll end up doing it anyway.’
‘Yeah, you will,’ Elliott agreed. ‘Because you can’t help yourself, and because despite yourself you’ll want this to be done well. Because that’s the kind of person you are, Laney. A perfectionist.’
Owen snorted. ‘That’s one word for it.’
‘Come on, Laney, you’re intrigued. Admit it.’
‘Because you want me to be, Elliott?’
‘Because you are. I was watching you. You think the idea has merit. So do your parents.’
‘Of course you’d say that.’
‘Am I wrong?’
Her frown intensified and he knew he was right. She was interested.
‘Carving the Morgan’s logo into Mount Everest for PR has merit, too—doesn’t mean we should do it.’
In his periphery, Robert and Ellen’s glances ricocheted between him and their daughter like a tennis crowd.
‘This is an outstanding opportunity for Morgan’s. It will be a mistake not to take it.’
‘No, what will be a mistake is to let our financier bully us into doing something that isn’t on our radar.’
And by ‘financier’ she really meant him.
Elliott worked hard to keep his temper out of his voice. ‘This is imploring, Laney, not bullying. This will make Morgan’s. Just look at the figures.’
‘Why do you even care? What is it to you? Other than your promotion.’
Good. At least she was prepared to acknowledge there was more at stake here than just his job. Not that she would have any idea of what was really at stake.
A man’s soul.
‘I hate to see this potential lost.’
‘Life is full of disappointments, Elliott. You’ll survive.’
She frowned as he crossed to stand right in front of her and took her hands in his. ‘Laney. I know this is outside your comfort zone, but everyone in this room believes you can do it. You just have to believe in yourself. Be brave.’
The snatch as she pulled her hands back just about gave him whiplash.
‘You assume this is about courage, Elliott. You call yourself a realiser, but what you really are is a judger.’
‘I’ve been nothing but supportive of you.’
‘You’re judging me now. Finding me lacking because I don’t want to take the risks you think I should. Well, people are built differently, Elliott, and it doesn’t make them less. It just makes them different.’
‘This could be massive for Morgan’s.’
‘Not everyone wants massive.’
‘Why don’t you? Why have you grown Morgan’s this far only to stop. Why hold your family back?’
She reared up out of the chair. ‘Everything I’ve done I have done for my family. Don’t you dare suggest otherwise.’
‘They’re not going to do this if you don’t support it, Laney. You’re the centre of this family. Everyone takes their cues from you.’
Her eyes sparkled magnificently. Dangerously. ‘I guess that explains why you’ve put so much effort into winning me over, particularly.’
‘Don’t, Laney...’
‘Why not? You win me over with your attention and your interest and your...your aftershave, and all of it was strategic. I’m the Queen of the Morgan’s colony, after all.’
‘This isn’t about me, Laney—’
‘This is about you, Elliott. You and your inability to accept anyone who isn’t as driven as you.’
‘Being driven is how people get things in life.’
‘No, being driven is how you get things in your life. There’re plenty of us who take a different route.’
He blew air between clenched teeth.
‘Admit it, Elliott, you think I’m weak for not wanting this.’
‘I don’t think you’re weak—’
‘Despite all your flattering words, deep down you think I lack gumption. And you can’t understand that in me any more than you could understand it in your mother. Admit it.’
Tension doubled deep inside. ‘I do understand it in you, Laney. Your vision—’
‘My vision has nothing to do with this. You’re just using that as an excuse to justify it.’
‘Justify what?’
‘The fact I don’t want to chase down every opportunity in life and kill it with a club. Well, guess what? It has nothing to do with my vision, Elliott, it’s me—just me. My choice.’
‘Laney—’
‘And you know what? There are plenty of people just like me—just like your mother—who find their pleasures in simple ways. It doesn’t make us faulty.’
Two forked lines appeared beneath Ellen Morgan’s downturned eyebrows.
Elliott’s gut clenched harder than his fists. ‘This has nothing to do with my mother. This is about you letting your disability stop you from being everything you could be.’
The D-word hung out there, all ugly and un-retractable, in the sudden silence that followed.
‘Why do I have to be everything?’ she whispered harshly.
‘Because you can. Because you shouldn’t let anything get in your way.’
‘Name me one thing that I could possibly have done that I’ve not tried in my life.’
There was one obvious answer.
‘This,’ Elliott said, low and hard. ‘And I’d like to understand why.’
‘Why...?’ she squeaked. ‘Maybe because I’m tired of being the poster child for the vision-impaired. I’m tired of the Morgan name coming up on Council minutes all through my childhood as Dad pushed for tactile strips on the main street or audiobook cassettes in the school library or modifications on the school bus to accommodate an assistance dog.’
Robert half croaked in protest and Laney snapped her face towards him.
‘I’m sorry, Dad, I know you were trying to make life easier for me, but the world doesn’t actually owe me anything. Maybe I didn’t need to do every activity under the sun in order to be a
full person. Or maybe I could have just found friends in my own time rather than you bussing them down and forcing us together just so we could all stay in denial about how different I was. Maybe it would have been okay for me to not try something out, or to just be ordinary at something, or—God forbid—even be bad at something. And maybe that’s why I don’t want to be railroaded into this. I know I could do it but it should be enough for everyone that I just don’t want to. I want to be here, on the property I love, working with the creatures I love and pursuing the things that interest me.’
She turned back to Elliott.
‘Not my parents. Not Ashmore Coolidge. Not you.’
Silences didn’t really come much thicker.
Laney shuffled in her seat but it did nothing to remove the discomfort of a hard truth finally aired.
‘Honey,’ her mother said finally, ‘you never said.’
Laney flung her hands into the air. ‘When is the right time to hurt your father? To throw your family’s effort back in their face?’
Now, apparently.
‘I love you both to death, but why isn’t the person I am enough for anyone? Why do I always have to be...more?’
‘Seriously, Laney?’ Owen piped up. ‘You’re going to complain because you’ve had too many opportunities in life? When I’m sitting here trying to put my hand up for this one and the only person who isn’t completely disregarding that is the person who barely knows me.’
She turned towards her brother. And she knew both her parents would be doing so too. ‘You never put your hand up for things.’
‘Why would I bother? Opportunities automatically go to you.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It’s absolutely true, Laney. We were born at the same time but you got all the Royal Jelly in life. And you thrived. I turned out just a plain old worker.’
She sagged back into her chair.
‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘Why didn’t you ever tell Dad how you were feeling?’
Point taken.
What she wouldn’t give right now to be able to look into her brother’s eyes.
‘You actually want to do this?’ she whispered.
‘I think I do.’
‘But what about your surfing?’
‘I love to surf, but I’m never going to be a pro. And fiddling with hives isn’t enough for me. I’d like to do more. I could do more. And I’d really love to travel. There’s a whole world out there, waiting to be seen.’
She snorted. ‘You sound like Elliott.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. I think there’s a lot I could learn from him. And you’d be a hypocrite to judge me for wanting to follow my own path.’
She soaked that in, then turned back towards Elliott. ‘This wouldn’t obligate us?’
‘Phase one is fact-finding and relationship-building only. All decisions will come back here.’
‘Could Owen do it?’
‘With my help. I’ll be there with him.’
Another excellent reason for her to say no. Travelling in close confines with Elliott and not being able to touch him? Ugh, imagine...
‘How long would you be gone?’ Robert asked, his voice still wounded.
‘A couple of months. To get around to all the big suppliers personally and see the impact of winter on their spring.’
‘Months? But we’re going to need Owen to close out the season.’
‘You mean you are,’ Elliott said quietly. ‘To be your eyes. And your driver. And your assistant.’
Her stomach rolled. Both at the ugliness of Elliott’s statement and at its stark truth. He’d watched their operations closely enough to know exactly who did what. And for whom.
Oh, God...
Her chin sagged to her chest and mortification washed in around the realisation. She was as guilty of making presumptions about her brother’s life as the world was about hers. Every time she brushed off an idea of his...every time she thought he was sweet for voicing an opinion. Owen didn’t lack the grey matter to do more at Morgan’s, he just wasn’t engaged here. That was why he’d put his energies into other things, like surfing and girls. Because he’d trained himself not to care.
Because of her.
And he could learn a lot about business from Elliott. Things he’d probably never learn from his sister. Things that would give Owen the same kind of reward as the bees gave her.
The kind of reward he’d been forgoing all this time so that she could enjoy her life.
Tears stung dangerously at the back of her useless eyes.
‘It’s okay, Laney—’ Owen started, genuinely aggrieved at her distress.
She shot a hand up to stop him. Because, no... It very definitely wasn’t okay. Being blind was no excuse for what she’d failed to recognise. And she wasn’t about to allow him to put himself second for her again.
A couple of months...
About the same time she’d known Elliott, and she’d managed to fall half in love with him in that time. Would a few months without him be enough to fall safely out of love again? At least she wouldn’t have to deal with him every weekend.
She turned back towards her brother without consulting her parents. She knew them well enough to know what their silence meant.
She sighed.
‘You’re going to need a suit.’
* * *
‘Are you okay?’
Elliott followed her outside when she took her leave from the awful family meeting. Awful, but probably necessary.
‘I’m a horrible person.’ She shuddered. No wonder Elliott didn’t want her. Why would he?
His voice softened. ‘No, you’re not. Families are...complicated. Sometimes you have to step out of it to see it clearly.’
‘I’ve hurt them all.’
‘They’ll live. Maybe today was just a day for saying overdue things.’
Mostly by her.
‘I’m sorry if I set you up for that with my comments,’ he murmured.
‘It was the truth. And he wouldn’t have his chance without your intervention.’ Because she and her parents would still be dismissing Owen.
‘What will you do while he’s gone?’ he asked.
‘Hire someone in to help, maybe. Something we should have done years ago.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
Yeah...excellent question.
Her throat tightened. ‘As long as Owen was a bit of a flunkie and helping me kept him positively occupied I got to hide behind the happy image of brother and sister working together. Contributing to the family together. And I got to overlook the hard truth.’
‘Which was...?’
‘That as long as it was my brother helping then I didn’t have to feel disabled.’
‘That’s not the truth, Laney.’
‘It’s absolutely true. I let Owen believe that the only value he added to Morgan’s was the one he brought to me. I did that, Elliott.’ No wonder he was so desperate to stretch his wings. He was probably desperate for a bit of self-worth. ‘I hadn’t realised how self-absorbed I am.’
‘You’re not.’
‘You said it yourself. I’m the Queen of my family.’
She heard the sag of his body in his voice. ‘Laney...’
But, no... Being blind was no excuse for some of the things she’d been overlooking.
‘It’s a good proposal,’ she admitted, desperate for a new subject. ‘Congratulations.’
‘This was never a contest.’
Wasn’t it? From day one it had been a challenge to see who would outplay the other.
‘You can still be involved,’ he went on. ‘As much as you want. Or as little.’
The latter was added with such relucta
nce. And shades of disdain. She lifted her head. ‘Why are you pushing me so hard, Elliott?’
‘Because you have so much more in you.’
More. Always more.
‘What if I don’t want to be more?’
What if she just wanted to be her.
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘You mean you don’t want to believe it.’ She sighed. ‘What happened to you to make you so intolerant of the choices of others?’
‘Nothing happened. That’s the point. Not one thing happened in my life unless I made it happen. Unless I went out and chased it down. Like you should.’
‘I don’t want to. I don’t need to. I’m happy with my life exactly like it is.’
Well, mostly anyway. She wouldn’t mind having a do-over with Owen. And a bit of love for a good man in the mix.
‘I don’t need to either, Laney.’
‘Are you sure? Because it seems to me that someone who spends so much time sucking the guts out of life must have an awfully big space to fill inside. And all the cars and speedboats and penthouses and promotions and busyness will pad all that nothing out, but never really fill it.’
‘You think I’m missing something?’ he said, after the longest silence they’d ever shared.
Echoed in his voice it sounded more terrible than she’d meant it to. But why stop now with the revelations.
‘Can I be honest?’
‘Are you ever anything but?’ he snorted.
‘I think you have your priorities all messed up. I think you walked away from your only family because it was easier than addressing whatever it was going on inside you.’
‘Based on the twenty seconds I’ve spent talking about my mother?’
‘She made some hard choices, Elliott. She gave up her career to keep you and raise you.’
‘She taught me to be afraid, Laney.’
‘How?’
‘Through example. She never encouraged me. She never believed in me. Just like you and your brother.’
The accusation stung. Because she could now see what her family’s under-estimation had done to Owen’s self-confidence. But the guilt only fired her up more.
‘You beat your head against a brick wall trying to change her, and now you want to change me, too.’
‘I don’t want to change you.’