To her surprise her voice was steady and sure, as sure as her determination to refuse to show Ethan just how deep his words had cut her and how much she’d found herself wishing he’d asked her to stay.
Thank God she hadn’t told him that she loved him. That would be the ultimate irony, the ultimate weakness. She, who’d never wanted to stay or settle with any one person, and especially not to fall in love, was head over heels with a man who, it appeared, was willing to toss her aside, anyway.
“Thank you for not making this awkward,” he said, his voice devoid of expression.
She looked at him, struggled to believe this was the same man who’d laughed with her last night, who’d loved with her in the darkness. The man who’d stolen her heart.
Her lips twisted in an ironic smile. “I’ll go now. Just give me a few minutes to get my things together. Good luck with your work. I really do hope you’ll be happy. You deserve to be happy, Ethan. Remember that.”
Somehow she found the strength to turn away from him without touching him, to make her way to the bathroom where she showered quickly and dressed in her standard uniform of jeans and a shirt then, without checking to see if he was still in the main living area waiting for her, she hefted her pack onto her shoulders and let herself out the second entrance they’d used last night.
She had her pack, and her health and a sizeable check on its way to fatten her bank account soon. Those were all the things she’d ever needed to get by. They were all she’d need now. They’d have to be...because the chance of having anything else was now over.
Fifteen
Isobel was at the airport waiting for her flight to Singapore. From there she was heading back to Africa and it couldn’t be soon enough, she decided. Her cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket and she slid it out to check the caller ID. Tamsyn. She sighed. Every instinct told her to ignore the call, to keep things purely to email between them. Too much could be read into tone of voice and she didn’t want anyone to know what an idiot she’d been to fall in love with Ethan Masters, especially not his sister.
But Tamsyn had been her friend, as well. She owed it to her to speak to her directly. Isobel thumbed the pad of her phone, answering the call.
“Isobel? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Tamsyn. Just got a heads-up on my next project and I needed to take advantage of it. I’m sorry not to have been able to say goodbye in person.”
“Really? Is that why you’re leaving so soon? Ethan came back here like a bear with a sore head. I know he’s upset about the reserve but I thought... Well, never mind what I thought. I’m sorry, too.”
Silence stretched out between them for a moment or two. Isobel forced herself to speak.
“Look, they’ll be calling my flight soon. I have to go. Thanks for everything, Tam, and you take care, okay? I’ll email you.”
“Yeah, sure. Look, I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to try and find my mother, to at least find out where she is.”
“Are you sure that’s wise? You might end up opening a whole can of worms you’re not ready for.”
“I know,” Tamsyn agreed. “That’s why I’m not rushing into anything. It’s not as if I don’t have enough other stuff to keep me busy, anyway. But I need to know more about her.”
“I understand, but be very careful about what you decide to do once you do have the information you’re looking for. Promise me? Things may not always turn out the way you hope they will.”
Tamsyn gave a short, dry laugh. “Is that the voice of experience talking now, Isobel?”
Isobel closed her eyes for a moment, shutting out the busyness of the terminal building and focusing on her friend’s voice, on imagining her in her office, overlooking the property and the people who worked there.
“Yeah, maybe,” she admitted.
“You can always come back, Isobel.”
“No, I can’t,” she said softly. “I never look back.”
“Are you sure you can’t make an exception this time?”
“No exceptions, Tam. I’m sorry. Look, it’s been wonderful getting to know you. I meant it about staying in touch, okay? And let me know how things are going with your search for your mother.”
“Sure, I will. Take care, Isobel. I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too.”
Isobel disconnected the call, not wanting to actually say goodbye, not wanting to hear it in return. Because that would make her leaving all the more final.
* * *
Ethan looked at Shanal across the intimate dining table at the select restaurant he’d chosen to bring her to tonight. The past couple of weeks had been difficult. Coming to grips with the accident at the winery was one thing; getting used to the fact that Isobel was no longer nearby was something else entirely. He gave himself a mental shake. Dwelling on the past was not going to consolidate his future, a future he hoped would include the woman seated across from him.
Shanal’s pale green eyes glittered in the soft lighting in the dining room. Her long, black hair was a glossy fall down her back. She was beautiful, intelligent, warm and friendly. Everything he wanted in a life mate—especially when he factored in her steady and reliable nature.
The waiter brought their coffee and withdrew, reminding Ethan that the evening was drawing to a close and he had yet to broach the subject of marriage with Shanal. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before reaching across the small table to take Shanal’s hand.
She looked up at him, startled by his action.
“Shanal, do you often think about the future?”
She gave him a nervous smile. “The future? Of course I do. All the time, actually.”
“So do I,” Ethan said with more confidence. “And I think we make a good pair, don’t you?”
“Ethan, I—”
He rushed on, interrupting her. “We should get married. We’re great friends already. We have the same interests, the same wants. We would be great together.”
To his absolute shock, Shanal burst out laughing.
“What?” he asked, more than a bit put out by her reaction.
“Oh, Ethan. Surely you’re not serious?”
He thought for a moment of the ring set with diamonds and an unusual pale green amethyst he had stowed in his pocket. One he’d chosen for its uniqueness and because it reminded him of the exact color of Shanal’s eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be serious about it?”
“Because you’re in love with someone else. Besides, I’m not in love with you and, call me old-fashioned, but I think love is definitely a prerequisite for a long and happy marriage, don’t you?”
“But I do love you,” he protested, even as his gut clenched.
“Sure, and I love you, too, but not that way.” She tugged her hand free. “Ethan, we’re great friends and I hope we’ll always share that special relationship no matter where we are or what we’re doing. When you started asking me out, I was willing to try to see if there could be something more between us. I thought you’d realized, as I did, that there couldn’t—and that that was why I hadn’t heard from you for the past few weeks. When you rang to ask me out tonight, I was expecting you to admit the truth—that we’re better off as friends.”
“Are we?”
“Of course we are. It’s not just that you’re not in love with me. It’s that you are in love with Isobel. Even a blind man could see that. You’re crazy not to grasp what the two of you could have and hold tight. You owe it to yourself, and to her, to keep it safe forever because a love like that doesn’t come along in every lifetime.”
“Isobel?”
Shanal huffed a sigh of frustration. “You know, for an intelligent man, you can be hopelessly dense sometimes. Yes, Isobel. Tell me, how did you feel the first time you ever saw her?”
; “Like I’d suddenly found light in a dark place.”
She smiled. “Exactly. And what did you do?”
“I followed her.”
“And then?” she prompted.
Ethan felt heat rise into his cheeks. He wasn’t about to share with Shanal what had happened next. She obviously noted the high color in his face.
“See what I mean? When has anyone ever made you feel like she did, behave like you did together? It was way more than infatuation or lust, Ethan. Don’t forget, I know you well. I knew you had some crazy bee in your bonnet about us, but when I saw you with Isobel I wondered if you weren’t fighting against her just a little too hard.”
She lifted her coffee cup and took a sip and eyed him over the china rim. “Seriously, what are you afraid of? You have the chance to have the kind of forever love that many people can only dream of. I envy you that because that’s the kind of love I want from the man I marry, if I ever marry. And you can be certain I’m not prepared to settle for less than that, ever.”
“Are you sure, Shanal? We could be a great partnership.” He had to try, just one more time, because what she was suggesting was impossible and scary all at the same time.
“I’m one hundred percent certain. Now, enjoy your coffee and take me home and we can put this behind us and get back to normal again.”
By the time he arrived home and went upstairs to his room, he felt shattered. Building up to tonight had taken more out of him than he’d expected and, oddly, he now even felt some relief that Shanal had turned him down. It seemed she knew him better than he knew himself, he thought with a rueful smile as he unknotted his tie and threw it at an easy chair in the corner of his room.
His attention was dragged to the open drapes at his window, to the darkness beyond that served as a reminder of the empty cottage where Isobel had stayed. Where they’d made love. A fist clenched tight in his gut. He’d sent her away and she’d gone, willingly. On to the next thing, the next adventure, the next job, the next man.
The thought made him feel physically ill and he snapped his drapes closed with a decisive flick. Shanal could say what she liked about him and Isobel having a special connection. The truth was, she’d had one foot out the door from the moment she arrived at The Masters. Sending her away had shortened her stay, but nothing he could have done would have made her stay for good.
A knock at his door made him turn around.
“It’s only me,” Tamsyn said through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” he said, pulling the door open. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to see if congratulations were in order.”
“Me and Shanal? No. She turned me down.”
“Oh, thank God!”
Ethan looked at his sister in shock. “You think we would have been such a bad match?”
“No, not that, but you wouldn’t have been happy. Not really happy like you deserve.”
Her words echoed the ones Isobel had parted from him with. “I’ll never know now, will I?” he said flippantly.
“You will if you do something about Isobel.”
“Like what?”
“Like tell her how you really feel.”
It seemed everyone knew him better than he knew himself. Strangely, the thought didn’t rankle as he thought it might.
“What’s the point? My life is here, and she’d never want to settle down.”
“You could try asking her, you know.”
“Asking her to give up her whole life? Her work? Her plans?”
“Ask her if she’d be willing to try. There’s a chance you could reach a compromise, if you’re willing to work for one. I’ve never known you to turn away from something just because it would be hard work. Usually you take that sort of thing as a challenge. What do you have to lose by asking?”
“And what if I’m afraid to? Have you ever considered that?”
“You, Ethan? Afraid?” Tamsyn looked stunned, as if the idea had never occurred to her. She pressed her lips together, her expression showing she was thinking hard. “Okay, I get that you’d be careful—you’re not the sort to rush into anything—but afraid? Why?”
Ethan sat down on one of the easy chairs positioned in front of the stone fireplace in his room and motioned for his sister to do the same. “We haven’t exactly had the best examples set for us, have we? Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Charles split up and put their kids through hell. Dad let us think that Mum was dead all this time—and she was so eager to get away from him that she did nothing to show us otherwise. Even Uncle Edward and Aunt Marianne haven’t always been smooth sailing.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a success of things ourselves. If all people ever looked at through history was failure, without changing something to do it better, then humankind would cease to exist.”
He smiled at her words. She was right. But that was what he’d done already—tried to improve on the past, to fix mistakes and avoid the same pitfalls.
“I have done it differently than Mum and Dad. I’ve been careful. I haven’t led with my heart.”
“Sure, but at the cost of all else,” Tamsyn protested. “You try to wrap everything around you in cotton wool. You don’t take risks, you only bet on a sure thing and you’re so protective of me and the family it’s almost suffocating.”
Suffocating? Is that what she thought? A flare of frustration warred with sadness that she felt that way. He felt obligated to respond.
“When Mum died, or at least when we were led to believe she had, I felt as if the cornerstone of my world had crumbled away. Dad was always so busy here that she was our real compass. You’re probably too young to remember the way she was with us. One time, I remember she was dressed up for a ladies’ tea somewhere. But when she heard we were off to the creek with some of the other cousins, she kicked off her high heels, threw on a pair of flip-flops and came with us. Just like that. She was always there for us and then all of a sudden she wasn’t.
“In the hospital, after the accident, Dad told me to be his little man, to look after you, and I did. Maybe I took that a little too far.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” Tamsyn said softly. “You’re a great big brother and I know how lucky I’ve been. But I am a grown-up now. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when I need your help, I will ask for it. You don’t need to make my decisions for me anymore.”
Ethan accepted the truth of her words, even though a part of him still struggled to let go. It was going to take some rethinking on his part, but he’d get there. Looking out for his family was firmly entrenched in him, but he’d try to be less smothering, more accepting of everyone’s right to make their own decisions. And that began right now with Tamsyn and their mother.
“You want to find her, don’t you?”
“I need to,” she answered simply.
He sighed softly. “Then I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”
“Thank you. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you, too.”
He smiled at her earnestness. Deep down she was still his baby sister, still seeking his approval, still eager to please.
“Help me?” he asked, not entirely sure what she was angling at.
“With Isobel. With getting her back.” He started to protest, but she held up a hand to cut him off. “If you’re going to let me make my own decisions, then you definitely have to let Isobel make hers, as well. At least tell her how you feel. Then let her take it from there.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” he answered in all honesty. “Our chemistry aside, I hardly know anything about her except she’s good at what she does and she travels a lot.”
“Start with her blog, ‘IF Only.’ You’ll understand what’s important to her. The rest will come.” Tamsyn rose from her chair and bent to kiss Ethan on the
cheek. “You’ll do what’s right. You always do. G’night.”
He raised a hand in acknowledgment as she left the room and closed the door behind her. He was alone with his thoughts. Thoughts he hadn’t wanted to believe or acknowledge. But he couldn’t ignore them now. He’d been trying so hard to do the right thing, to be the right man, and in doing so he’d probably lost the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire life.
He didn’t know if he could convince her to give a relationship between them a chance, but he had to try. Somehow, he had to get Isobel back.
Sixteen
Ethan’s eyes burned the next morning. He’d been up until the small hours reading Isobel’s blog and experiencing a welling sense of shame in the way he’d treated her. He’d thought her careless, bohemian, incapable of commitment—yet she was so much more than any of those things. She was always on the go, without any of the attachments he cherished, but she used her freedom to help people, and make a difference in so many lives.
His conscience still stung with embarrassment when he thought about the throwaway comment he’d made to her one day about taking mall photos of grumpy babies and toddlers. The photos she’d put up on the internet, the devastation and poverty, the homeless children and uprooted families—they were so powerful and moving. She’d walked in the shadow of those people, some still proud and fighting for what they believed in, others beaten and bowed. Yet every person she’d featured had been treated with a dignity and respect he hadn’t even had the grace to afford Isobel herself.
They said the bigger you were the harder the fall. Well, he’d fallen—hard. His arrogance and presumption left a bitter echo in his mind, one he was determined to rinse out and to never, ever allow back into his thinking again.
While the photos Isobel had taken were shocking and carried a powerful message—sometimes of hope, other times of despair—it was her commentary that showed how clever and insightful she was and how deeply she respected her subjects. It was easy to see how committed she was to highlighting their plight and the need to effect change in their world.
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