by Miranda Lee
Cassie allowed herself to be bustled down the corridor, half wishing she could stop and ask Dan what it was that she should know and understand. In the back of her mind she knew that it had something to do with his wife, but how could she think of such things when her mind and heart were full of Jason and his recovery? And, as Dan said, what difference could it make now?
A pretty young nurse was sitting beside Jason's bed in the small, private room. She stood up and smiled when Dan and Cassie came in. 'I'll be outside if you need me,' she said quietly.
Cassie took one look at the tiny white figure in the bed, his head swathed in bandages, and almost burst into tears again. She clung on to Dan's arm.
'He looks so small, so defenceless,' she cried with a tiny sob.
'So lifeless,' Dan murmured. 'Just like...'
Dan groaned and tried to twist away from her, but Cassie clutched his arms. It struck her forcibly as she looked up into his contorted face that, if she truly loved Dan and wanted to make her peace with him, she had to face Roberta's ghost.
'Dan... What is it? Tell me!'
He shook his head.
'Is it...something to do with Roberta?' she persisted. 'Is that it? If it is, then I want to know.'
Again he shook his head. 'No, you don't. You never wanted to know. Not that I blame you. I've done it all wrong...grabbing at you...grabbing at Jason. I wanted you both...so desperately.' Tears glittered into his eyes. 'All these years of ‑' His mouth clamped tightly shut and he closed his eyes. 'You'd never understand...'
'Dan, please...give me the chance,' she pleaded. 'I...I didn't want to know about Roberta before because I was jealous...and I couldn't bear to hear about the wife you had loved...more than me...'
He opened eyes that had known a hell which she could not even guess at. 'I didn't love Roberta, Cassie. And there were times when I hated her from the depths of my soul for keeping me tied to her side. But she had no one else. No one...'
'Tell me about it,' Cassie urged, slipping her arms around his waist. She lifted loving, reassuring eyes. 'Tell me everything.'
He stared at her as though he couldn't believe the words he was hearing, or the way she was looking at him. 'It isn't a pretty story, Cassie.'
She swallowed. 'I can take it.'
'Yes, no doubt you can,' he sighed. 'You're remarkably tough.'
Cassie flinched and looked away.
He swung her chin back with a tender fingertip. 'Don't think I meant that unkindly, Cassie. I admire you. I really do. You're strong and independent, and underneath...underneath there lies a heart any man would give his life to capture.'
He gazed down into her startled face and gave a sad little shake of his head, it was the blackest day of my life when I had to write that letter to you...letting you go...' He dragged in a deep, trembling breath then led her over to a visitor's chair at the foot of Jason's bed. 'Better sit down,' he explained. 'This could take some time.'
Cassie sank down in the chair in something of a daze, unsure of grasping on to the hope that was surging into her heart. Dared she believe that Dan had really loved her? That he might still? Yet something—possibly the bleakness on his face— warned her to be careful, to keep her vulnerability in check.
Dan wandered over to stare through the window into the night, his words floating across the room in an oddly detached fashion. 'I was twenty-six when I met Roberta, a qualified accountant with a flourishing business and a flair for finance—well on my way to making my first million. But I was lonely. I wanted to get married, start a family of my own. My only sister had moved to Perth when she married, and taken my widowed mother to live with her. I missed them...'
Dan turned and began to pace the room. His voice grew more emotional. Strained. 'Roberta was bright and lovely—fun to be with. A little immature, perhaps, but ‑' He stopped and slanted Cassie a rueful look. 'I was very arrogant in those days, so sure of myself and of making the future work for me. It didn't seem important at the time that I wasn't madly in love. I'd always believed being madly in love to be a passing illusion and not a good basis for marriage.'
He sighed, and resumed pacing. 'The honeymoon didn't last very long. Roberta was only happy when we were either giving parties or going to them, which wasn't my idea of marriage. I pressed her to have a baby, but she wanted to wait a few more years, have more fun before being tied down with children. Our lives seemed empty and meaningless to me, and our relationship deteriorated. Eventually she did become pregnant...'
Cassie bit her bottom lip to keep from making a sound. She looked up to see Dan grimacing with remembered frustration.
'...but only by sheer accident. I practically had to bribe her to have the child, promising to hire a full-time nurse so that she could continue her socialising.'
Dan's mouth softened into a sad smile. 'But it was worth it. Her name was Maree... She was such a beautiful little girl. She ‑' He broke off and cleared his throat. 'She drowned when she was two years old.'
Cassie's heart squeezed tight, a moan of compassion escaping from her lips. To lose a child... Dear heaven! If she had lost Jason tonight...
She lifted agonised eyes to Dan, who was staring at his son, as if reassuring himself that Jason was still alive. Yet when Dan saw Cassie looking at him he turned away and walked stiffly back over to the window, his back towards her.
'Roberta was on the phone when it happened,' he went on in a thick voice. 'She had a charity luncheon to attend and was trying to arrange a baby-sitter after Maree's nanny had fallen ill. Maree must have wandered out on to the patio and fallen in the pool. Somehow the gate had been left unlatched... Roberta had had a swim that morning...'
'Oh, Dan!' Cassie cried. 'How horrible for you.'
Dan spun round and for a split second Cassie saw the horror of his pain. It was a tangible thing, festering on his face like an open wound. 'I've never known such despair,' he said hoarsely. 'Such misery.'
He sucked in a ragged breath. 'Grief nearly drove me mad. I...' He shook his head, struggling for composure. 'Roberta, though, seemed strangely unaffected. If anything her social life increased. She was out practically every night, not returning till dawn. I tried ignoring the evidence of her infidelity at first, but in the end I confronted her. She admitted that there'd been other men. Dozens of them. I don't remember being shattered. Just empty. And sad. But I did begin divorce proceedings and then leave.'
Cassie rose unsteadily to her feet. 'And was this when you came to the island?' she asked huskily.
'Yes... My work had been affected by the strain I was under. A business partner of mine was a friend of the van Aarks and he arranged for me to stay there for a holiday. He knew I liked somewhere quiet to paint...'
He walked towards her then, and looked her straight in the eyes. 'I loved you, Cassie. You have to believe that. And I needed your love quite desperately. It was something I'd never had before—never believed existed—and I was so greedy for it after losing Maree that I couldn't wait until I was entirely free of Roberta. I had to have you. And I meant to marry you.'
He ran an agitated hand through his hair. 'But then the call came through about the accident. Apparently Roberta had been seeing some chap who owned a motorbike. They'd been drinking heavily and went out for a ride. The bike went out of control on a corner and hit a power pole. Roberta's lover was killed. She was a mess, but alive. Her father rang me from the hospital, begging me to come. He was terribly distressed. He was a widower, you see, Roberta his only child. I couldn't refuse. But it was the middle of the night...too late to call you...'
Dan's sigh carried an ocean of regret. 'I meant to contact you first thing in the morning, but all hell broke loose. When the doctor came with the news that Roberta would be a paraplegic for life, her father collapsed and died. A stroke... brought on by shock. Roberta kept asking for him. God, it was ghastly. I didn't know what to tell her, what to do. Whenever I tried to leave the room she became hysterical. I had her crying and doctors pleading with me to keep
her calm.'
Dan lifted tormented eyes to Cassie. 'In the end I had to tell her the truth. It seemed kinder than letting her lie there in a torment of worry and doubt. Oh, Cassie...no matter what she'd done in the past, no one deserves to have to suffer that much. When she looked up at me from her hospital bed...so helpless...so distraught...so utterly, utterly alone...I knew that I couldn't leave her.'
His sigh was filled with pain. 'So I sat down and wrote you that letter—that rotten, soul-destroying letter.' Dan looked down at Cassie, his eyes flooding. 'Forgive me,' he rasped.
She pulled him close. 'Oh, Dan...darling...'
There was a moment when he resisted her embrace, then his arms swept around her, hugging her even more tightly than she was hugging him.
Tears flooded into Cassie's eyes as she finally accepted the truth of Dan's love, and the awful tragedy that had shaped his life. She could see now why he had acted as he had when he'd found out about Jason. First when he'd discovered his existence, and then today... My God! The control the man must have exercised over himself as he'd frantically gone through the motions of trying to save his son's life.
'I...I did my best to make life bearable for her, Cassie,' he murmured brokenly. 'She...died peacefully... Some type of embolism.'
'Hush, my love. No more.' She looked up at him, her heart overflowing with love and compassion. She laid a gentle, reassuring hand on his cheek. 'You did everything you could do.'
His hand came up to cover hers and he turned his face into the palm, kissing the warm, soft flesh. A shudder ran through him. 'Tell me you still love me,' he rasped. 'For pity's sake, just tell me that.'
Her eyes swam. 'Don't you know, my darling?' she whispered softly. 'I've always loved you. I'll never stop loving you.'
With a groan, he crushed her to him, his hands cradling the back of her head into the warmth of his neck. 'Oh, Cassie... Cassie... I love you so much. I thought I'd lost you today, really lost you.'
'Never.'
'But I was stupid, hateful, cruel. . I thought...I couldn't believe ‑'
'Hush... Tell me you love me again,' she murmured.
'I love you,' he said.
'Kiss me.'
He did.
'Mum? Dad?'
They spun out of their embrace and raced to the bed, hand in hand. Both of them had tears streaming down their faces.
Jason frowned with his one exposed eye. 'Oh, yuk,' he pronounced weakly. 'Sammy Johnson was right. You are going to be mushy all the time.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A pale pre-dawn grey blanketed the island, a fine mist rising from the river. The helicopter came in low over the tree-tops to be landed with considerable expertise barely twenty metres from the front steps of Strath-haven.
'Home,' Cassie whispered.
Dan gave her a squeeze. 'Home,' he repeated, and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
'You'd better get this machine back to Sydney, Paul,' Dan informed the pilot as they alighted. 'Sorry about the long night.'
'That's all right, Mr McKay. Glad to hear that your boy's going to be all right.'
They watched from the veranda as the helicopter took off, disappearing quickly into the distance.
Dan had his arm around Cassie's shoulders, holding her close against him. She felt wonderfully warm and content. She sighed.
'Tired, Mrs McKay?'
'Oddly enough, not in the least.' She smiled up at him. 'Maybe I'm overtired. In a few hours I'll probably crash.'
'Fancy a walk?'
'A walk? Where?'
She saw his eyes drift down the hill towards the studio, and her stomach automatically contracted. A silly reaction, really. He loved her, didn't he? What was she afraid of now?
But the feeling would not pass. It held an insecurity, a fear of finding out some last hidden factor that might even now spoil her happiness. Life had taught her to be wary.
'OK,' she said, bravely keeping any fears to herself.
'You're very quiet,' Dan noted as they approached the small wooden cottage. 'Are you sure you're not tired? We can go back if you are.'
'No, no, I'm fine. A little cold.' She shivered, but more from nerves than the chill of the coming dawn.
He quickly took off his jacket and placed it round her shoulders. 'Better?'
She nodded, but the feeling of foreboding continued. 'Dan... Have you any special reason for wanting to come here?' She hoped that she didn't sound as nervous as she felt.
'In a way.'
'Oh?' She looked up at him, but he said nothing, merely smiled an enigmatic smile. Not even the most suspicious person could have found anything ominous in that smile. But still, Cassie's chest tightened.
They stopped before the front door, its white panels looking much the worse for wear. Dan stretched out his hand towards the door-knob.
'Maybe it's locked,' Cassie suggested, hoping the ridiculous hope that it was.
'It's not,' came his reply, just before his hand connected.
'How do you know?' she practically accused.
He swung a puzzled face around. 'What?' He turned fully to grip her upper arms. 'My God, Cassie, you look sick. What's wrong?'
'I...I don't want to go in there,' she cried, her deep concerns bursting into words. 'I don't want anything to happen...to spoil things between us.'
His frown dissolved into a look of such tender understanding that Cassie almost burst into tears. 'Oh, Cassie.' He enfolded her into his arms, cradling her head into his chest. 'My poor love...so brave...so fine... Do you think I would ever do anything to hurt you again?'
He drew back, his eyes soothing her. 'There's nothing to worry about in there. Nothing. This is a very special place, a place where all our memories are good.'
'But I thought you hated it,' she choked out.
'Hate it? Now why would you think...? Oh, yes, I remember... The other morning on the bridge. You silly ninny,' he whispered, wiping her brimming eyes with soft fingertips. 'I couldn't bear to think about the studio then because it represented everything I'd had once but which I thought I'd never have again. I was certain you'd never love me, no matter what you said and did. I thought your turn-around was all for Jason. Nothing more. The way you looked at me sometimes... It was so different from...' He hesitated. 'Come inside, I have something to show you.'
The studio was exactly as she remembered. One large room with a fireplace at the southern end, in front of which stretched a deeply piled brown rug and an old flowered divan. Around the walls stood a variety of furniture: book-cases, cabinets, a table and chairs, an ancient refrigerator. A general air of disuse hung over the whole place, despite its having been recently cleaned.
Dan took her hand, leading her over and settling her on the divan before turning to stride across the rug towards an old sideboard in the corner. Cassie watched, puzzled, as he opened one section, but when he pulled out a rectangular-shaped object wrapped in a red felt cloth she knew instantly what it was...
Her throat grew dry as he removed the cover and placed it on the mantelpiece.
He stared at it for a few seconds, then took several slow steps backwards. Finally he turned, as though reluctantly, to face her. 'This is how I remembered you,' he said.
She stood up and walked towards her portrait, her mind marvelling at Dan's skill, her heart hating it at the same time. It was too good, too clear, too telling...
'I finished it after I left,' he was saying, 'from memory.'
It made Cassie remember, too. And the memory was unexpectedly painful.
Two big blue eyes looked out at her from the canvas. They were the eyes of a girl in love, deeply in love, blindly in love—the eyes of a girl who would ask no questions, expect no answers, who would give and give without any thought of self. A girl such as she could never be again. If Dan was waiting for her to look at him like this, she thought wretchedly, he would wait forever.
He moved to stand beside her. 'I used to get it out occasionally. Mostly when I'd had a drink or two.
And I'd gaze at it for hours.' He let out a ragged sigh. 'You had Jason, Cassie. I had this.'
Cassie turned slowly to face Dan, a dreadful empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was this what Dan still loved? she agonised. This fantasy? Was this why he'd come back to Strath-haven— to try to bring the portrait to life?
Dan had told her at the hospital, as they'd sat with a sleeping Jason, the circumstances of his return. He'd found out that the island was on the market quite by accident, months after Roberta had died, ages after he'd given up hope of ever seeing Cassie again. Too long had passed, he reasoned, for her not to be married.
But once he'd heard about the island he'd been compelled to find out. He'd made enquiries at the register of marriages, found no record of a marriage, then looked up the electoral roll to see if she was still registered locally. It seemed impossible that she wouldn't be involved with someone else, but still he had bought Strath-haven and come back, hoping.
Hoping for what? Cassie frowned.
'Dan... This isn't me...I'm not her any more.'
His hand reached out to smooth her wrinkled brow. 'Yes, you are. You're still my darling girl...' His expression became glazed, as though he was a long way away. Nine years away...
Dismay rolled over her heart.
He must have seen her reaction, for suddenly his face cleared to show a spark of anxiety. 'What is it, Cassie? What have I said?' He grabbed her arms, his sudden movement making the jacket slip from her shoulders. Both of them ignored it as it fell to the floor. He stared down at her, his alarm growing with each second.
Her eyes slid inexorably towards the portrait.
'Oh, Cassie,' Dan sighed. 'Don't go thinking things like that. I haven't shown you the painting to make you feel insecure. I merely wanted to explain that when I met you again, and found you so mature and assured, it came as a shock. I guess for me it was as though you had been frozen in time, and it took a while for my thinking to readjust. You'd grown up. Truly grown up. But once I'd got over the shock I found that you appealed to me even more so. You are a woman such as Roberta never was, or ever could be. Strong and brave. Good and kind. But you are still in essence the girl I painted, with the same sweet, generous heart. You can't imagine how I felt tonight when you told me that you loved me, had never stopped loving me. I thought my heart would burst with emotion. All I can say in return is that I'll try to be worthy of your love. And that I will love you till the day I die.'