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Lizzie couldn’t think, couldn’t function. Her mind was numb. Surely she was acting a role. That of the distraught daughter, the anguished sister. There was no way her parents could be dead. No way her brother could be in a coma, unlikely to ever come out.
But it had to be true, because today she’d watched as two coffins carrying her parents had been lowered into a hole and covered with soil. Relatives she barely knew had trailed through her childhood home, smiling awkwardly and drinking lots of tea. When the last of them had left, she’d scuttled upstairs to her room, looking for the peace and calm she usually found there. After an hour of lying on her old wooden bed, staring emptily out of the window, she still couldn’t find it. The house was eerily quiet, as if it, too, was in mourning.
A light tap on the door broke the silence. ‘Are you okay in there?’
Nick. Since she’d left to go to America she’d rarely seen him, and certainly not without the buffer of her brother or parents. Her anger at his rejection had cooled over the years, but the brush off still stung and the memory of it hung like an unwanted weight between them. A tension that, so far, time hadn’t been able to shift. Yet in those bleak moments straight after the accident when the kind policeman had asked if there was anyone they could call to stay with her, Nick’s had been the first, the only name her dazed mind had thought of. Later, waking from a sedative induced sleep, she’d been horrified and called him, interrupting his halting words of sympathy. ‘Thank you but I’m fine,’ she’d told him. ‘There’s no need to drag yourself across the Atlantic.’
He’d exhaled a long, deep sigh. ‘You’re not fine. And I’m in a cab, ten minutes away.’
Of course he’d already dropped everything and flown to see her. That was Nick all over. Kind, loyal. A man who put duty and responsibility before anything else. Even it meant having to deal with a grieving woman, one who’d once asked him to take her virginity.
‘Lizzie?’
His voice cut through her thoughts and with a sigh she sat up on the bed. ‘It’s okay, you can come in.’
The door creaked open and his tall frame moved hesitantly into the room. ‘You’ve been up here a long while. I was getting worried.’
‘I was just thinking how the house feels too quiet.’ She felt a crushing pain in her chest and pressed her hand to it, despite knowing there was nothing that would soothe it. ‘Any minute I expect to hear Mum singing, and Dad laughing at her singing. Or Robert dashing in to ask me, for the hundredth time, when I’m going to introduce him to Kate Moss.’
A small, understanding smile flickered across his face. ‘I’m more of a Claudia Schiffer man myself.’ He nodded to the bed. ‘Do you mind?’
The way he perched carefully on the end furthest from her tugged a wry smile from her. ‘Finally I get you in my bed.’
Immediately his face flushed scarlet. ‘Look, about that—’
‘No.’ Horrified, she held up her hand. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up. We’re not talking about it. Not now, not ever.’ Why the blazes had she mentioned it?
‘Well, obviously, I’d rather not talk about that sort of stuff, either, but . . .’ He sighed. ‘I hate the awkwardness between us now.’
‘They say a girl never forgets her first love. I guess she finds it hard to forget her first rejection, too.’
His eyes rested, dark and expressive, on hers. ‘It was six years ago. And surely, you have to know, turning you down hurt me far more than it hurt you.’
Then why do it? But she was far too emotionally unsteady to have that conversation. In fact, she doubted she’d ever be ready for it.
The quiet she’d started to hate descended on them once again. Outside there was a bird twittering on as if all was well with the world. If only it was. A chill shot through her and she began to tremble, her body juddering uncontrollably. ‘Would you mind holding me?’
He didn’t hesitate. One minute he was sitting at the end of her bed, the next he was beside her and cradling her in his arms. He smelt like Nick: classic, male, outdoors. He felt like Nick: warm, comforting, steady. ‘Thank you for being here,’ she whispered into his chest.
His arms tightened. ‘Where else would I be?’
He didn’t understand her gratitude. He couldn’t see how, in his quiet way, he’d got her through the last two weeks. Holding hands with her by Robert’s bedside. Arranging the transfer of her parents’ bodies to England. Helping her arrange the funeral. Others had pitched in, on both sides of the Atlantic, friends and relatives keen to help. Yet throughout it all, Nick had been the one constant. A rock in the storm of her heartbreak and loss. ‘Others came and went,’ she told him quietly. ‘You stayed.’
‘I’m waiting for you to kick me out.’
She smiled against his chest, soothed by the steady beat of his heart. ‘I thought I already did that earlier.’
‘What, telling me to bugger off? It will take a lot more than that to get rid of me.’ She felt his lips as they placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. ‘A lot more.’
* * *
Nick rested his chin on her soft blonde head, holding tightly onto the haunted woman he’d watched like a hawk all day. He desperately wanted to cry, but she didn’t need his sadness, too. She needed his strength.
‘I’ve decided, I’m going back to the States tomorrow.’
He loosened his grip so he could look at her. ‘So soon? Are you sure?’
Suddenly restless, she shifted away from his arms and jumped to her feet. ‘I can’t stay here, in this house, any longer.’ Her voice sounded thick, as if she was on the verge of further tears. ‘I need to get back to my life. Working again will do me good. Give me less time to think.’
