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Everything shrank inside him to the size of a small, hard nut. He had to tell her she hadn’t got the job—it was only fair.
‘And you were right about the passion too. I’ve got quite a temper when I get going, don’t I?’
It was a trait they had in common.
‘Anyway, that’s not why I’m here…’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve drawn up a list of names for you. I wanted you to be armed and ready for your next meeting with the powers that be. I’ll come with you, if you like, though I can’t imagine anything will go wrong now—’
‘Liv, I need to tell you something—’
‘Don’t…’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I think I already know. You don’t have to feel bad about not hiring me, Cade. You can get a cleaning agency to help you with the house, and there are plenty of wonderful nurses out there who would bite your hand off for a chance to help you with the centre. They don’t even need to live in…but it’s better to get the attic room prepared, just in case.’
She was still helping him; still working out the best way to move forward with his scheme. Without her. ‘I’ll need more than one trained nurse.’ He shook his head, knowing it was wrong to go into it with her in the light of what she already knew must come next. ‘Liv, this is harder than I thought it would be. Won’t you sit down?’ He indicated the sofa.
She remained standing. ‘Cade, stop right there. Terminating our agreement is easy. You just say, “Sorry, Liv, it hasn’t worked out”, and I leave. But I don’t think you want that. I think you want to explain why I have to go. I think it would be easier for you if I just walk out now, but that won’t help you. And before I go…I want to help you.’
Stillness fell over the room interrupted only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, and the occasional restless movement of a log in the hearth. Liv remained standing where she was in case she broke the spell. She had a feeling Cade was ready to open up to her.
‘You can’t stay,’ he began, turning stiffly to face her, ‘because I don’t have anything to offer you.’ He held up his hands when she started to interrupt him. ‘You deserve more than I can give you—’
‘What if I don’t want more?’ She bit down on her lip, fighting back tears. This wasn’t her moment, this was Cade’s. This wasn’t about her emotions, how she felt, how she would lay down her life for him, this was about Cade’s chance of having a life, and for that she would stop up her tears for ever.
‘I’m sorry it has to be like this.’
‘It doesn’t have to be like this.’ She crossed the room and took his arm in a firm grip, sensing the contact between them—between Cade and another human being—was essential if he wasn’t to drift away again into the lock-up he inhabited. ‘Don’t do this, Cade. Don’t try your army stiff-upper-lip technique on me, because it won’t work.’
‘It has to work,’ he said, as if that would make it so.
‘Why? What are you afraid of?’
He shook his arm free. ‘You have to leave this—’
‘What if I won’t?’ She stood confronting him. ‘What if I won’t leave until I find out what’s troubling you, and what I can do to put it right? You’re stuck with me, Cade.’
‘Liv—’
‘I’m not in your army, and you can’t order me to go—’
‘And you can’t make this right, however determined you are!’
She let his words ring for a moment, and when the last sound wave had subsided she said softly, ‘Try me…’
Her face was so calm it quelled the clamouring voices inside him. Sinking down onto the sofa, he rested his elbows on his knees. Burying his face in his hands, he begged her. ‘Please, Liv…Leave me now. I need to be alone…’
‘If you want me to go you have to tell me why. You owe me that much, Cade.’ She came to sit beside him.
He looked at her and looked away. He wanted her there, and wanted her gone. But the stench of battle was in his mind and the need to have her fresh, innocent perfume in his nostrils overcame his need to protect her from the truth. ‘I lost my brother—’ He broke off as she took his hand. He looked down at the tiny hand holding his and felt Liv pouring her strength on his trembling weakness.
‘In the battle?’ she suggested in a whisper.
‘Yes, my brother Giles, in the fighting.’ He said it quickly to get it over with. Her hand tightened over his as he told her about the helicopter lifting off, and the boys he’d had to leave behind. Dead, his men had told him as they had held him back. His brother and the rest of them were dead.
‘Oh, Cade…’
‘I strained my eyes, staring into the distance beyond our spotlights, searching…always searching.’
‘And hoping…even now.’
He turned to her. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Because you never had closure. You never had the chance to bury your brother. To kiss him and tell him all the things you never got chance to.’
Emotion overwhelmed him for a moment, but he pulled himself round, sitting straight. This wasn’t his tragedy, it was Giles’ and he had let his brother down. ‘I didn’t save him—’
‘You couldn’t save him,’ Liv argued firmly, making him look at her.
‘I never knew if he was dead or alive—I still don’t know.’
‘Your men reassured you,’ she reminded him. ‘Don’t you trust them?’
‘I abandoned him—’
‘You saved so many.’
‘But I left Giles to his fate—’
‘And what about the people you saved?’ She grasped his hands, forcing him to look at her again. ‘What about them, Cade? Don’t they count for anything?’
The incisive tone of her voice was designed to jolt him out of the past, and it did. ‘But, can’t you see what I did?’ he argued.
‘I see that you feel guilty, and I understand why. But ask yourself this—’ releasing her grip on his hands, she framed his face in her soft, cool palms ‘—would any of us have acted as bravely as you? Would any of us feel any less guilty than you, if we had saved so many and yet left the one soldier we cared most about behind? You did everything humanly possible, Cade, to save as many people on that day as you could—’
‘But I left my brother lying there dead, maybe…’
Rejoicing inwardly that Cade seemed prepared for the very first time to consider the possibility that his men had been right about Giles being killed, she gripped his hands tightly to keep that thought in place. ‘But you saved someone else’s brother, someone else’s son. Would your brother have done any less, if he’d been in your position? You tried, Cade. You did everything you could, and that’s all that any of us can do.’ She held onto him as the fire flickered and crackled and the wood smoke curled around them in a homely way that was so very different from the cruel fires of the battlefield. She could only guess how much he’d seen, how much he’d suffered.
‘That’s why I want you to go,’ he said at last.
‘Oh, Cade…’ Were they right back where they had started from?
He shook his head slowly from side to side and she knew there were no words to describe how he was feeling, and so she tried to help him. ‘You feel empty,’ she suggested gently, ‘and yet full of the most terrible guilt and grief.’
Cade looked at her and it was all there in his eyes. She steeled herself, knowing this was not the time for her to show emotion.
‘There’s nothing inside me now except morbid feelings. I can’t shake them off—’
‘Yes, you can. Oh, you’re so wrong, Cade—’
‘You deserve more—’
‘I deserve you.’
There was such certainty in her eyes he was tempted to believe her. Catching hold of his hands, she hung onto them, and, staring into his eyes as if she would pour the last drop of her strength into him, she assured him, ‘You don’t get away from me that easily, Cade Grant. You’re not empty inside. You’re not scarred or disfigured, inside or out. You’re perfect
. Perfect for me.’
He shook his head, but a wry smile crept to his lips. ‘Perfect I’m not,’ he assured her.
‘Okay, so almost perfect,’ she conceded, cocking her head to one side as if reconsidering.
How badly he wanted it to be this easy. If only determination and a smile could make everything right. Restlessly, he got to his feet and began to pace. Reaching the mantelpiece, he leaned over the fire with his fists resting against the cold stone and his back to her, watching the flames and seeing his empty future in them. ‘I can’t forget, Liv,’ he told her with certainty. ‘I’ll never forget—’
‘And so we’re not to have a chance?’ The pain in Cade’s voice tore her heart in two. She could see everything clearly now—why he was so distant; why he felt so guilty; why he would never allow himself to enjoy anything, even one little bit, without regretting it later; grief and guilty feelings for his brother wouldn’t let him. But he was throwing his life away, and what sort of monument would that make for Giles? ‘You don’t have to forget,’ she exclaimed, springing to her feet. ‘It’s right for you to remember. Remember the good times, the times when you were boys together—the scrapes you got into. Remember the serious times and not so serious times too; remember everything, Cade. You’ve got the courage to do that, don’t you?’
‘The courage?’ He turned to look at her.
‘There’ll be times when you just want to escape from the world and sit down quietly and reflect. Everyone understands that—I understand. But don’t shut yourself away, Cade. Live your life as your brother would want you to live it. Don’t waste your life and make a mockery of his sacrifice. Make it a good life, Cade. Make it a life that honours all your fallen men, including Giles…’
He was crying, silent tears down granite cheeks. She didn’t take his hands this time, because it was time for her to leave Cade with his thoughts just as she had promised she would.
‘Don’t leave me.’
He didn’t look at her as he held out his hand.
She took hold of his hand in hers and came to stand in front of him. ‘Look at me, Cade…’
After a moment of battling with his emotions he did as she asked.
