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“No.”
She opened her mouth to ask if he was about to go on a dangerous mission from which he might never return—it was the next thing that occurred to her, but, given time, she was sure there would be plenty more.
“No.” He strode right up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Enough. Do
n’t say another word. Just listen to what I have to say.”
“I can’t. There are so many terrible things going through my mind.”
He covered her mouth with a palm while his other hand cupped the back of her neck. His face went completely blank as he distanced himself from what he was about to say. Isobel almost threw her milk at him to get him to hurry up.
“I have prosthetic legs,” he said at last, his voice devoid of emotion.
Callum stared down at Isobel and waited for her reaction, at the same time dreading what it would be. He knew as soon as the words left his mouth that there was no going back to the way she looked at him before he’d told her. She’d seen him as a hero. As almost invincible. He hadn’t wanted to give that up, to see pity and disgust in her eyes instead of hope. He had been tempted to let the topic lie. To distance himself from her and never let her know about his legs. To have the memory of how she’d once looked at him to keep him going in the years to come. But he couldn’t. He wasn’t that man. He’d been a coward long enough.
Isobel blinked at him with her impossibly large eyes, then said something against his hand.
“Sorry.” He dropped his hands, folded his arms and put some distance between them.
“What did you say?” She clutched at her glass of milk.
Twice. He had to say it twice. “I have prosthetic legs.”
She studied his face for a minute before looking down at his jeans and then back up to his face. “I don’t understand.”
“My legs were blown off in Afghanistan. I lost both, above the knees. Everything from my thigh down is manmade.” He hated saying it. Hated that he had to confess being less than a complete man. Hated that he was waiting to witness the dismay that would hit her. The dismay she’d try to hide. To be polite. To be caring.
“And?” she said, looking confused.
Callum reeled. “What do you mean, and?”
“Is that it?” She put her milk on the counter beside her. “Nobody’s dead? Jack’s fine? We’re fine? In as much as two people can be who don’t want a relationship with each other but keep having sex.”
Callum felt a strange bubbling sensation in his stomach. It took him a minute to realise that it was the beginnings of hope.
“Woman, I just told you that I have metal legs. I have stumps where my knees should be. I have scars. It’s ugly and it’s a liability because I don’t have the same mobility I had before I lost them. Isn’t that enough for you? Bloody hell, woman, you had sex with half a man.”
There was a heartbeat of silence and then Isobel burst out laughing.
“What the hell?” Callum really wished he still had scotch in the house, because he needed it. Never mind that he had lost his legs—obviously Isobel had lost her mind.
He watched as Isobel held on to the counter as she laughed hard. At last, she wiped her eyes and looked at him. “I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you losing your legs. I’m laughing because I thought it was something serious. Not that you didn’t go through something terribly serious. I can only imagine how traumatic and painful it must have been. I guess I mean I was expecting you to tell me about something life-threatening that affected us right now. Not something that happened in the past. And, before you say anything, a wife would have been life-threatening, because I would have killed you.”
Callum didn’t know how to react. He wanted to shake some sense into her or kiss her until she was panting. Or run hard and fast in the opposite direction. Or claim her as his, right then and there.
“I don’t think you understand what I’m telling you,” he said. “I don’t have any legs.”
She looked down and pointed at his jeans. “Yes you do. You just don’t have skin-and-bone legs.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that you had sex with half a man?” Seriously, she needed a keeper, or a good psychiatrist.
Her smile was wide and her eyes sparkled. “Really, it’s more like four-fifths of a man.”
He raked his hands into his hair. “Why aren’t you shouting at me for keeping this from you?”
“Callum, we’ve been intimate for three whole days. You don’t know everything about me either. Neither one of us is perfect. I’ve had two kids, I live on junk food—most of the time. I have stretch marks and cellulite and flab. My boobs are saggy and my hips are too big.”
“Are you seriously comparing your cellulite to my missing feet?”
