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Chapter Ten
Ian watched Esme as she stood by her husband’s bed. She’d been at the clinic for nearly two hours, holding his hand, stroking his face, brushing the hair from his forehead. Tears slid down her cheeks as she spoke to him in soft tones. This was love.
Years ago, he’d done the same, sitting by Cam’s bed, waiting for her to come out of anesthesia. He’d known their lives were forever changed. Their dreams altered. They’d have to reconstruct their future. He’d never imagined they’d create separate futures.
Earlier, she’d kissed him like the old Cameron. Before their world had blown up. Before she’d taken his love and fled. She’d told him yesterday she’d still loved him when she left. The way she’d kissed him made him believe she might still love him now. Or at least she could again one day.
Esme turned her head, catching him standing in the doorway. She swiped at her face, then offered a weak smile. “Have I overstayed my visit?”
He stepped into the room. “You can stay as long as you’d like. It’s good for him to hear your voice.”
“Doc says talking to him might help him get better. She thinks visitors are good for him.” Hope shone in her dark eyes and radiated from her voice.
Ian nodded. “People have been known to recall hearing their loved ones talk to them after coming out of a coma.”
A slight smile pulled at the corners of the woman’s bow-shaped mouth. “I know it’s silly, but I could’ve sworn he tried to squeeze my hand.” She shook her head, already dismissing the possibility.
He should probably allow her to let the thought go. Although true that sometimes victims responded, it was more likely an involuntary muscle movement. Still, this woman could use something to hold on to. “Were you talking to him when he squeezed your hand? “
Her eyes widened. Perhaps his not brushing off this possibility surprised her.
“I was talking about the girls.” She rubbed her belly. “And the baby. I asked him to fight for us.” Her voice trembled.
“Maybe he was telling you he is.” He squeezed the woman’s thin shoulder.
“Are they going to take him? The other doctor thinks he should go but…”
“What do you think?”
She looked back at her husband. “I want what’s best for him. I want him to get better and come back to us. I want us to be happy again.”
“Even if he wakes up, that doesn’t mean things will be the same.” Ian warned her. “Brodie will have to adjust to missing his legs. The time without oxygen could have damaged his mind.”
The hope dimmed in her eyes. He hated himself for squelching that light, but he needed to warn her the way no one had warned him.
Surprising him, a knowing smile stretched her lips. “Brodie and I can get through anything together. We’ve already made it through so much. What’s some missing legs and a few days’ sleep?” She gave a watery laugh.
She turned back to her husband, taking his hand again. “I know things will be different. I know he’ll have to heal. We’ll have a brand-new baby and the girls. We have a long road ahead of us.” She looked at Ian over her shoulder. “We’ve already traveled many, many roads together. We’ll make it down this one.”
Ian smiled at her tenacity. “I sincerely hope you do. From what I’ve heard, your family is quite special. Everyone loves you.”
“This island is a special place. The people here have a way of taking in those of us who need healing and making us well.”
His stomach tightened as her words made him think of Cameron. “You’re not from here.”
She shook her head. “Not many of us are. Brodie brought me here.”
“Brodie’s from here? “
“His mother lived here, as a girl. She went to the mainland when she was a teen. She met Brodie’s father and nine months later came Brodie. His father didn’t stick around and eventually she came back here, to her family, to raise her child.”
“When did you come?” What made people come to this quiet, remote paradise and stay? He’d called them cowards before, but now he realized he’d been wrong.
“Brodie and I aren’t actually married,” she confessed quietly. “I had a husband. My father made me marry him. He promised to save my family’s land in exchange for a young, fertile wife.” She looked down at Brodie, cupping his stubbled jaw in her palm. “He never loved me, and I knew I could never love him. I refused to give him a child. I wouldn’t lay with him as a wife. I didn’t sleep in his bed.” She swallowed. “Sometimes he would come to me and force me.”
Ian tightened his hands into fists. Yeah, he’d been wrong about this being an island of cowards.
“Brodie sold fish at the market where my husband sometimes allowed me to shop.” A small smile broke out on her face, erasing the sorrow of moments before. “The first time I saw him, my heart just exploded. It burst open and filled my body with hope. Happiness.” She laughed. “You probably think I’m crazy, don’t you?”
He shook his head. When he’d first seen Cam, he’d felt the same way. She’d worn blood-covered scrubs, with her hair falling out of a bandanna and dirt on her face. He’d been a goner. “Not at all. I think that’s a perfect description.”
Esme turned away from her husband’s bed. Narrowing her eyes, she studied Ian. “You’ve felt it? The desire to be someone else’s, no matter what the cost?”
“Yeah. I’ve felt it.”
Her gaze softened, as if seeing him as more than a stranger charged with her husband’s care. “I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to be his. I didn’t care that this other man claimed me. My heart wanted to be Brodie’s.”
He chuckled. Hearts did tend to do whatever the hell they wanted. “So, what happened? How did you become Brodie’s?”
The happiness that covered her face when she spoke of that first sight of Brodie melted away. “I worked up the nerve to talk to him. He’d noticed me, but because I was married, he wouldn’t approach me.” She again turned to the man, who, though legally not her husband, filled every other definition of the word. “Eventually, I was finding every excuse to sneak off to see him. He asked me to leave with him, but I was scared. My family depended on my marriage to pay for their home. I loved my family. I didn’t want them to suffer because I ran away.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away, then took Brodie’s hand. “When a year had passed and I still had not given my husband a child, he said he would no longer tolerate my distance.” She pulled in a deep, shuddering breath.
Ian’s stomach knotted. He’d asked for the rest of the story, but he no longer thought he could stand to hear it.
“He came to my room and forced me to perform my wifely duties. I stayed away from the market. I couldn’t stand to run into Brodie. I didn’t want him to see me so pitiful and broken.”
From the corner of his eye, Ian could’ve sworn he saw movement from Brodie’s bed. He narrowed his gaze, focusing on the man.
Oblivious, Esme continued her story. “I went to my family. I begged them to let me come back home. I was so sure if they knew my husband raped me nightly, they’d open their arms to me.”
“They didn’t?” He continued to watch Brodie.
Esme snickered. “They told me a husband shouldn’t have to force his wife to give him what he paid good money for.”
Anger replaced the despair that had recently laced her voice. The fingers on Brodie’s hand flinched. A surge of hope pumped in Ian’s veins, but he remained silent.
“That night when he came to me, I fought him. He used his fists on me. He broke my arm and my eye socket.” She pointed to her eye.
For the first time, Ian noticed one eye sat slightly lower than the other.
“I hit him with a bar I found on the floor. He fell, and I just kept hitting him. When he didn’t move anymore, I ran. “
Ian no longer watched Brodie. Esme held his undivided attention. “What happened to the bastard?”
A corner of her mouth turned up despite the seriousness of the discussion. “Apparently, he never recovered. He died, and everyone hunted for his wife.”
He didn’t need to ask why she didn’t just explain she had acted in self-defense. If her own family didn’t see his actions as rape, they’d see no need for her to defend herself.
“Luckily, Brodie found me. I was in terrible shape and getting weaker. He said he knew a doctor I could trust who would help me. He promised to keep me safe “
“The doctor?”
“Dr. Crawford.” She smiled. “She wasn’t Doc then. She was just an outsider, living in Keso’s cottage with their baby. But Brodie was right. I could trust her. She helped the best she could and put me back together.” She smiled and pointed to her sunken eye. “Almost good as new.”
“I’d say you’re pretty damn perfect,” he told her. “Scars. Imperfections. Sometimes they serve as physical proof of the strength and beauty within us.” Just as Cameron’s scars did.
Esme’s eyes narrowed. Her assessing gaze seemed to reach to his very soul. “Doc has her own scars,” she informed him. “They run deep, inside and out. If your heart doesn’t explode when you look at her, leave her alone. You seem like a nice guy. You both deserve explosions.”
Ian nodded. Esme didn’t have to worry about explosions. Cameron had decimated his heart long ago.
* * *
