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He swung the car over, braked. ‘What is it?’ he asked, slinging his arm over the steering wheel.
‘What’s wrong? You look...’ She paused, her eyes searching his face, the tenderness in her gaze both surprising and disturbing. ‘You look terrible.’
‘I’m okay,’ he said, but the words came out on a bitter snap. His hands trembled on the wheel. He tightened his grip, but he couldn’t make them stop.
Cool fingers covered his, and held on. ‘Your hands are shaking. You’re not okay. What is it? What did I say?’
To his horror, he felt the pain twist in his chest that made his heart catapult into his throat. He took a deep breath, but it came out on a rush of air, doing nothing to calm his stampeding pulse.
‘I think my father was Zane’s father,’ he murmured. But he didn’t think, he knew, had always known. However hard he’d tried to pretend he didn’t.
‘Okay,’ Tess said softly, patiently, but with no hint of shock or surprise as she gripped his fingers.
‘Damn.’ He let his head drop back against the seat, squeezed his eyes shut. Letting go of the wheel, he found himself holding her slim fingers in his. ‘I can’t believe I actually said that out loud.’
‘But that makes you and Zane brothers,’ she said carefully. ‘Why is that bad?’
He twisted his head, opened his eyes to stare at her. ‘If you’d ever met my father, you’d know why.’
* * *
Tess remained speechless, silenced by the naked pain she glimpsed for a second in Nate’s eyes. He looked away, stared out of the windscreen, his hand releasing hers. She’d trespassed onto a very private area of his life without intending to. She should leave this alone—continuing to talk about it felt like poking at an open wound—but then he spoke.
‘You know, you’re the first person I can remember who’s ever commented on the resemblance.’ His voice sounded resigned, and hollow. ‘Even though I always thought it was kind of obvious. I guess most people get sidetracked by the difference in our heritage and don’t look beyond that.’
‘Does Zane know?’ It seemed like a stupid question, surely they must have discussed this? The easy way they’d chatted together by the car, their body language, everything about their friendship spoke of companionship and familiarity. It would only be a short step to brotherhood.
He placed his hands on his thighs, the tension in his spine relaxing as he eased back into the seat. ‘Yeah, I think so.’
‘You think? You don’t know? Haven’t you ever talked about it?’ she blurted out, shocked to the core. Okay, men were famous for their lack of communication skills, and Nate could take stone-walling to a whole new level, but she’d assumed that tendency was just with her—because they’d been thrown into a situation that neither of them really knew how to deal with. But this was ridiculous. How could you be related to your best friend and never talk about it?
His eyes connected with hers, and he gave a brittle laugh. ‘We talked about it once, when we were kids.’ He rubbed his thumb absently against a small crescent shaped scar on his chin. ‘We didn’t talk about it again.’
‘What happened?’ she asked, knowing that she was trespassing into dangerous territory, but unable to stop herself. He looked so lonely, the cloak of confidence and control slipping to reveal a man with flaws and vulnerabilities just like everyone else. However dangerous it was, she wanted to know more about that man.
His shoulders hitched in a stiff shrug. ‘I told him I’d overheard my grandfather on the phone to my father. They’d been arguing, as usual, and Grandpa mentioned Zane’s mother Maria.’ He tapped his thumb on his thigh, his eyes dark with memory. ‘She was Grandpa’s housekeeper. I adored her. I used to pretend she was my mom too.’ He chuckled as if the thought were foolish. ‘She and Zane lived in the cottage you’ll be staying in. We became friends, or as Maria used to call us “los dos bandidos”, when I went to live with my grandpa at San Revelle.’ The easy smile on his face spoke of good memories.
‘Why did you live with your grandfather?’ she asked. And why had he needed Maria as a surrogate mother? What had happened to his own mother?
‘My parents lived mostly in an estate in Bel Air,’ he replied easily enough, but the warmth had gone from his voice. ‘But they liked to travel and they liked to party. And a kid tends to get in the way of that, once they’re old enough to talk back.’
‘I see,’ she said, although she didn’t see, not really. She’d always believed that her father had abandoned her, that he’d cast her aside. But there had been years before that brutal parting when he’d weathered all the harsh things she’d said, the stupid things she’d done, the bitter recriminations she’d thrown at him. She’d blamed him for everything, even on one horrid occasion her mother’s death. She’d hated him for trying to control her, to discipline her—but at least he’d been involved. Nate’s parents appeared to have been completely indifferent to him.
‘Anyway.’ He shrugged, continuing as if the way his parents had cast him aside meant nothing. ‘I heard Grandpa shouting at my father about his responsibilities towards me, and then he said something about Zane and how could my father treat his own flesh and blood like that.’ Tess’s pulse jumped at the detached tone, and the repressed misery beneath it. ‘It took me a while to figure out what he meant. But once I did I was so excited. I didn’t sleep at all that night. The thought that Zane and I could be brothers totally blew my mind. Zane’s two years older than me. He was fourteen then and the coolest kid I had ever met. He had a Playboy magazine stashed under his bed and an uncle Raoul who had taught him how to drive a stick shift, and a pet turtle that ate out of his hand. And he could spit into a jar at ten paces and burp “The Star-Spangled Banner”. I mean, seriously, seriously cool.’
‘Zane sounds like quite a guy,’ Tess said wryly, her heart lifting at the affection in Nate’s voice. Had she ever had a friend like that? She didn’t think so, but she was glad he had, because it sounded as if he’d needed one.
Nate gave a gruff laugh. ‘And the coolest thing of all was that he let me tag along with him. I had a bad case of hero-worship and as far as I was concerned him being my father’s son was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I got up at dawn the next day and raced over to the cottage. All I was thinking about was me. And how great this would be. I wasn’t thinking about Zane or his mom, or anyone else but myself.’
Bitterness edged the words as the warmth in his voice chilled.
‘Of course you weren’t,’ Tess countered, feeling desperately sorry for that little boy, who had needed so much more than a friend. And for the man who was still punishing himself for a reaction that would have been perfectly natural. She placed her palm on his thigh and felt the muscles tense. ‘You were, what? Twelve? Children think of themselves first—being egocentric at that age is a survival instinct.’ Especially for a child who hadn’t had the love and support they deserved.
She thought of her own selfish response to her mother’s death. The hell she’d put her father through, and for the first time realised that until this moment, she’d never once questioned that. Never once thought in any great depth about how her mother’s death had affected her father. But she was seeing it all too clearly now. Her father’s bushy auburn hair, which had grown grey almost overnight after her mother’s funeral. The bruised shadows under his eyes and the way that even when his jaw had been tight with anger in the years afterwards, his mossy green eyes had always been so sad. Why had she never seen that before in her memory?
Maybe she wasn’t quite as mature and well adjusted as she had always believed. Which would also explain why she had so easily jumped to conclusions about Nate, writing him off as a ruthless, irresponsible jerk on the flimsiest of evidence—an impression that was proving to be even more false now.
‘What happened when you told Zane?’ She squeezed his thigh, urging him to continue.
