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She rolls her eyes, such a sexy gesture that I want to pin her back against the bed and kiss her until she whimpers. My dick jerks.
‘Let’s just say there’s a reason I specialise in PTSD. Particularly with returned military personnel.’
‘Your dad?’
‘My dad and my older brother. But I was already practising by the
time Logan came back from Iraq.’ She sighs. ‘My dad was in the first Gulf War. He was...changed by it. Irrevocably. Not so you’d notice if you didn’t know him well. It was just...little things around the house. A temper that would come out of nowhere, whereas he’d never been like that. Paralysing panic attacks that made it impossible for him to go out, and a weird anger whenever Mum tried to organise normal stuff, like family holidays.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Young. Seven...eight. I saw the way he’d changed and I wanted to fix him.’
‘And did you?’
‘Not me, but he did get help.’ Her lips form a lopsided smile.
‘And now you help other people.’
She looks at me meaningfully for a long moment. ‘Yeah, if they’ll let me.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘YOU TOLD ME you’re not close to your mother.’
Noah looks like I’m digging into his flesh with a knife. He is recalcitrant, closed off and apparently kicking himself for agreeing to this. But he did agree to it. I reach for a slice of cheese and taste it, waiting with the appearance of patience for him to speak.
Finally, his voice gruff, he says, ‘I did.’
‘And that you weren’t raised by your parents. So, who did you grow up with?’
A muscle flexes in his jaw as he grinds his teeth. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but I’m done waiting for him to open up to me. This is for both our sakes. This is important.
‘Noah?’ I lean forward, pressing my hand over his. ‘I want to help you. Not as a doctor but as a...’ I search for a word that encompasses all that we are. ‘A friend.’ It’s manifestly unsuitable, but it’s the best I can do.
His eyes hold mine and there is hopelessness and pain in them, like he wants, so badly, to believe me. I ache for him then, and I swear I will make him whole again, no matter what.
‘I was a foster kid,’ he says slowly, standing, walking towards the enormous windows that overlook the Thames. His back is to me and I allow that; perhaps he finds it easier to speak without looking at me. That’s not unusual. His shoulders are tense, his back ramrod-straight. ‘From when I was three.’
So little!
‘But my mum still had visitation rights—I saw her every second week. When she wasn’t high or stoned or pissed.’
He says the words as though it’s a joke, but I hear the pain scored deep in his voice.
‘Do you...remember your life? Before foster care?’
‘No.’ I suspect it’s a lie, but I don’t want to push the point now.
‘And what about your foster family?’
‘Foster family?’ He angles his head so I see his profile. ‘I lived in seventeen homes, Holly. I didn’t have a family. I had a revolving door of bedrooms and people and new schools and new rules.’
It starts to make sense to me now, and my heart throbs in sympathy for the little boy he was. ‘Which foster home did you spend the most time at?’
There is a pause, and I don’t know if it’s significant or if he simply can’t recall. ‘The Morrows,’ he says after a moment. ‘Julianne and Paul.’
There is no malice in his tone. ‘You liked them?’
