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“Understand that I love my son and I won’t let you trap him into being responsib
le for something that’s not good for him. I already did that to him so no one else is going to have the same chance to mess with his life.”
Charlie McGovern was slender, attractive and formidable. There was weight and right in her words and they deserved respect.
“I understand. I can’t promise not to hurt him. I will promise to let him choose freely.”
Charlie sighed. And then a car door slammed, the gate clanged.
Etta stormed past. “He only wants to teach me to drive like a little old grandma. Jesus. I’ll never get anywhere on time.”
Then Reece said her name and her knees nearly gave way. She turned towards him, heard the front door close. They were alone. He stood the other side of the low gate. He looked wonderful, a great wall of man frowning at her. She couldn’t see his eyes for sunglasses, but she could see the tension in his frame; every muscle alert for trouble.
“Audrey, is everything all right?
Not yet. Not yet. But it could be if she got this said the way it needed to be. “Can we talk? I called but...” Oh God, she was nervous.
He came through the gate. “Where’s Mia?”
“She’s inside with the girls. I met your mother.”
He grunted. “How did that go?”
He stood on the path. She stood on the verandah. He made no move to come up the steps to her. “I’m suitably chastised.”
He moved in that way of his, sudden and graceful. He came up the stairs and sat facing out to the street, with his back to her. She stepped forward and sat beside him, not too close, not touching. He was bigger than she remembered, more beautiful and he was hurt, she could see it in the way he held himself away from her and kept his sunglasses on.
“What do you need, Audrey?”
You, I need you. Not a changed washer, not a child minded, not a service rendered, but she couldn’t say it like that. She couldn’t force his hand or manipulate him either. All her corporate skills were useless. All she had was the truth and her love for him.
“I was scared, Reece. I’m a grown-up and I was terrified.”
He clasped his hands. “Yeah, don’t I know it.” He was bitter. And she’d started in the wrong place. He stared out at the street. “There’s nothing I can do about my past. Before you say anything else I’m back fighting. Proper boxing, gloves and rules, but should know that, it’s as much a part of me as being a sucker for agreeing to teach Etta to drive.”
She curled her fingers around the underside of the verandah deck. She needed something to hold on to.
He pushed a breathed out sharply. “Do we have anything else to say to each other?”
“I was scared of me, Reece, falling in love with you. Everything else I said was an excuse. It’s not about your past. I don’t know how to do family. I don’t know how to do being in love. Before you, Mia was the love of my live.”
From inside the house there was thumping about and laughter. Reece dropped his head forward, forehead to his clasped hands. She’d never known him to be so thoroughly contained; keeping everything she needed to see in him locked away.
“There has never been anyone like you. Never any hint I could have the kind of family you see in books and movies. You came along, and you were bigger than the sun and five times as powerful for all your gentleness, and I was scared of losing you before I even had you completely.”
She swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat and watched his stillness. It was entirely possible he would get up and walk away and she would get what she’d always planned for and no longer wanted.
She would be alone.
He lifted his head. “I can’t change you, Audrey. And I’m not changing me.” His voice was thick and clotted. “I can’t do anything more than I’ve done to make you feel safe and cared for.”
If only he’d look at her. He might see she had changed. “I was scared to rely on you, but now I’m not. I did a terrible thing to both of us when I sent you away. A terrible thing to Mia.”
He pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, but he still didn’t look at her. She only had his profile. She only had the dream of him.
“What do you want, Audrey?”
It was a fair question. All she’d told him so far he already knew. She wanted more than she could outright ask for. “I want to know what you want.”
