Melting Into You (Due South Book 2) (36 page)

Instead of riling her up, he rested his forearms on his knees and sucked in a deep breath. “And so, before you took the pregnancy test, you were visiting your brot
her—”

Kezia stared at him with hangdog eyes.

“What?”

Her handbag slid to the floor. She ignored it and lif
ted her chin. “I wasn’t with Nicky.”

“Wait a minute—you weren’t with your brother?”

Dark eyes cut away from him and an ice cold fist wrapped around his gut. “Why were you in Wellington, Kezia?”

She worried her bottom lip with an eye tooth, and sat straighter. “I went to a meeting at my old school, to a
pply for a position opening up in the third term.”

“A teaching position in Wellington?”

“It’s a good job.”

“You have a good job in Oban. You
and Zoe have a life there now.”

You have me there, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Then it hit him. He’d be leaving Stewart Island soon to be with Jade in Auckland. To do the whole court thing. His gut churned maliciously.

God, he was a thick-headed male sometimes.

“Whether or not I leave the Island to be with Jade, you and Zoe don’t have to go.”

Her eyes were bleak pools leading to dark fathoms he had no chance of navigating unscathed. “I can’t stay in Oban, Ben. Everyone who matters to me knows or has guessed about us. Do you think I want to be reminded of being let down again by a man every day for the next forever?”

“I let you down.” He didn’t need to phrase it as a question when it was a fact.

“Just like Callum, just like his parents, and just like my family.”

“I get the parental stuff,
Kez—but how the hell did Callum let you down by dying in a car accident? Was he at fault?”

She shook her head. “No. The truck crossed the ce
nter line, he never stood a chance.” Her eyes cut to the side, and dammit, he knew her well enough to spot there was a lot more to the story of her husband’s death.

“What happened,
Kez?”

She scooped up her handbag, placing it on the seat next to her and fussing with the straps. Like hell she
wouldn’t spill. He stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. He’d wait.

Denim rasped as she crossed her legs and wrapped her hands around her knees. “Callum became more and more distant after Zoe’s diagnosis. For the first few months he’d be at every hospital procedure, every sp
ecialist appointment. But then there would be a client meeting he couldn’t reschedule. A conference he had to attend, and Zoe was too little and too sick to notice one of my brother’s taking his place.” She looked up to meet his gaze, her eyes glittering like black diamonds.

“The day of the accident I left a hysterical, bitchy message on his phone after his secretary rang to say he wasn’t coming to the hospital yet again. When he a
rrived two hours later, I thought he’d come to apologize, to sit with Zoe so I could take a break—grab a coffee at the hospital, go home for a quick shower. Something.”

“You’d been with her all day?”

“Yes. Callum hadn’t come to swap out with me. He’d come to tell me he couldn’t cope any more with Zoe’s illness and me being the obsessively involved mother. He was moving out—starting that night.” A tear slipped over her dark lashes. She brushed it away with an impatient hand.

“Oh he loved Zoe, he said, and he’d do his best to support us. Of course, him moving out was temporary because he needed a break from the day to day dramas and disruptions.” A bitter laugh seethed out from b
etween her teeth. “All
stronzate
. His eyes told the truth.”

“He wasn’t coming back.”

“No. He was done. We were done.” Kezia fumbled in her purse, dragging out an elastic tie which she used to gather her hair into a loose ponytail. She looked like a teenager—a teenager who’d found out the hard way that ‘love u 4eva’ had the tensile strength of wet tissue paper.

“Callum went into Zoe’s room and kissed her goo
dnight, then he left. It was the last time she saw her daddy alive and the first time I knew I wouldn’t allow myself to rely on anyone again.”

You can rely on me.

He dismissed the thought. Callum was a douchebag for abandoning his family, but hell, wasn’t he almost as guilty? He couldn’t be relied on either—as Kezia had delicately pointed out with her story. He was risking everything he and Kezia had together.

Leaving her and Zoe would be as brutal as amputa
ting a healthy leg and arm, but could he live with himself if he just let Marci take Jade? No. And after everything he’d put Kezia through, how could he ask her move to Auckland with him while he fought in the courts? He’d done enough damage in this woman’s life. He didn’t deserve her.

“So I guess we’re d
one too?”

Her silence was answer enough.

The door hissed and a nurse stepped inside. “Ms. Murphy? Zoe’s been moved to the recovery suite, she’s doing fine.” The woman beamed at them. “I’ll come back and take you to her shortly.”

Beside him Kezia gusted out a sigh. “Thank you.”

Ben picked up his jacket slung over a chair and stood. “I’d better go if I’m to catch the first ferry.”

He couldn’t meet her eyes, knowing any glimmer of hope he saw there would bring him to his knees. There wasn’t any hope.
Don’t be greedy, Ben. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

“I’ll tell Zoe you said hi. And thanks again.” Like he was a neighbor who’d done her a favor out o
f a sense of community service.

Not as a man ridiculously, crazily, stupidly in love with her.

The jacket nearly slipped from his numb fingers as his heart battered his ribs.

He loved her. But it was over.

He loved her. But he had to do the right thing. The responsible thing.

His blood pounded as each word punched into his brain like a nail gun.

Ben swayed and Kezia surged to his side, her delicate hand searing his skin as she gripped his elbow. “Ben? Are you okay?”

He pulled out of her grasp, shaking his head. “I’m good, just punch-drunk from lack of sleep.” The curve he forced his lips into stretched tight over his teeth. “I’ll take a power-nap on the ferry. I
gotta go.”

Then before he changed his mind, Ben walked away. His jaw clenched as the sliding doors opened and hissed shut behind him, sealing him off from the woman he would never, ever be fucking
okay
about again.

***

Ben didn’t sleep on the trip back to Stewart Island. Not for one second could he close his eyes and think of anything other than Kezia’s face. And what he’d lost.

As the ferry wallowed in to
Halfmoon Bay, Ben studied The Mollymawk shining in the midmorning sun. He loved what he did, he loved his insane family, and he loved the Island. But he loved Jade more.

Suck it up, you big pussy. The decision’s made.

After they docked, he was the first passenger off. He waved to Ford as he passed the garage but didn’t stop, speed-walking up the hill to his place. By the time he reached the house, his breath came in harsh pants, blood booming in his ears.

The ferry crossed the Foveaux Strait from Oban to the mainland twice daily in winter, while the affectio
nately named “pencil planes” flew more often. The first flight of the day would’ve left an hour ago. Since his phone battery died during the wee hours of this morning, he’d no way of knowing what waited for him at home.

Jade
, he told himself pushing open the gate. Jade would be there.
Please, God
.

He jogged up the stairs to the front door. Locked. He knocked, hard enough to cause the glass to rattle.

“Keep your hair on.” A shrill voice then the rapid tap of footsteps sounded from inside.

He sagged against the side of the house, his breath whooshing out of his lungs as if he’d been slugged in the stomach. Never thought he’d be so happy to hear Marci’s voice.

The door whipped open. “You’re back. You could’ve texted me.” Marci, made up like a cheap porcelain doll, tapped a spike-heeled shoe on the floor.

He shot a glance at the solo suitcase parked in the hallway and stayed outside on the deck. “My battery died.”

Marci made a
pffft
sound with her pursed lips and spun away from the door. “Well, come in, it’s your house after all.”

He trailed after her to the family room.

“Where’s Jade?” He felt like a bomb technician, aware that an accidental twitch could detonate a ground-leveling explosion.

“With your mother.”

Marci perched on a barstool, her mini-skirt hiking higher up her thighs. He looked away.

“She wouldn’t stop crying last night after you’d left, so I had to call her. She calmed right down after your mum arrived.”

Her blue eyes tracked him as he first dropped his jacket on an armchair, then walked into the kitchen.

“I made a pot of coffee.”

Ben poured himself a cup and cut her a wary glance. “So. Is she okay this morning?”

“Yes, yes, she’s fine. Your mother rang before, but I told her to keep Jade until I could talk to you alone.”

Ben sipped the coffee, which may as well have been weak tea for all the taste it had.  “Oh?”

“See, here’s the thing.” Marci tossed her hair. “I never wanted to be a mother.”

No great surprise. Ben schooled his features into a bland, non-judgmental expression. Female-taming techniques 101—rack brains for what they might mean, then agree using carefully rephrased words. “You were very young when you got pregnant.”

She nodded, frown lines in her forehead smoothing. “Exactly.”

Bingo
. “And you weren’t ready for all the hassles and responsibilities of being a mum.”

Her lips trembled and pulled up in one corner. “I was terrified. After I had Jade, I didn’t, you know, feel the huge wave of maternal love everyone told me about. I thought it would come later, but it never really did—” She played with a strand of her blonde hair. “Don’t get me wrong, I love her, but…” Her boobs thrust out then sank down with a gusty sigh.

Ben’s palms, slippery with sweat, clamped around his coffee mug. “But?”

“You’ll hate me.” She licked her pouty pink lips. “She’ll hate me.”

“But what, Marci?” A tiny flame of hope flickered in his chest.

“Seeing her with you, I know you don’t need to fake loving her like a parent should.” She straightened her shoulders. “You’re willing to give up your home and the Italian chick because you love Jade.”

He winced. “I do love her.”

“And your mum and sisters love Jade too. They want to be there for her—you want to be there for her. Me?” She gave him a small smile that twisted into a grimace. “After the last few days, I realized I don’t want to take care of her by myself. I’m too selfish—there, I said it.”

Ben placed the coffee mug down on the counter before he crushed it to dust. “You don’t have to do it by yourself, Marci.”

“So you’ll marry me?”

Marry Marci after he’d finally admitted to himself he loved Kezia? Promise to love and cherish and whatever else you said to a woman during the ceremony? What kind of example would it be to Jade if he married a woman he didn’t love, and barely tolerated?

Ben forced the jagged rocks tumbling around in his guts to a standstill so he could get the words out. Words that formed a decision he’d made on the ferry ride over. “No. I won’t marry you or share your bed. But I will move to Auckland to help you care for Jade.”

He thought it wise not to mention his plans to sic his lawyer onto her first thing tomorrow morning.

Marci slipped off the stool and came into the kitc
hen, stopped dead in front of him. “Cutie, you look like a guy facing a hangman’s noose, sooo not flattering. I didn’t want a man to take care of me or
share a bed with me
out of a ball-crushing sense of duty. I want him to be with me because he loves me.” She patted his cheek and stepped back.

“You’ll never love me. When I first got here, I thought the two of us could one day, you know…” She rolled her eyes. “Not
gonna happen. Kinda guessed it after I saw you looking at the school teacher. I’ve decided I want a man to look at
me
that way.”

“You’ll find him, Marci—but Jade—”

“Belongs with you. Here.”

Ben almost swallowed his tongue. “You mean…?” He couldn’t finish, his hands trembling so violently he had to stuff them into the pockets of his jeans.

Marci pressed her lips together and nodded. “I’m a sucky, deadbeat mum, huh?”

Ben had to clear his throat twice before he choked out a response. “No, it makes you a mother willing to do the right thing for her kid. That doesn’t make you sucky or deadbeat in my book.”

She uttered a soft, snorting laugh. “I never liked the hands-on stuff with Jade and Blake.”