Читать книгу The Men In Uniform Collection - Barbara McMahon - Страница 16

LEAVING Romy alone, injured and patently conflicted, on her front verandah last night had been one of the hardest things Clint had done since coming to WildSprings. Every part of him wanted to scoop her up and carry her inside. Tuck her into bed. Bind her ankle. Spoil her. Instead, he’d locked her car up and footed the mile home in the dark, walking off some of his tension.

It had helped. A little.

The morning coffee was helping more. He sipped the battery-acid-strength brew.

Romy had a way of bringing out the caveman in him and then making him feel ridiculous for it. And he didn’t feel like overtures of kindness would be welcomed from him. Not after he’d near mauled her back at the fundraiser. Thanks to her father, she was highly sensitised to being dominated. She saw it at every turn. He didn’t want her connecting him with those feelings. Ever.

He didn’t want to be responsible for shadows in her eyes. Or her son’s.

A sudden knock at the door had him leaping for the Browning nine-millmetre sidearm he didn’t carry any more. The fact someone got all the way to his door without being detected…He was losing his touch. He pulled it open.

‘Hi, Clint. Can I come in?’

Justin seemed distracted, and this was the first time in months his brother had visited the tree house. Something was up. Clint stood aside and waved him in.

Justin shuffled nervously in the doorway. ‘I need to talk to you. About last night.’

Clint’s heart kicked into gear. Had someone seen him and Romy? Probably. Not exactly his most covert operation. He steeled himself for the inevitable attack.

He crossed to the kitchen and held up his mug. ‘Coffee?’

Justin winced and shook his head. ‘I won’t say no to a hair of the dog, though.’

Clint reached into the fridge for a beer, then glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was barely 9:00 a.m. Concern had him frowning but he passed the bottle to his brother. They moved out to the balcony—still haunted by the ghost of Romy’s recent visit. Being alone out here was no longer the refuge it once was.

‘Spit it out,’ Clint growled.

Justin lifted red-flecked eyes. ‘It’s about Romy…’

Thump, thump, thump…The pulsing was hard and fast in his chest. ‘What about her?’

‘I…’ Justin swore and slumped down onto the nearest seat, taking a big swig of beer. ‘I hit on her.’

The thumping stopped. For near on five painful seconds. When it returned, Clint forced it to be slow and steady. The same heartbeat he regulated when his finger was hovering over the hair-trigger. But it was a battle he almost lost.

Justin met his eyes but couldn’t hold them. He pushed up off his seat and crossed to the balustrade. ‘I was drunk, mate. I wasn’t thinking.’

Silence was Clint’s only option. If he spoke he’d say too much. Justin babbled on, filling the tense vacuum.

‘She looked hot, Clint. She was playing up to every man there. Even you.’

Breathe…breathe…‘What did you do, exactly?’

Justin swung around to look at him. Suspicion and disbelief in his eyes. ‘She really hasn’t told you?’

‘She didn’t. No. Did you expect her to?’

He swore again. ‘I’m sure she’s just picking her moment.’

Clint kept his voice even. ‘I’m sure she’s not. She likes to fight her own battles.’

‘Tell me about it. She nearly broke my shoulder when I touched her.’

Clint would normally have grinned at his brother’s petulant complaint, and the image of Romy strongarming all six feet of him. He pressed his lips together. ‘Why are you telling me?’

Justin sighed, waved his hands dramatically. ‘Harassment laws. She’s our employee.’

Something I should have thought about last night. And the night they’d stood out here on the balcony.

‘Then shouldn’t you be apologising to her right now instead of confessing your sins to me?’ Clint suggested, and then his chest tightened almost painfully. No. He didn’t want Justin anywhere near Romy’s place.

His brother rolled his eyes and Clint was reminded of a much younger version, the excitable young Justin he didn’t see a lot of any more. He frowned. Time had changed them both.

‘She’s a woman.’ Justin shrugged. ‘She’ll find some insidious way to get her revenge. Warn every chick in the district off me. Put salt in the sugar shaker. Start spreading rumours.’

Clint stared. Shook his head. ‘You really are still sixteen, aren’t you?’

‘Mate, I give her two days before she starts turning everyone against me.’

Clint reached over and confiscated the beer bottle from his hands. ‘You’re paranoid. Take the day to dry out. If you hit on her last night, then you’re going to have to wear the consequences like a man, even if that means drinking your coffee salted.’

Justin stood to go. At the door, Clint stopped him. ‘Oh, and, mate…?’

Justin turned back, a satisfied smile on his face. It faded as he took in his big brother’s expression.

‘Touch her again and I’ll do a hell of a lot worse than break your shoulder.’

Romy had nearly forgotten what Leighton’s scowl looked like. But this one was a pearler and it was all for her.

He’d been a changed boy since coming to WildSprings. Happier, more open…huggier. Not today. Today he was a tiny black thundercloud glaring at her whenever she made eye contact, his heart well and truly plastered on his sleeve. His breakfast entirely untouched.

‘Leighton, if you’re done eating, scrape your eggs into the compost and put the plate on the sink, please.’ Given everything that had gone on these past few days, her own mood wasn’t the best.

He slid off his seat like a blob of the green slime he’d used to love to play with, mumbling, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ One hundred and ten percent surly.

Her hands stilled on what she was doing. She took a small breath. ‘That’s “Yes, Mum” to you, mister.’

His glare compounded. ‘Soldiers say ma’am. It’s polite.’

She straightened uncomfortably. ‘Last time I checked you weren’t a soldier.’

‘I’m gonna be.’ His defiant glare was magnified by the lenses in his small round glasses.

Don’t bite. Don’t bite…

She kept her voice painfully level. ‘What happened to being a scientist?’

A hint of uncertainty flashed across those freckled cheeks. ‘Science is for geeks.’

Romy turned and looked him square in the eye. She’d worked long and hard to instil a sense of pride in her son for his special talents with wildlife, astronomy, computers—all things geeky.

We don’t get to choose our gifts. Leighton running his abilities down worried her. Was he getting this from school?

‘Is that right?’ she said, carefully neutral.

‘I’m going to be an artilleryman.’

Her heart began to pound, high in her throat. ‘You want to shoot guns for a living?’

‘Every soldier needs to be good with a gun. It’s for survival. Clint is a soldier.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘And my granddad was a soldier.’

She gripped the benchtop behind her, breathless. Who told him that?

‘And I’m gonna be a soldier, too,’ Leighton finished on a very defiant stare.

A hint of acid rose in Romy’s throat and she sagged against the edge of the bench. Damn you, Clint McLeish. He’s only a child…

She pulled herself back up. ‘Not for another ten years you’re not. Until then, the only orders you’ll be taking are from me, young man.’

‘Nuh-uh!’ Those small grey eyes burned with defiance.

Romy had a sudden memory of challenging the Colonel, her pint-size body stiff, arguing about things she couldn’t possibly have understood. Her lips thinned. ‘What has gotten into you, Leighton Carvell? You never speak this rudely to anyone!’

His eyes watered dangerously behind his glasses and his little round face boiled red with rage and then paled just as dramatically. He blinked back the tears. ‘Why doesn’t Clint come around any more?’

That took her by surprise. She stared at him, her anger dissolving instantly. ‘It’s only been three days, L. He’s probably…busy.’

‘He was supposed to take me on a bushwalk. He promised. Now he won’t come because of you.’

Oh, God, she’d let Clint get too close…Stupid, stupid! ‘Who says he won’t?’

Leighton’s baleful stare grew cautious. ‘You went on a date and now he won’t come.’

It sounded so ludicrous Romy wanted to laugh. But it was embarrassingly close to the truth. ‘No. We did not go on a date. We went to a work thing together. And I don’t know why he hasn’t been around since then. It’s a coincidence.’

Great, now you’re lying to your own son.

Then again, it took two to tango—the wide, circling part of tango in their case. She knew why she was keeping her distance. How could she be with him and not have her heart very obviously on her sleeve? But if Clint had wanted to see her…he was right next door.

She sighed. ‘I’ll see if I can get in touch, ask him about the walk. Maybe he’s planning it already?’

A battle twisted Leighton’s face. He wanted to be ecstatic, but he also tried to be cool about it, and he was still so mad. The result was a pinched half-grimace that helped Romy remember exactly how it felt to be a young child growing up conflicted. Confused. Disappointed.

She’d never wanted him to feel that. She knelt in front of him and held her arms out. ‘Okay, L?’

He didn’t rush into them, but he didn’t walk off either. He let himself lean forwards as her arms closed around him and then he rested his cheek on her shoulder and mumbled something that might have been ‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Grab your school bag. I’ll drop you down to the bus.’ She patted his bottom and gave him a gentle push in the direction of the stairs. He needed space and some friends around him right now, much more than he needed his trembling wreck of a mother. He’d have a heap of confusing emotions to work through.

And so did she.

Part of her wanted to slap Clint for talking about the military in front of Leighton. The very last thing in this world she wanted was for her precious angel to start getting interested in the same kind of lifestyle that had made her life a living hell. Another part of her knew her son was his own person, not hers to dictate to. Hadn’t that been what she fought against her whole, short childhood? He wouldn’t be the first boy to develop a fixation for toy guns and soldiers.

She frowned, realising that he had demonstrated this interest before. Back in third grade, when he’d asked about joining the junior orienteering team, she’d persuaded him to join the astronomy club instead. Simply because orienteering involved mapping and compass work and treks through the bush.

Like an army cadet programme.

She snatched her keys off the bench and limped through the screen door on her nearly healed ankle just as Leighton came bounding down the stairs. She glanced at his now-rosy cheeks and chewed her lip. How long had she been unconsciously guiding him away from any interest remotely like military activity? He’d done it, subjugated his preference for hers and joined astronomy. Because she wanted him to. What kind of a mother did that make her?

The Colonel’s daughter?

Romy kept her arm high, waving Leighton off, until the bus trundled right off into the distance. She’d make it up to him tonight, try and put their relationship back together as it used to be. She’d promised him a mother-son movie night with special treats and a kid’s action-adventure flick. He loved those.

She frowned again.

He loved those. Lord, how many clues was she missing?

She ducked her head and walked the hundred metres from the bus stop to WildSprings’s admin centre, to her broom closet of an office. She had some invoices to sign off and a vehicle registration to run past her police contact at Central.

She finished detailing the vehicle type and plate number and addressed the email. Then she turned her attention, reluctantly, to a pile of invoices sitting in her in-tray from Friday. Testament to how distracted she’d been that day about her big night out with Clint.

Not with Clint…Even now her subconscious was pulling them together. After everything that had happened at the fundraiser and everything they’d said in the car afterwards. She had never shared the details of Leighton’s conception with anyone. Including her father. That was a private shame just for her. Even at seventeen she’d been responsible enough to accept her actions and live with them. Lying in the bed she’d made—literally. It was blind luck she’d ended up with a child and not something more life threatening for her poor judgement.

It had taken the Colonel several months to catch on to her pregnancy. She’d hidden the early symptoms well during her final weeks of school and, having been lean all her life, she hadn’t shown until her fourth month. But once he’d realised…

But his anger then hadn’t been a patch on his rage when her military hospital robe had exposed her tattoo. Her obscenity. He seemed more appalled by that than by the life growing inside her. In the end, it was the cost—and not the certain pain—which made the Colonel back down from the threat of having it burned right off her skin.

Dr Pax won no favours from her father after he admired the quality of the tattoo artwork but he won a shy smile from a tear-streaked Romy. And she’d trusted him enough to return privately for the essential prenatal care she otherwise wouldn’t have sought out. She’d really liked Dr Pax.

Romy’s head snapped up.

She’d really liked Dr Pax. He was kind and gentle but disciplined, too. And he was a military doctor. Which meant he’d been through the system. Yet come out the other side a decent human being. Someone she’d genuinely respected. Someone who’s authority she had no difficulty accepting. The breath puffed out of her and Romy sat back in her chair and stared at the roof, poleaxed.

Dr Pax…Clint. That made two-thirds of the military men she’d ever met compassionate, kind and gentle. Men she didn’t have trouble liking. A clear majority.

Her father was the exception, not the rule!

She thought back to the way Clint had shielded her body with his in the doorway, how he’d fussed around her injured ankle, how he’d kissed away her tears in his tree house. Yes, he was capable of great passion, too—she remembered the angry blaze of his eyes all too clearly—but essentially his military side and his human side existed in reasonable harmony. Despite the great trials he’d been through.

And look how he was with Leighton. Firm, but fair. Patient. Gentle.

He may well kill for those he loved, but he was at least capable of deeper emotion. For the first time, she wondered if perhaps her father would have been a difficult man to love even without his military background.

‘Looking for breaches of security in the ceiling panels, Romy?’

Her body stiffened with sudden tension. It was too soon. She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Clint…’

‘How are you?’ His words weren’t exactly cold but they were a long way from warm.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Oh, so painfully polite. ‘Is there something you need?’

He stepped into her tiny office and closed the door. Her blood pressure rose instantly. ‘I need to ask you about something.’

‘Actually, I need to ask you something, too.’ Stay away from my son.

He leaned on the doorframe, tipped his head towards her.

She took a deep breath. ‘Why have you been talking to Leighton about being in the military?’

He frowned. ‘I haven’t.’

Who else would have? ‘He knows you were a soldier. Now he wants to be one.’

He studied her carefully. ‘Then it’s not from me. And you know I can’t agree that’s a terrible thing.’

‘Despite everything you’ve been through?’

He nodded. ‘Even so. But that doesn’t mean I talk to him about it. I can barely talk to my shrink about it—do you imagine I offload onto an eight-year-old boy?’

She frowned. ‘You told me about it.’

Caution slammed down over his eyes. ‘Inappropriate impulse.’

Oh. Awkward silence fell between them. She rushed to cover the pang his words caused. ‘I don’t want him idolising you. What you were.’

‘Yes, because that would be a crime. Seeing as I’m pond scum in your eyes.’

Her heart squeezed. ‘You know that’s not true.’

His irises bled to the green of a storm-tossed dam. ‘I appreciate your upbringing was a very difficult one and I can understand how that might have left you with a skewed view of the military,’ he said. ‘But I happen to be enormously proud of the work I did in the Defence Force, the lives I saved and the difference I made to my country…’

‘Clint—’

‘I can’t suppress that for you, Romy. It’s a part of who I am and I’m through apologising for it. I am a member of the Australian Armed Forces, proud to have served my country, proud of my actions in conflict and proud to still belong to Strike Force Taipan in whatever capacity I can be. Deal with it.’

And there it was. Out in the open. Only he looked as surprised to have said it as she was to hear it.

The ball of tension in her chest tumbled and rolled and trebled in size, pushing on her heart and swelling with pride. Pride for Clint. It was far more important that he accept that part of him than she did. She nodded.

‘Okay.’

‘Okay…? That’s it?’

It physically hurt to speak. ‘You shouldn’t apologise for doing something you believe in wholeheartedly. Your core values. I won’t ask you to.’

‘You ask me in a hundred little ways, Romy. I feel it every time I’m with you.’

Shame washed through her. That’s how she used to feel with her father. She heaved in an unsteady breath and tried to move away from her desk but there was not far to go when he was taking up so much of the room. ‘What did you need to see me for?’ she finally got out, needing to move to safer territory.

He glared at her, dark and intense. Veiled. Not surprising given their parting on Friday night. ‘Do you trust me, Romy?’

With my life. ‘Wh…why?’

‘You didn’t tell me about my brother.’

Romy frowned and glanced at her computer screen. How did he know? ‘Uh, there wasn’t much to tell before today.’ Before she got this morning’s email from her contact in Chicago.

‘Did you think I wouldn’t believe you?’

‘I…’ She shook her head to clear the confusion. She pulled her focus off his overwhelming presence in her miniature office. ‘He’s your brother…I didn’t want to—’

‘Tell me now. I want to hear it.’

Lord…She’d wanted time to prepare for this…to even work out what it could mean. It wasn’t something you just announced. But he was asking. Waiting.

She reached into a low drawer and pulled a file out, then passed the sheet on the top to Clint. ‘Justin never worked at the Joliet Grosvenor.’

His eyes froze over on the paper and she hurried on. ‘There’s no record of him even being registered in the Hospitality Association in Chicago. He would have to have been, to work front desk in a major hotel.’

‘What is this?’ His voice was as brittle as the orchards in a frost.

Confusion muddled her mind. ‘Justin never worked—’

‘I heard what you said.’ He raised pained eyes to hers and shook the paper. The blaze in his eyes could have combusted it in his hand. ‘You investigated my brother?’

Her breath stopped. The room shrank around her and an enormous hole opened up inside her. ‘What were you talking about?’

‘Justin behaving…inappropriately at the fundraiser.’

Octopus hands were just a blip on her radar compared to what came after with Clint. She’d all but forgotten Justin’s drunken pawing.

A deep scowl dropped over the angles of his face. ‘Why the hell are you investigating my brother?’

Romy could have apologised. Begged his forgiveness. But when her antennae were vibrating so wildly she knew better than to back down. There was too much at stake. Clint’s heart. She took a bolstering breath around the tightness in her chest. ‘Why would he lie to you?’

‘Am I part of your investigation now?’

She took the hit. Prepared herself for more. To protect him. ‘Why would he lie, Clint?’

‘Who says he is lying?’

‘The Government of the United States. My contact’s in a Federal department in Chicago.’

He prowled around her broom-closet office, then doubled back on her. ‘Overkill, don’t you think?’

Actually, yes, it was. Majorly. ‘I contacted Carly as a friend, not a Federal officer.’

‘Why?’

‘Because there’s something not right about Justin—’

His colour blanched slightly. ‘I’ve told you why that is. The near-drowning…’

Desperation started to pick at her fringes. Had she overreacted? Could she be wrong about Justin? She forced the doubt away. ‘Clint. Forget that he’s your brother, just for a moment. Why would he lie about his background?’

Clint finally lifted tortured eyes to her. ‘You’ve certainly wasted no time in getting your revenge.’

‘Revenge for what?’

‘For him trying it on with you.’

Hurt slammed through her. ‘You think that’s what this is?’

‘You tell me. First you tell me he hit on you, then you tell me he’s a liar.’

Her pulse started to hammer at the accusation in his voice. ‘I never told you he hit on me. You brought it up.’

Clint glared. ‘Actually, he did. He owned up to it immediately. Expressed his regret. Like a man.’

Her chest heaved with barely restrained anger. ‘How good of him. Have you not given any thought to why he might do that? What he had to gain?’

Clint shook his head. It matched the tremble in his hands. ‘I feel sure you’re about to tell me.’

Grief thickened her voice. Something beautiful was dying. Romy could feel it slipping through her helpless fingers. ‘Do I really have to tell you about pre-emptive strikes? Justin knew you’d take him to pieces when you found out he’d touched me and so he was getting in first. Shoring up support.’ Shields she hadn’t had to employ in some time started to creak back into position. The familiar thick, lead-lined walls that protected her for so much of her childhood. ‘It was pure strategy, Clint. He’s clever.’

He launched away from her, as far as he could get in the tiny room. ‘Make up your mind, Romy. One minute he’s damaged, the next he’s Einstein.’ He swung back to burn down on her. ‘There’s something I don’t understand. If you’re so determined to come between us why didn’t you tell me about him hitting on you yourself?’

Because his brother’s touch blew everything else from my mind, eclipsed everything that came before it. ‘Maybe because his weren’t the only hands I had on me that night!’

But one look at his bleached face and she knew how it sounded. Her stomach contracted.

‘Clint…’

He cut her off physically, pushing past her to leave the office. He threw the offending report onto her desk. ‘Stay the hell away from my family.’