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MAC SNAPPED AWAKE AS the woman in his arms suddenly sat upright with a gasp.
He’d fallen asleep—he hadn’t meant to. Maybe an hour had passed—the last of the sun’s rays had vanished, and the room had subsided into semi-darkness.
Fred had scrabbled up the bed until her back reached the headboard, and now she sat staring at the corner of the room, her chest heaving, clearly terrified.
“Sweetheart, what is it?” He couldn’t see anything there.
“There was...” She swallowed hard. “Someone standing there.”
He glanced over. “Nobody’s there, honey.”
“There was...”
“Fred, Scully would have barked if someone had come into the room.”
Her gaze flicked to him, and he could see the white of her eyes around her irises. “Are you sure?”
His brow furrowed. He leaned over to the bedside table and switched on a lamp, casting the room in a warm glow. Scully lay by the side of the bed, her head on her paws, although she stood as he rose. He pulled on a pair of track pants. She looked unconcerned—there had been nobody there, not even someone she knew, because she would have been excited to see them.
He suspected that Fred had been dreaming, but nevertheless he clicked his fingers at Scully and got her to follow him around the room, then walked out along the corridor and did a quick patrol of the house. Scully sniffed happily, spotting nothing. It was true that he hadn’t locked the front door, but she ran out and did a pee, and showed no signs of suspicion that anyone had passed by that way.
Eventually, he returned to the bedroom with her. Fred still sat against the headboard, clutching the duvet, her shoulders drawn up like a little girl, and her gaze still fixed on the corner of the room.
“It’s all right.” He sat on the bed. “Scully didn’t spot anything.”
Her eyes slowly came to meet his, and gradually her shoulders relaxed. “It was just a dream.”
“I think so. Probably.”
She moistened her lips. “Thank you for taking me seriously, though.”
“No worries. Who did you think you saw?”
“My father.” She rubbed her nose. “It was a dream, of course it was. It was darker in here—I looked at the clock in the dream and it said midnight, and it’s only eight.”
“Did he say something?”
“No. He just stared at me. But he was really angry.” Her face shone pale as the moon, and when he reached over and rested a hand on her arm, her skin felt cold and clammy.
“Why don’t you come into the kitchen? I’ll make us a cup of tea.” Without waiting for her to reply, he went out and fetched her pajamas and brought them back, then left her to get dressed while he returned to the kitchen and filled the kettle. It had just reached the boil when she appeared. She looked younger in the pajamas, with her hair loose around her shoulders, and he felt a surge of protectiveness and pity for this young woman who’d been through so much.
“Come on.” He knew she liked Earl Grey, and he made the tea, then carried their mugs into the living room and pulled her down onto the sofa beside him. “The girls aren’t back yet,” he told her. “The car’s still missing.”
She sipped the tea. To his relief, a touch of color had returned to her cheeks. Scully rested her snout on Fred’s knee, and Fred stroked her ear.
“I’m sorry you had a bad dream,” he said. “I hope I wasn’t the cause of it.”
“Of course not. At least, not directly.” She ran a finger around the rim of the mug. “I guess what you said was playing on my mind—what my father might say about the two of us getting married. I can’t help but believe he’d be angry with me. I didn’t really think it through. I just wanted the money. But now, I keep thinking about what James did, and how angry Dad would be with me for going against his wishes, especially with James’s son. And I guess after what we just did...” She looked into her tea.
Mac’s spirits sank. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel guilty or upset because they’d slept together. “I’m sure he wouldn’t feel like that. I’m convinced that if he’d known what my dad was going to do, he wouldn’t have placed that clause on your inheritance the way he did. I can’t believe he’d be angry with you for trying to do your best. Or with me, as it happens. I liked Harry, and I’m sure he liked me too. He would be pleased I’m looking out for you. I hope he would, anyway.”
“Hope... that’s all we can do, isn’t it?” She looked somewhat forlorn. Then she gave a little laugh and flicked him a wry look. “I’m so sorry—this isn’t the best post-coital discussion, is it?”
He smiled and reached out to hold her hand. “Hey, I’m just glad you stayed for a while. We might not have gone into this with the intention of it developing into something, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have feelings for each other. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
She gave a cautious nod.
“Good,” he said. “Look, I know you have your sisters, but you’re the oldest, and I can see that you feel responsibility to be the strong one. I doubt that you open up to them often.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Not much, no.”
“Then I hope you feel as if you can talk to me.”
She turned her mug in her hands. “We agreed that the marriage didn’t mean anything. I don’t want you to feel as if you have to sit and listen to my woes just because we signed a bit of paper.”
He felt a flare of impatience. Why couldn’t she trust him? “Give me some credit, will you? I like you, Fred. Come on, talk to me. I can see you’re struggling. You’ve been through a hell of a hard time. I’ve been waiting for you to open up, to tell me about your mother, but you seem determined to keep everything to yourself. Isn’t a problem shared a problem halved?”
She tipped her head from side to side. “Maybe, but I suppose I’m also scared of giving voice to my fears in case it makes them real.”
“I don’t believe that. Do you?”
“Okay, maybe not, but sometimes talking about things stirs it all up again, like picking at a scab and stopping it healing.”
“And not talking about it leaves it festering, like refusing to clean out a wound.”
She poked her tongue out at him. “Stop using my own metaphors on me.”
“I just want to understand you. To get to know you better.”
“Mac, what we just did...”
“Are you going to give me a lecture about how it meant nothing, and I mustn’t get my hopes up?”
Now she was getting exasperated. “Something like that.”
“Save your words. I get it. I’m not assuming that because we slept together it’ll happen again.” Although he hoped it would. “I like you. It’s as simple as that. I wanted to help—I still do.”
She scratched at a mark on her pajama bottoms. “I suppose I have trouble believing you’re doing this out of the kindness of your heart.”
“Well, believe it, baby. I really am that great a person.”
She laughed. “Okay.”
“Come on. Tell me about your mum.”
Immediately, her smile vanished. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
Jeez, it was like getting blood out of a really, really hard stone. He should give up, but he couldn’t. He gave a huff of frustration.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just...” She bit her lip. “I like the way you look at me, and I don’t want that to change.”
He frowned, puzzled. “Why would I look at you differently?”
She studied her hands, and suddenly he understood. She was ashamed.
“Fred,” he murmured. “Nothing you could tell me would make me think any less of you. I’m not judgmental—at least, I try not to be. Everything has a context, and I know you’ve had a hard time. Tell me about it.”
She swallowed, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to say anything.
Then she sighed, obviously deciding it was time to confess. “I told you Mum was bipolar.”
“Yes.”
“Her illness grew worse as time went by. Sometimes, she was okay, but the bad episodes became more frequent and intense. After Dad left, I looked after her. I taught myself to touch type and took secretarial courses in the evenings. I temped a lot—it suited me, as I could do a few days here and there and not have to commit to a full-time job, because when she was bad, she needed me at home. It was hard, but I loved her, and I knew it wasn’t her fault. Her husband had abandoned her, and even though she’d cheated on him, I knew she loved him. I felt sorry for her.” Her lips pressed into a thin line.
“What happened?”
“Dad died,” Fred said simply. “And our solicitor forwarded your email. I sat there for ages, reading his letter over and over. I couldn’t believe it. All those years I’d spent hating him, and it wasn’t his fault, or at least, not only his fault.”
“What did you do?”
She gazed into the distance, and he had a feeling she wasn’t seeing the living room window or the view outside, but instead some other time and place. “I confronted her. She admitted destroying his and my letters. She told me she was worried he’d take us all away and she’d lose us all. She cried and begged my forgiveness.”
Mac knew they were drawing near to the heart of the matter, and he felt like holding his breath.
She frowned. “I was horrified to know he’d died thinking we didn’t love him and wanted nothing to do with him.”
“I get that,” he said.
She turned her shining hazel eyes to him. “You have to understand what kind of daughter I was up until that point. I never rebelled. Never argued or shouted. Never challenged my mother. Ginger and Sandi both dyed their hair, had tantrums, did all the things you should do as a teen, but I never did. I always did what I was told—I was always polite and deferential, the perfect daughter. Until that day.”
Mac put down his mug. “What happened?”
“I lost it. I screamed at her that she’d ruined my life. I felt so utterly devastated. She was my mother—she was supposed to support me, be there for me, and instead she’d been cruel and selfish. She’d let me throw my own life away, and she’d ruined my relationship with my father.”
He went cold inside. What was she trying to tell him? She hadn’t turned physical toward her mother, surely? God, please no. Don’t let her tell him that.
But she continued, “I walked out, the first time I’d ever done that. I drove down to the sea and spent hours walking along the sea wall, so miserable, absolutely heartbroken. I thought about throwing myself in. Came very close to it. But for the first time, I felt a seed of determination inside me. I wasn’t going to let her ruin my life anymore. I was done with someone else controlling me. I decided I was going to move out, maybe go to nursing school, start all over again...”
Her voice trailed off. She fell silent for a moment. He didn’t dare say anything to break the spell.
Then she blinked and swallowed. “When I got back...” She was trembling now. “When I walked in, I saw her on the sofa. A bottle of pills lay on its side, a couple of them on the floor. She’d taken an overdose.”
All his tension left him in a rush. “Ah, Fred...”
“I rang for an ambulance immediately, and they took her to hospital, but I was too late. The pills had done too much damage, and she died the next day.” She stared at him, white-faced. She looked terrified of his reaction.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
As if someone had broken the wall of a dam, the tears tumbled down her cheeks, and she put her face in her hands.
He slid an arm around her. She stiffened, but he tugged her and said, “Come here,” and she turned to him and pressed her face to his bare chest. Gradually, he felt her melt against him as she let go of the last dregs of resistance.
Mac whispered, “Shhh,” and stroked her back. “It’s okay,” he murmured, over and over again, while outside the rain began to fall lightly, pattering against the windows.
It was a long time before she sat back. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tugging a tissue from a pocket in her pajama top to wipe her eyes.
“It’s okay.” He kept his arm around her. “I’m glad you told me. Jeez, you girls have had a tough time.”
“Yeah, I suppose we have. Ginger and Sandi took it hard, but of course they weren’t there when it happened. I couldn’t help but blame myself. If I hadn’t shouted at her... if I’d reacted better when I found out what she’d done... she’d still be here.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “The guilt would probably still have been too much for her. She was ill, honey, she had a disease that meant she was always going to overreact, and there was nothing you could do about that. You did an amazing job looking after her for all those years. You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself.”
She let out a shaky sigh. “We sold the house. Because she took her own life and had a mental illness that she didn’t disclose when she took out the policy, the insurance wouldn’t pay out, so the proceeds of the house sale went to paying off the mortgage and the credit card bills she left behind. But at least we’re shot of it. I don’t want to live there and neither do Ginger or Sandi.”
“Now I can see why you wanted a fresh start.”
“Mmm.” She pulled up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and laid her cheek on them. “I wish I could have known my father. I can’t remember him well, so it’s hard to know what his reaction would have been to what’s happened. It hurts to think of him dying here alone. He trusted your father, and it’s horrible to think of James turning on him like that. I can only imagine how that would have hurt him, if he’d been aware of it.”
As always, Mac felt a deep, dark burn of resentment at the remembrance of what his father had done. “Yeah.”
“Our lives could have been so different,” she whispered. “I’ll never forgive James.”
She met his gaze, and his spirits sank. She hated his father, and he couldn’t blame her, because he did too. He wished he could wave a wand and make James MacDonald not be his father. But he couldn’t. He was stuck with him, with his blood, his genes, and he would never be able to change it.
And Fred knew that. He would always be James’s son in her eyes. She would never be able to look at him without remembering what his father had done to hers, and how their lives had been ruined. She would never be able to put that aside and love him the way a real wife would her husband. His dreams were futile, written on rice paper to be torn into tiny pieces that would float away on the wind like confetti.
