Deep furrows scored his brow. ‘Yes, but I think you’ve attached more to it than just a romp in the sand.’
He knew she loved him.
Bile scalded the back of her throat. Her body shivered uncontrollably. Wrapping her arms around herself, she threw her head up and stared into eyes that projected sympathy overlaid with guilt. She forced her words out against a constricted throat. ‘And you haven’t attached anything to it?’
Remorse blazed across his face. ‘No. I can’t attach anything to it. I can’t love you.’
Her heart shattered, searing her with burning pain. She’d trusted him. Trusted him with her story, with her friendship. Like every other man she’d known, he’d taken her trust and discarded it, as if it had no value. It was as if she’d put her hand up and said, ‘Use me.’
She gasped for breath as blackness swirled in her mind. Why, after eight years, had she dropped her guard and opened herself up for this? Stupid, stupid girl.
Men could not be trusted. Men abused. Men took. Men …
No!
This is Tom.
From the moment he’d met her he’d looked out for her. He’d insisted she pace herself workwise, he’d quietly cared for her in so many ways. He’d held her when she’d been sick, had been outraged by her father, and he’d offered her unconditional friendship. He was the most caring, gorgeous man she knew.
Yesterday he’d looked into her soul, his eyes full of reverence and adoration. Pure lust did not look like that. She had not been mistaken. There had been far more to it than just a romp in the sand.
So why was he denying that? Why was he was acting like a jerk? None of this made sense. She frantically gathered the shards of her dignity and her self-worth, forcing them together so she could get to the bottom of this and fight for something worth saving. Show him they had something worth saving.
She breathed in deeply asking the hardest question of her life. ‘Why can’t you love me?’
He spun away from her, aching inside, hating himself for putting her through this. ‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t think I do know why. Please, explain it to me.’ Pride carried the words around the cabin.
He jerkily pulled the drawstring on his pack. ‘My life is complicated. I’ve told you that.’
‘I think you’re making it way more complicated than it needs to be.’
Each softly spoken word pierced him, hammering at everything he knew about himself. He turned to face her. She sat pale, calm and implacable, her chin jutting forward in her familiar and determined way.
He needed her to understand. Needed her to forgive him. ‘Half of me is missing. I can’t love anyone when I’m not complete myself.’
Her nostrils flared. ‘Half of you is not missing. You’re all here. You are the sum of your biological and adopted parents. Your birth parents gave you great DNA and your Australian parents gave you love and values. You’ve been blessed, Tom Bracken.’
Anger flared at her dismissal of his feelings. ‘I have a family out there somewhere that I don’t know. A heritage that is vacant.’
She didn’t flinch at his exasperation. Large eyes stared him down. ‘No one’s life is perfect. No one’s parents real or imaginary, ever live up to expectations, Tom. You’ve woven a dream around a family you want to find. But you also have a loving family in Australia you haven’t seen in two years. You have a heritage with them. A family history. Don’t turn your back on all that for a pipe dream.’
Resentment coiled in his gut as her words gnawed at him. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t turned my back on my parents. Hell, they encouraged me to come here and work and to look for my mother.’
A sad smile of understanding tugged at her lips. ‘Of course they did. They love you and want to support you. They can see you’re struggling and they want you to find some peace.’
He snorted in derision. ‘Peace. How can I have peace when I don’t know if I’m Australian or Vietnamese? When I feel disconnected, no matter where I am?’
A wry expression crossed her face. ‘Hey, you don’t have to be adopted to feel disconnected or to have a million what-if questions about your life.
‘And why do you have to be one or the other? You’re both. You belong in both countries. If your mother hadn’t given you up and you’d been raised in Vietnam, you would have all these same questions about your dead father. You’d feel more Vietnamese but know part of you was Western. Either way, you’re a blend of East and West. Embrace it.’
He wanted to put his hands over his ears, like a child refusing to listen. ‘That’s too easy. My life can’t be reduced to a simple equation.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I don’t think you have any idea of what you really have. You’ve been so lucky.’
Her words hammered him. ‘Lucky? My mother abandoned me.’ He heard the despair in his voice.
She stood up, her gait rolling with the tossing boat, and walked over to him. ‘Your mother gave you up because she loved you more than she loved herself. She gave you up so you could live.’
She put her hand on his arm, her heat seeping into him like water into parched ground. ‘War changes all the rules. You were starving, you might have been sick with cholera and the orphanage was your only chance at survival.
‘Life is a lottery, Tom. You have to make the best of what you’ve got. I got dud parents. You got stellar parents. I fought to leave my father and you’re fighting to find your mother. But you’ve been surrounded by love all your life. Don’t turn your back on it by putting your life on hold. You once told me to stop hiding and take a chance on an adult relationship. I have. Now I’m asking you to take a chance with me. I’m here and I love you.’
He hated her logic. Hated it that her words dredged up all the thoughts that plagued him every day. He shrugged off her touch, needing distance. ‘I’m actively searching for my birth mother. Just because I don’t love you doesn’t mean my life is on hold.’
She recoiled for a moment as his words had struck her like bullets. ‘I think you’re using this search for your mother as an excuse to hold people at bay. I think you’re scared.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He snapped the plastic clasps on his backpack with more force than necessary. ‘What on earth would I have to be scared about?’
Her look of pitying understanding made his stomach lurch.
She hauled in a breath. ‘I think you’re scared that Vietnam hasn’t given you the sense of completeness that you believed it would, and you feel guilty for missing Australia.’ She laced her fingers together. ‘You’ve told yourself for so long that you can’t fall in love until you find your birth mother and find the answers to all your questions about yourself. If you admit that you love me then you’ve just admitted that your search for your mother is over. And that scares the hell out of you.’
His heart pounded, threatening to expose his worst fears and strip him bare. He had to stop this conversation. He had to put an impenetrable distance between them. Had to stop her from ever thinking they could be together.
‘Bec, I never promised you love. I only ever offered you friendship. We don’t have a future together. I’m sorry you read more into it than I can give.’
A stillness settled over her. Only her eyelashes moved against her cheeks as she blinked furiously. ‘I’m a very perceptive reader, Tom.’
The words hung between them.
He blocked them out.