Such as, if it hadn’t been her father who had contacted him, then Zeke wouldn’t know about Seth. Right?
An image stole into her head and a wide smile leapt instantly to her lips. It was all she could do to stamp it out.
Her precious Seth.
The happy, funny, in-love-with-life four-year-old boy who really mattered in all this, and the one person she would give her life to protect.
Seth—the little boy who had deserved not to be born into the tumultuous aftermath of Zeke’s black ops mission gone so harrowingly wrong, and her own part in what had happened that night.
Seth, who deserved to know his father now that Zeke had finally managed to find some peace.
But not yet. Not like this. Not dropping it on Zeke like some kind of bombshell. She had one chance to get this right. Her son deserved for her to get it right. Hell, even Zeke deserved for her to get it right. She would not blurt it out now like some kind of weapon against him. Hadn’t she done them both enough harm already?
Her entire insides shook at the mere idea of it whilst his intense gaze, pinning her to the spot, seemed to confirm it.
* * *
Zeke stared at the ghost in front of him, not wanting to even blink in case she disappeared in that fleeting tenth of a second.
It was incredible.
How many times had he planned on tracking her down this past year? Now that he was finally on track. Now that he could be sure he wouldn’t be a burden for her. Now that he finally had something to offer her again.
How Herculean it had been to resist that temptation. After all that had happened between them, and all that he’d said to her, he knew he had no right just to walk back into her life. He couldn’t expect to pick back up where they’d left off.
But it hadn’t stopped him imagining that maybe, just maybe, there would have been no one else for her but him. The way that there had never been—never would be—anyone else for him but Tia. His Tia.
He had no right to any of that. He’d lost that right five years ago when he’d sent her away, and then, when that hadn’t worked, had said all those things to her in order to get her to leave him. Harsh, cruel words chosen for maximum wounding, for devastating effect. Words that made him blanch when he thought back to them, even now.
And yet a nonsensical part of him was still galled that she’d bought any of it. That she’d left.
Those five years felt like a lifetime ago, now. So much had changed. He had changed. He had healed, mentally and physically, and he had moved on with his life. But he’d never moved on from Tia. He’d carried her with him this whole time, like his private talisman, even her memory enough to galvanise him into action, to try to walk, on days when he might otherwise have curled up in a ball and imagined dying on his black ops mission that fateful night.
Just as two of his buddies had.
Every time he’d wondered why he was still here when they weren’t, whether he deserved to still be here when they weren’t, he’d thought of Tia, and known he had to try.
Which was why, when he’d finally turned his life around several years ago, he’d come back to Westlake, where they’d first met as kids. A foolish part of him hoping that somehow it would get back to her that he was here. A selfish part of him imagining that she might turn up, on whatever pretext she liked, just to see him.
He’d never really expected it to happen, and yet now here she was. Looking as glorious, as tempting, as Tia, as ever.
It was all he could do not to cross the space between them and haul her to him. To hold her and prove he wasn’t simply imagining it.
‘You look...well,’ she faltered and flushed, her eyes skimming straight down his legs. ‘Better than well.’
Had he really been so simple-minded to think she would look at him again without seeing...that?
He wasn’t prepared for the familiar pain that shattered through him. A pain he’d thought he had finally beaten into submission eighteen months ago, but which eighteen minutes in this one woman’s company seemed to have resurrected with brutal efficiency.
It took all he had not to reach down the leg of his leather biker gear and feel for the lower limb that was no longer there.
That hadn’t been there since Tia had cut it off five years and two months ago.
‘Are you saying that to make me feel better?’ he growled. ‘Or you?’
‘Zeke... I’m sorry,’ she choked out, taking a few stumbling steps towards him. ‘You have no idea how sorry.’
‘Stop.’ His hand flew up, halting both her advice and her words. And his own voice was harsh, razor-sharp even to his own ears. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’
Not least because she wasn’t the one who should be doing any apologising. She shouldn’t be sorry for what had happened on that makeshift operating table; she’d carried out the only option left to her. And in doing so, she had saved his life.
The fact that he’d accused her of ruining it meant that any apologies were his to make. He was the one who had pushed her away. She hadn’t simply walked out on him, or cast him off faster than a Special Forces wannabe dropped his fifty-pound rucksack after his first fifteen-mile tab. He’d pushed her away. Hard. And without any show of mercy.
His only consolation had been the fact that it was the only way he could save her from feeling guilty or responsible every time she looked at him. The only way he could release her from being burdened with him.
But that had been five years ago, and a lot had changed since then. He had changed. How many times had he imagined finding her? Explaining himself to her? But not here, not like this. He needed to do it properly. To show her how he’d turned his life around.
This was the chance he’d been waiting for to get her back. And he wasn’t about to blow it.
If only he could work his tongue loose to say a damned word.
‘I heard you’ve been awarded a medal for bravery,’ Tia blurted out, clearly unable to stand the silence any longer. ‘For saving three crewmen from a sinking ship in heavy seas.’
‘I was doing my job.’ He could feel himself scowling even as he tried to stop it.
‘The newspapers don’t seem to think so,’ she babbled on but, irrationally, he was more fascinated by the way her pulse was leaping erratically at her throat. ‘They’re calling you a hero.’
He’d hated the publicity for that. The hero nonsense. The public had lauded him for that lifeboat rescue, yet all he could think was that they didn’t even know the names of the buddies he’d served with, who had died that night five years ago trying to protect their freedom.
‘I think they’re right,’ she concluded almost shyly, giving him an unexpected flashback to the day his chip-on-the-shoulder seventeen-year-old self had first met the blushing fifteen-year-old he’d had no idea would change his life so dramatically.
He clenched his fists behind his back and fought the unnerving impulse to stride across the room and close that gap between them.
And then what...kiss her? It made no sense. A confusion of questions crowded his brain, screaming for his attention. He fought against the ear-splitting ringing in his head. Strident. Throbbing.
What had he been thinking, coming here? Leaping on his motorbike and hurtling up the stretch of coast from Westlake to Delburn Bay the moment he’d heard she was here?
Like a lovesick teenager, worshipping at her altar. All these...emotions,