One-thirty. Nearly time to hit the road. Brendon had gone into his shed a few minutes ago. He’d go and see the guy, try to let him know how much he meant to him.
Brendon stood at his workbench, viciously sandpapering a wooden table. Marshall wondered if the older man was mentally attacking him as he worked.
Clearing his throat, he spoke above the rasping sound of Brendon’s work. ‘I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. Especially for the way you’ve welcomed me into your home.’
The sanding continued as the fingers gripping the sanding block whitened. ‘You’re welcome. Any time.’
In other words, he was meant to come back. Swallowing the sour taste in his mouth, he continued. ‘I truly appreciate that.’ Not that he’d be back in a hurry. He’d decided that would only complicate things and give Charlie reason to hope for more from him.
The sanding block clunked down on the bench and Brendon clapped the dust off his hands. ‘Right.’ He glanced around the shed’s interior, his gaze finally settling on a small catamaran stashed in a corner, cobwebs attaching the yacht to the wall. ‘I caught her struggling to haul that outside a couple of months ago, adamant she was going sailing.’
‘It’s chained to a peg in the floor.’ He’d known they’d end up talking about Charlie. Unavoidable.
‘Broke my heart to see her unable to do something that a couple of years ago was easier than falling off a bike for her.’ Brendon’s voice sounded hollow. ‘I chained the damned thing up so she couldn’t try again.’ His head rolled from side to side. ‘My girl used to be so strong.’
And you’re afraid she won’t ever regain that strength.
He wouldn’t even think about that. ‘I see her as very strong mentally. She never wavers. Always looking out for Aimee, her patients. Refuses to let the cancer set her back.’ If it dared to come back it was in for a hell of a battle from Charlie.
‘You are right, lad. She is strong. I only hope she’s strong enough. The next weeks are going to be hard for her.’
A perfect shot. Straight at his heart. Marshall winced. Couldn’t blame the man for putting his daughter’s case. ‘I have to go, Brendon. There is no other option.’
‘Keep moving? That the army way, lad? Or your way?’
‘It’s the only way I know how to live, how to be me.’ Except now that way of life seemed odd from where he stood.
From the doorway came, ‘That’s a copout.’ Charlie’s hands were firmly on her hips. ‘You fall back on that excuse for everything. You’ve been conditioned to think like that. Yes, it is the army way. No, you don’t have to live like that. You can make a life that suits you and get what you want from it.’
‘Maybe I have.’ The path of least resistance. Yeah, even he could see that. ‘But there is no getting away from the fact that I have to follow orders, which means going wherever I’m told.’ He could tell the army to stick the next contract due to be signed in a few weeks, but then what? Could he become a GP in a small town? He’d still be helping people, caring for their families.
Brendon slipped past Charlie and headed outside. No fond farewell, then. He couldn’t blame the guy. He was hurting his girl.
Charlie came inside and approached him, her eyes brimming with need, love and earnestness. ‘Well, here’s my way. I love you, Marshall. I love you with all my heart and then some. Have done since that first day in the ED when you teased me about my funny accent.’ She stepped close, rose up on her toes and kissed him hard on the mouth.
His arms rose almost of their own volition to wrap around her. Pushing his tongue between her lips, he tasted her mouth, felt his knees weaken. God, it would be so easy to stay. To pretend he didn’t have commitments elsewhere. To pretend it would all work out—that he’d be a great dad, a wonderful husband and turn into a settled doctor living in small-town New Zealand.
It took every last ounce of his strength to put Charlie aside. ‘Nothing’s going to change because of what you’ve revealed, Charlie. I still won’t be around for you.’
Her eyes glittered with anger. ‘Don’t you get it yet? Having you some of the time is better than never. Loving you means letting you be the person you are, not trying to change you into someone else, not tying you down in one place. I understand that would be the quickest way to turn our relationship sour.’
Tempting. So bloody tempting. To stop in one place occasionally. To have special time out with Charlie and Aimee, to be the partner and parent and still have his army career with the duty that was his rod.
So damned unfair on them. He could see it now. Aimee crying every time he left, begging him to stay one more night, to take her to school the next day. It would be him all over again. Except he’d be the one going away.
Air hissed through his teeth. ‘You deserve better than that. You can and should have the whole enchilada. So should Aimee. I’m going home, Charlie.’ Home? A cold, lonely barrack room. Home.
‘Sure.’ Her hurt blinked out at him, cutting him to the heart.
He continued relentlessly, trying to ignore the pain in her face that reflected what crunched inside him. ‘You need to find a good, kind man who’ll love and cherish you, who’ll come home to you at the end of the day and sit down with a glass of wine to talk about what you’ve done. A man who’ll take Aimee to school sports.’
The colour drained from Charlie’s cheeks at that reminder of what she’d wanted for him. He had to make her see he was right. ‘A man who’ll take you on vacation, be there to teach Aimee things. A man totally unlike me.’ His lungs were struggling to inhale. His blood had slowed to the point he was in danger of collapsing.
He wanted to haul her into his arms and tell her he’d made a mistake, that he didn’t mean a word of it and that he’d stay. Except he knew himself too well, knew he couldn’t. So he wasn’t finished. ‘Find yourself a man who’ll see you into old age, Charlie.’
Her voice sounded like it came through a gag. Her eyes leaked tears. But her shoulders were drawn back tight and her chin pointed at him. ‘You’re wrong, Marshall. I don’t need anyone to take care of me. What my heart needs is you as and when I can have you. Nothing more, nothing less.’
Reaching his hands to her shoulders, he felt the tension in her muscles, the tremors racking her body. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead then her lips. ‘Take care, Charlie.’ Goodbye, my love. And he strode away with a resolution he didn’t feel.
*
Hamilton. The road sign indicated to continue straight ahead.
Auckland. Turn right to bypass the city.
Marshall blinked. ‘Here already?’ He hadn’t noticed a thing as he’d driven up from Taupo, his mind firmly fixed back with two beautiful females.
Indicating to turn right, he turned onto the road leading to Auckland and his trip back Stateside. No stopping today, no turning around and going back to Charlie.
He swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the blockage in his throat. Failed miserably. The vehicle surged forward until he lifted his foot from the accelerator. ‘Careful. Trying to outrun that love and sadness in Charlie’s eyes isn’t going to work. She’s a part of you for ever, Marshall.’
Yeah, maybe, but that didn’t mean he had to put her heart in jeopardy. He loved her beyond reason but how did he know that love would last through everything life tossed up? Could he guarantee he’d always be there for Charlie in heart and mind, if not in body? No, he couldn’t. Despite the sense of belonging to her family that had quickly overtaken him these past weeks, it scared him to think they’d rely on him to always come through for them.
He’d failed Rod, hadn’t he? Rod had been the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had. The pain and guilt over losing him hadn’t diminished at all.
He turned onto the motorway. The international airport was getting closer by the second.
Charlie had been through enough. He couldn’t ask her to face more heartache. And he couldn’t expect his little girl to get to know him and then face the devastation
of losing him, like Rod’s kids had.
Those two boys had been completely lost and bewildered as they’d waited for Daddy to come home from yet another mission. It had taken a long time for them to finally understand that Rod was never coming home. And it had thrown them completely. Karen had told him how little Johnny wet the bed every night while his older brother had taken to lashing out at his friends at school. Only now was counselling starting to show some signs of working to improve the situation.
He didn’t want that for Aimee.
Or Charlie. There were no guarantees with his life in the army. End of.
His heart clenched so hard he feared he was having a cardiac event. He was, just not a medical one. Pulling to the side of the road, he opened the door and dragged in a lungful of fresh air, waited for the pain to ebb. Knew it would never, ever go away completely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THREE WEEKS LATER Charlie clicked onto patient files prior to seeing her first patient for the day. Notes from Keisha’s surgeon caught her attention. Keisha had had a full mastectomy. Treatment would start in six weeks’ time. Concern slipped under Charlie’s skin, raised the hairs on the back of her neck.