Awakened by His Touch (16 page)

‘I’m sorry, Dad, I know you were trying to make life easier for me, but the world doesn’t actually owe me anything. Maybe I didn’t need to do every activity under the sun in order to be a full person. Or maybe I could have just found friends in my own time rather than you bussing them down and forcing us together just so we could all stay in denial about how different I was. Maybe it would have been okay for me to
not
try something out, or to just be ordinary at something, or—God forbid—even be bad at something. And maybe that’s why I don’t want to be railroaded into this. I
know
I could do it but it should be enough for everyone that I
just don’t want to
. I want to be here, on the property I love, working with the creatures I love and pursuing the things that interest
me
.’

She turned back to Elliott.

‘Not my parents. Not Ashmore Coolidge. Not you.’

Silences didn’t really come much thicker.

Laney shuffled in her seat but it did nothing to remove the discomfort of a hard truth finally aired.

‘Honey,’ her mother said finally, ‘you never said.’

Laney flung her hands into the air. ‘When is the right time to hurt your father? To throw your family’s effort back in their face?’

Now
, apparently.

‘I love you both to death, but why isn’t the person I am enough for anyone? Why do I always have to be...
more
?’

‘Seriously, Laney?’ Owen piped up. ‘You’re going to complain because you’ve had too many opportunities in life? When I’m sitting here trying to put my hand up for this one and the only person who
isn’t
completely disregarding that is the person who barely knows me.’

She turned towards her brother. And she knew both her parents would be doing so too. ‘You never put your hand up for things.’

‘Why would I bother? Opportunities automatically go to you.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘It’s absolutely true, Laney. We were born at the same time but you got all the Royal Jelly in life. And you thrived. I turned out just a plain old worker.’

She sagged back into her chair.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘Why didn’t you ever tell Dad how you were feeling?’

Point taken.

What she wouldn’t give right now to be able to look into her brother’s eyes.

‘You actually want to do this?’ she whispered.

‘I think I do.’

‘But what about your surfing?’

‘I love to surf, but I’m never going to be a pro. And fiddling with hives isn’t enough for me. I’d like to do more. I
could
do more. And I’d really love to travel. There’s a whole world out there, waiting to be seen.’

She snorted. ‘You sound like Elliott.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment. I think there’s a lot I could learn from him. And you’d be a hypocrite to judge me for wanting to follow my own path.’

She soaked that in, then turned back towards Elliott. ‘This wouldn’t obligate us?’

‘Phase one is fact-finding and relationship-building only. All decisions will come back here.’

‘Could Owen do it?’

‘With my help. I’ll be there with him.’

Another excellent reason for her to say no. Travelling in close confines with Elliott and not being able to touch him?
Ugh,
imagine...

‘How long would you be gone?’ Robert asked, his voice still wounded.

‘A couple of months. To get around to all the big suppliers personally and see the impact of winter on their spring.’

‘Months? But we’re going to need Owen to close out the season.’

‘You mean
you
are,’ Elliott said quietly. ‘To be your eyes. And your driver. And your assistant.’

Her stomach rolled. Both at the ugliness of Elliott’s statement and at its stark truth. He’d watched their operations closely enough to know exactly who did what. And for whom.

Oh, God...

Her chin sagged to her chest and mortification washed in around the realisation. She was as guilty of making presumptions about her brother’s life as the world was about hers. Every time she brushed off an idea of his...every time she thought he was sweet for voicing an opinion. Owen didn’t lack the grey matter to do more at Morgan’s, he just wasn’t engaged here. That was why he’d put his energies into other things, like surfing and girls. Because he’d trained himself not to care.

Because of her.

And he could learn a lot about business from Elliott. Things he’d probably never learn from his sister. Things that would give Owen the same kind of reward as the bees gave her.

The kind of reward he’d been forgoing all this time so that she could enjoy her life.

Tears stung dangerously at the back of her useless eyes.

‘It’s okay, Laney—’ Owen started, genuinely aggrieved at her distress.

She shot a hand up to stop him. Because, no... It very definitely
wasn’t
okay. Being blind was no excuse for what she’d failed to recognise. And she wasn’t about to allow him to put himself second for her again.

A couple of months...

About the same time she’d known Elliott, and she’d managed to fall half in love with him in that time. Would a few months without him be enough to fall safely
out
of love again? At least she wouldn’t have to deal with him every weekend.

She turned back towards her brother without consulting her parents. She knew them well enough to know what their silence meant.

She sighed.

‘You’re going to need a suit.’

* * *

‘Are you okay?’

Elliott followed her outside when she took her leave from the awful family meeting. Awful, but probably necessary.

‘I’m a horrible person.’ She shuddered. No wonder Elliott didn’t want her. Why would he?

His voice softened. ‘No, you’re not. Families are...complicated. Sometimes you have to step out of it to see it clearly.’

‘I’ve hurt them all.’

‘They’ll live. Maybe today was just a day for saying overdue things.’

Mostly by her.

‘I’m sorry if I set you up for that with my comments,’ he murmured.

‘It was the truth. And he wouldn’t have his chance without your intervention.’ Because she and her parents would still be dismissing Owen.

‘What will you do while he’s gone?’ he asked.

‘Hire someone in to help, maybe. Something we should have done years ago.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

Yeah...excellent question.

Her throat tightened. ‘As long as Owen was a bit of a flunkie and helping me kept him positively occupied I got to hide behind the happy image of brother and sister working together. Contributing to the family together. And I got to overlook the hard truth.’

‘Which was...?’

‘That as long as it was my brother helping then I didn’t have to feel disabled.’

‘That’s not the truth, Laney.’

‘It’s absolutely true. I let Owen believe that the only value he added to Morgan’s was the one he brought to me.
I
did that, Elliott.’ No wonder he was so desperate to stretch his wings. He was probably desperate for a bit of self-worth. ‘I hadn’t realised how self-absorbed I am.’

‘You’re not.’

‘You said it yourself. I’m the Queen of my family.’

She heard the sag of his body in his voice. ‘Laney...’

But, no... Being blind was no excuse for some of the things she’d been overlooking.

‘It’s a good proposal,’ she admitted, desperate for a new subject. ‘Congratulations.’

‘This was never a contest.’

Wasn’t it? From day one it had been a challenge to see who would outplay the other.

‘You can still be involved,’ he went on. ‘As much as you want. Or as little.’

The latter was added with such reluctance. And shades of disdain. She lifted her head. ‘Why are you pushing me so hard, Elliott?’

‘Because you have so much more in you.’

More. Always
more
.

‘What if I don’t want to be more?’

What if she just wanted to be
her
.

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘You mean you don’t want to believe it.’ She sighed. ‘What happened to you to make you so intolerant of the choices of others?’

‘Nothing happened. That’s the point. Not one thing happened in my life unless I made it happen. Unless I went out and chased it down. Like you should.’

‘I don’t want to. I don’t need to. I’m happy with my life exactly like it is.’

Well, mostly anyway. She wouldn’t mind having a do-over with Owen. And a bit of love for a good man in the mix.

‘I don’t
need
to either, Laney.’

‘Are you sure? Because it seems to me that someone who spends so much time sucking the guts out of life must have an awfully big space to fill inside. And all the cars and speedboats and penthouses and promotions and busyness will pad all that nothing out, but never really fill it.’

‘You think I’m missing something?’ he said, after the longest silence they’d ever shared.

Echoed in his voice it sounded more terrible than she’d meant it to. But why stop now with the revelations.

‘Can I be honest?’

‘Are you ever anything but?’ he snorted.

‘I think you have your priorities all messed up. I think you walked away from your only family because it was easier than addressing whatever it was going on inside you.’

‘Based on the twenty seconds I’ve spent talking about my mother?’

‘She made some hard choices, Elliott. She gave up her career to keep you and raise you.’

‘She taught me to be afraid, Laney.’

‘How?’

‘Through example. She never encouraged me. She never believed in me. Just like you and your brother.’

The accusation stung. Because she could now see what her family’s under-estimation had done to Owen’s self-confidence. But the guilt only fired her up more.

‘You beat your head against a brick wall trying to change her, and now you want to change me, too.’

‘I don’t want to change you.’

‘You may not
want
to, Elliott, but I think you
have
to. Because me being happy and fulfilled exactly the way I am only highlights how empty you are.’

‘Really? That’s what you think?’ His voice had chilled several degrees.

‘I’m starting to.’

‘And why exactly should it matter to me what you do? We’re not a couple. We’re barely even friends.’

A dull ache spread through her thorax. ‘That’s what I’d like to know. What is it to you?’

‘I guess nothing,’ he said, after an eternity, his voice rich with sorrow. ‘I just wanted to help you.’

Poor little blind girl.

‘I’m not your project, Elliott. I’m just asking you to respect my choices. To respect me.’

When he spoke again, his voice was hard. ‘I don’t think I can, Laney.’

Her gasp cracked the still air. She stared at him through her unseeing eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to
respect
her?

‘You’re hiding out here in this paradise, Laney. A place and existence that’s customised for you, that’s as streamlined and predictable as the lives of your bees. And you’ve convinced yourself that you’re happy that way because you don’t know any different.’

‘Any
better
, you mean?’

Could he be any more patronising?

A cold certainty washed over her. ‘Is that why you stopped things between us last night? Because you can’t be with someone you don’t respect?’

His voice dropped. ‘It’s a pretty fundamental thing.’

Hurt clenched in her stomach. Yeah, it was. And pretty immutable, too.

She sagged back against the side of the house, struggling to breathe normally. All this time she’d just wanted to be accepted for who she was, but Elliott found it impossible to like that Laney.

Not much she could do about that.

‘Well...’ What the hell did you say in this situation? ‘Good call, then. That would have been much more painful to discover if we’d got any more involved.’

You know—if I’d fallen in love with you or something...

She dropped her eyes in case he read the silent irony in them, unguarded. A silent minute ticked by.

‘So, I guess I won’t see you until I get back from the trip,’ he finally ventured, thick and low. ‘I’ll keep you informed—’

‘No need. I’m sure Owen will be in touch regularly.’

Don’t call me.

Despite his itchy feet, she felt sure that Owen would start missing his family about two minutes after leaving them. And, really, she’d get over Elliott much more quickly if he wasn’t at the front of her consciousness, all glowing and present.

‘Laney—’

She straightened and thrust out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Elliott. I hope the trip is everything you want it to be.’

She stood there like that—hand outstretched, back straight, chin up—until his warm glove of a hand closed around hers. Firm. Tight.

A true goodbye shake.

And when he spoke his voice was no steadier than his hands.

‘Bye, Laney. Take care.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

C
RAWLING
.

Just like the bees on the frames of the hives she checked multiple times each day, the weeks crawled by until they formed reluctant months.

Doing the hive runs wasn’t as much fun with Rick as it was with her brother, but productivity sure was higher when Owen’s replacement didn’t pepper their every journey with side-trips and errands.

Maybe that had been Owen’s way of making a dull job more interesting.

‘Is this boring to you, Rick?’ she asked between frames. About the job she adored.

‘Nope. It’s awesome.’

Thank you!
‘Awesome because you’ve only been doing it a few weeks and the novelty hasn’t yet worn off?’

‘Awesome because it’s outside.’

See? Rick got it. He’d scored a great job in a surf shop but then discovered he was basically a till jockey, trapped indoors all day, surrounded by boards and wetsuits and diving gear he could only use on the weekend. So he’d jumped at Owen’s offer of filling in for him through autumn.

‘And because I get to work with you,’ he went on.

Laney fumbled the frame as she slid it back down and a heap of bees launched off with a slight angry-bee tone in their buzz.

Was that an overly appreciative ‘
work with you’
?

She’d always liked Rick, and considered him the better of her brother’s friends, and they did have a lot in common, but there was no...
whatever
...with Rick. No spark. No intellectual attraction.

And definitely no glow.

The vacant place behind her eyes was still and dark when Rick was around. The light had been extinguished pretty much the day Elliott drove away from the farm for the last time.

‘I’m sure I’m not that interesting.’ She laughed carefully.

‘Yeah, you are. I love watching you work with the bees. How they respond to you.’ He closed one hive and moved to the next. ‘But mostly I can just be myself around you, without worrying that you’re working up to hitting on me.’

The hitch of anxiety in her chest that Rick was suggesting
more
fizzled into flat understanding. How like one of her brother’s mates to be so utterly self-absorbed. And how contrary, on her part, that she should feel the stab of his rejection even when she didn’t even want his interest. It really didn’t help her to be reminded that the only man she’d welcome interest from was on the other side of the planet.

And found her philosophically repugnant.

As always, a deep ache took root low in her belly when she thought about Elliott and the way he’d judged her and found her wanting, and, as always, she forced it deeper, where she didn’t have to think about it. Logically, she knew that she’d done her share of judging, too—echoes of the word
empty
came back to her at the most inconvenient moments—but as far as her heart was concerned the damage was all his.

‘You should be so lucky,’ she joked aloud.

They worked like that—casually chatting, but mostly getting on with the business of managing the hives—until their growling stomachs forced Rick back to the staff rest area for lunch and her back to the house to make a sandwich before her parents got back from the city with Owen in tow.

They’d cut their trip short because they’d had more business than any of them could have imagined fulfilling in their first year of exporting, leaving them all feeling very positive about the potential. But did her brother’s enthusiastic reports really need to come so liberally sprinkled with anecdotes about Elliott?

Her brother’s voice, but she
heard
Elliott.

Maybe it was just because he was the first person to take Owen seriously. Or because he was so good at what he did. So lateral and so driven. Maybe he was just the first person to give Owen the right mix of support, belief and education. To appreciate his potential.

Now that Elliott had turned his full attention to the
other
Morgan twin, ten weeks’ intensive travel had clearly birthed a serious bromance between the two men.

And she could hardly blame Owen. She’d had one herself for a while there.

Fortunately she’d had nearly three months of absolute nothingness to wean herself off Elliott. Not a word directly—only updates channelled through her brother. That kind of total shut-down was as good as a saturated blanket tossed on a grass fire. Total spark-killer. Even the glow had retreated to something that only emerged when she let herself think about him in any way outside of the strictly professional.

Which was never.

So everything she knew about what he’d been up to she heard from her brother or her parents. And once from when she web-searched Elliott in a moment of lapsed self-discipline.

She settled in at her desk with her sandwich—at the computer that had freaked Elliott out so much because it didn’t have a monitor—and checked her email for something from Owen. Although of course there’d be nothing from Owen, because he would have been in the air for the past twenty-four hours.

So really this was about Elliott.

Of course it was. It was his name she was secretly hoping to hear her text-reader announce. But, no. Nothing.

She keyed the software to instant sleep and reached for the phone instead.

Time for this to end.

‘Welcome to Ashmore Coolidge,’ an
über
-professional voice answered.

‘Helena Morgan for Elliott Garvey, please.’

The faultless voice stumbled. ‘Uh...one moment please.’

It hit her then, blazing and obvious—maybe he’d taken the day off since his international flight had only landed this morning. Assuming he’d flown back with Owen at all. And right after that she realised that she didn’t know his home number. Or his address. Ashmore Coolidge was her one and only channel to Elliott.

‘This is Roger Coolidge, Ms Morgan.’

Senior partner
Roger Coolidge? Surely Elliott didn’t get to bump his work
up
the food chain while he was away on business?

She stiffened. ‘Mr Coolidge, I’m so sorry to have troubled you—’

‘How can I help you, Ms Morgan?’

Time is money
.
Right.
‘I was calling for Elliott. I’ve just realised he’s probably not back in the office until tomorrow.’

‘Elliott?’ he repeated, as though her use of his Christian name was somehow inappropriate. ‘Garvey?’

‘I have...um...some questions about the Morgan’s proposal.’ Total rubbish, but somehow she couldn’t imagine Roger Coolidge responding positively to
I just want to hear his voice
.

‘The export proposal?’

How many proposals were there? ‘I just wanted to see how it was tracking.’

Ugh
, such a bad liar.

Office sounds clanked away in the background of Roger Coolidge’s silence. ‘Ms Morgan, Elliott Garvey is no longer employed at Ashmore Coolidge. I assumed you’d been informed.’

Her stomach dropped away, along with her only lifeline to Elliott. ‘What? No...’

‘As of several months ago.’

But their proposal... ‘Why?’

His voice grew softer. Kinder. ‘I’m not really at liberty to say—’

‘Elliott Garvey is in possession of a lot of our financial data,’ she improvised—badly. ‘I would have thought as our financial advisors you would recognise the necessity of my question.’

The kindness evaporated. Utterly. She should have known better than to try and play someone as experienced as Roger Coolidge.

‘Ms Morgan... He left of his own accord after we rejected his proposal for Morgan’s.’

Rejected?

‘He left?’ The job and the company he loved? His promotion fast-track? ‘Why?’

‘We disagreed on some of the...conditions of approval. He was inflexible and opted to leave when we denied the proposal.’

‘What conditions?’

‘Again, I’m not at liberty to say. You’ll need to ask him.’

‘How, if he’s not our rep any more?’

‘My understanding is that he’s with one of your personnel in the United States right now, pursuing the proposal privately.’

Those last words were strained.

‘Well, I—’

‘If you have any questions relating to Ashmore Coolidge’s services, or its current work with Morgan’s, I’d be happy to have Garvey’s replacement contact you personally...’

The rest was a blur of impatient political correctness until Roger Coolidge disentangled them both from the awkwardness of the conversation and hung up.

Laney squeezed the phone hard in her hand.

Gone.

Proposal rejected. Promotion jettisoned.

Yet Elliott hadn’t told them before whisking Owen off overseas. What had he done after his proposal was rejected? Taken his bat and ball and decided to play on by himself? To go for the money if he couldn’t have the promotion? Show them what a mistake they’d made?

Was he that desperate to succeed? Or was it just ego, frustration and maybe even anger at the lack of vision shown by his superiors—men he was supposed to respect?

Though she knew what a big deal respect was to him.

Unfortunately.

But more pressing... Ashmore Coolidge was the only way she knew of getting in touch with Elliott now that he was back from his travels. And there was something terrifyingly final about not having one single communication channel to someone you loved...

‘Knock-knock.’

Rick’s deep voice sounded just inside the front door and sent her leaping out of her chair and Wilbur scrabbling to his feet, both of them as guiltily as if he’d caught them up to no good.

‘There’s a dust plume coming in from the highway,’ he announced.

Owen.

It occurred to her suddenly to wonder if he’d have Elliott with him and her heart began thumping in earnest.

‘One plume or two?’

And she held her breath.

‘Just the one.’ He kept on talking over her plunging hopes until he finished up with, ‘Is that okay with you?’

‘Um...sure.’ Whatever she’d just agreed to. If her vacant expression didn’t give her away.

‘Great. I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Say hi to Owen for me.’

And then he was gone, leaving her with just enough time to finish her sandwich and brush the pollen out of her hair, thoroughly distracted, before the return of the prodigal son.

* * *

‘Lake Erie.’

Her mother had given up describing what was in the photos at image number eighty-seven. Now Laney was lucky if each picture in Owen’s excited slideshow even got a descriptor name.

Part of her would have liked to ‘
see
’ Lake Erie. But another part of her—the part that really would have preferred to be doing something more productive with these hours—figured she could pull up a few pictures on the internet and have her mother describe those instead. At a more mutually enjoyable time.

A time when her thoughts weren’t so completely filled with thoughts of a different man.

She’d made a total fool of herself, nervously holding her breath as first Owen, then her mother and finally her father had alighted from her dad’s wagon. A pathetic part of her had desperately wanted to hear a fourth door-slam.

But there had been no fourth slam.

Owen in full so-tired-he-was-wired mode after his epic flight from the US was just a babbling sequence of stories with barely a breath drawn between them. And every story featured Elliott one way or another.

Elliott did this... Elliott said that... Here’s Elliott at the biggest apiary in the States...

Ugh.

‘I need to go for a walk.’ She cut across her brother’s slideshow narration, surprising herself with the intention and pushing to her feet.

‘Right now?’ her father asked. ‘But your brother’s only just back.’

She pushed to her feet and felt for her coat before there could be any dissent. Apparently, yes, right now. ‘I need some air.’

And she needed—very badly—to extract herself from the Elliott Garvey show.

She felt her way to where Owen sat and kissed the top of his head. His gorgeous surf locks were gone in favour of a much more business-like short haircut. Somehow that made him even more a whole new Owen.

‘Good to have you back, O.’

‘We need to talk later,’ he threatened—and that was really the only word for the sudden seriousness in his voice. Owen—the man who was never serious about anything.

Wilbur groaned as he heaved himself to his feet, and she surprised herself again by signalling him to stay. He sank his old bones back down gratefully. ‘I won’t go far,’ she assured him.

But she was lying, and his slight doggie whine told her he knew it.

Staying close was safe, and safe wasn’t what she burned for just now.
Safe
was what Elliott had accused her of being all those weeks ago. Something deep inside her wanted to prove him wrong. Wanted to show him—or maybe just herself—that she could take as many risks as the next person.

As
him
.

She grabbed up her stick as she left the house and all Owen’s exciting stories behind and turned left towards the coast track.

* * *

What she wouldn’t have given for a bigger butt right now.

Laney shifted from one cheek to the other on the rocky track and flexed tired, sore muscles, then tipped her face up to the sun to give her flagging spirits a boost.

Stupid.

She had her phone, but she wasn’t about to use it to call for help. In fact she’d turned it off so that no one could ring her, either, and offer to help. That would defeat the entire purpose of her ridiculous trek up to the lookout without Wilbur. The furthest point she could imagine going on foot. Somewhere she’d never been alone before.

Somewhere not entirely safe.

The lookout was a statement, and that statement was not going to be strengthened by a call for the cavalry to rescue her from the stupid stone she’d twisted her ankle on.

But two hours on her butt in the dust and her throbbing joint wasn’t easing off any. She’d enjoyed the first hour—had used it to think and to gently test her abused ankle, to stretch out the yank on her tendons, waiting for the
ouch
to ease. But two hours without any improvement and she was starting to question the wisdom of this whole impetuous statement.