The Rebel Surgeon's Proposal (8 page)

‘How did you manage to break away from your mother’s hold in the end?’

Luke’s question sucked her back into the past. ‘She became ever more zealous as time went by, as did my resentment.’

What she didn’t voice was how protected she had felt with Luke around, how he had sheltered her from the worst of the bullying and name-calling. Until he had left. Then things had worsened for a while. But she couldn’t tell him how miserable she had been for the two years after he had gone, her dislike and fear of her coach, her life governed by her mother’s tight control and ever more unreasonable rules.

‘Once I turned eighteen, Mother no longer had any legal control over me,’ she continued. ‘Things came to a head, we rowed horribly, and I found the nerve to pack up and leave it all behind, calling her bluff.’

‘I’ve been there, I know how hard it is to make the break. You were brave to take the chance, Chessie,’ Luke praised her, admiration evident in his voice. He raised their joined hands and pressed a kiss to the inside of her wrist, stealing her breath.

‘I hitched to Edinburgh,’ she told him when she could speak again. ‘I made ends meet by working two part-time jobs, one in a bookshop and one in a supermarket, while I waited for my exam results and to begin my training as a radiographer.’

She thought back to those difficult days, the awful shared flats she had endured, doubly hard because she had found it so scary to be in close proximity to strangers. Having succeeded professionally, she was slowly building a nest egg. She carefully managed her budget, renting her small but adequate flat when she returned to Strathlochan, riding a bike rather than running a car, searching charity shops for clothing bar
gains. Anything to help her one day achieve the dream of security and buying her own home, preferably in a quiet rural spot outside town. She had the image of a house in mind, one she had coveted when she had been young. Although she knew she would never own it, it gave her a goal to strive for.

‘And the running?’

‘I put on a lot of weight when I first left home—an act of rebellion after my mother’s control of my diet, weighing me every day, supervising everything I ate. So I indulged in all the foods I’d never been allowed, like chocolate and pizza,’ she confessed, catching Luke’s smile.

‘You look wonderful.’ His appreciative, leisurely appraisal from her head to her toes and back again made her flustered and brought a blush to her cheeks.

‘I learned to find a balance, to enjoy eating what I wanted to combined with exercise. I started jogging…running on my own terms. But I knew deep inside that I would never let anyone else have control over me again.’

The import of Francesca’s final words was not lost on Luke. After her years with her mother, it would always be important to her to make her own decisions and not feel closed in or trapped. It made his task even harder. As for her worries about her body, he could reassure her she was perfect. True, she had more flesh on her bones now than when she had been a young teenager, super-fit but bordering on too skinny. The new look was much more healthy…and sexier. All those lush and natural feminine curves fired his blood with desire.

‘Where’s your mother now?’ he asked, trying to take his mind off his physical reaction to her.

‘After the row she threw me out, realising I was no longer going to be her meal ticket. She sold the house and took off to Spain with her latest toy boy—he’s something in comput
ers and filthy rich. I’ve no idea if she’s still there. I never see or hear from her.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

But he knew it did, knew how the pain and resentment never really went away. ‘Why Edinburgh?’ he asked, hoping to steer them onto safer ground.

‘For years my mother told me that my father had left when I was born because he hadn’t wanted me. I felt rejected, unloved, to blame.’

‘Chessie—’

‘It’s true and she fostered those feelings, making me feel guilty and as if I owed her something,’ she insisted, cutting off his attempt to refute her statement and tell her she had not been at fault. ‘It was only when I turned eighteen and was searching for something in the loft that I found the letters that proved all my mother had told me was a pack of lies.’

Her words brought a sense of foreboding. ‘What letters?’

‘From my birth father, begging to see me. There were birthday and Christmas cards, presents, notes to me—all things I had known nothing about.’

‘Why did she keep them?’

Francesca shook her head. ‘I have no idea. The sense of power, maybe? That was what the final row was about. And why I went to Edinburgh eight years ago—to find him. But by then it was too late. The father who
had
loved me and who had been denied access to me had died several years previously. Likewise, I discovered too late the paternal grandparents I had never known existed. They were also gone. There was no one.’

Luke drew her closer, wanting nothing more than to hold her and take away her pain, his heart aching for her. In his mind they were two damaged people who needed each other.
It was why he had come home to Strathlochan. Home to take care of his mother. But most of all home to Francesca—to claim her and to make sure she was never hurt or alone again. He had not counted on her mental and emotional toughness and her inner scars. Just how deeply and irrevocably her bitch of a mother had affected her was only now hitting home in its shattering entirety.

‘What about your coach? What was his name?’

Instantly Francesca tensed beside him and he felt a tremor run through her. ‘Alan,’ she murmured, shivering as she spoke.

Luke halted their progress along the path, turning to face her, his eyes narrowing as he noted the pallor of her skin. Refusing to meet his gaze, she withdrew her hand from his, her fingers plucking nervously at the hem of her top. Dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, he reached out and cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him, suspicion darkening his mood and firing his temper.

‘Did he touch you?’

‘Luke…’

‘Answer me, Francesca.’ But he could see the truth in her eyes and it ate him up inside.

‘My mother wanted to get into Alan’s pants, he wanted to get into mine. She got hers, he didn’t…not entirely’

‘And your mother did nothing to protect you?’ he demanded.

‘She told me to make nice to him because of what he could do for my career as a middle-and long-distance runner.’ She sucked in a steadying breath, closing her eyes, and he waited for the rest of it, trying to tame his anger, not wanting to alarm her. ‘Alan used to make me change in front of him. He watched me, touched me a time or two, but no more.’

Fury raged through Luke’s gut. He wanted to track the bastard down and show him what he thought of him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I would have dealt with him.’

Grey eyes, bruised with confusion and hurt, looked up at him. ‘It was after you had gone,’ she finally whispered, and he swore viciously under his breath.

‘God, Chessie, I’m sorry,’ he rasped, drawing her into his arms, closing his eyes as he felt her body shaking.

‘It wasn’t your fault.’

Even as she sought to absolve him, he detected the lingering betrayal and pain his sudden disappearance had so clearly caused her. Yes, he had worried about her, but predominant at the time had been escaping his own hell. He’d not fully considered what his leaving might mean to Francesca, who’d had no one else around to watch over her. Little wonder she distrusted people, men especially, when so few of them had ever done anything right by her. No way would he ever let her down again.

He drew back, cupping her face in his hands, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I remember the first time I saw you, coltish and pretty and with this amazing hair,’ he told her with a smile, the fingers of one hand stroking the fiery mass of curls. ‘I was drawn to you because I recognised your sadness and aloneness—they mirrored my own. We didn’t speak much but I always felt close to you, understood you, wanted to protect you. I never forgot the day we kissed. Not only for the kiss itself, as unforgettable as that was, but because of the way you marched into the head’s office afterwards and spoke up for me. God, you had guts, Chessie. Despite your shyness, you did that. For
me.
No one but Ma had ever fought my corner with me before. You humbled me, amazed me, made me feel I was more than I was, more than everyone else thought a Devlin could be.’

He came from the wrong side of the tracks, was a loner, had struggled all his life to escape his family’s reputation. He had been labelled bad because of his father and his brothers.
He’d never done anything wrong, but he’d been picked on and taunted all his life because of his surname. Aside from his mother, Francesca had been the only one who had been kind to him, who had understood him, believed in him. She had never judged him, but had stood up for him no matter the cost to herself.

No, he had never forgotten her, or their first kiss. She’d been sweet and pure and unimaginably exciting. He hadn’t meant things to get so out of hand but he’d been mad at the way she was always picked on and, yes, damn it, he
had
longed to kiss her. He just hadn’t anticipated it would be quite so thorough and consuming and arousing. Until they’d been caught and he’d been cast as the evil wrong-doer.

The dogs bounded around them, snapping him from his thoughts and back to the present. It was time to head back but not before he had explained something to Francesca.

‘After the kiss, I was ordered to stay away from you at school. Outside it I could never get close to you because of your mother. The day I finished my final exam I got home to find my father starting on my mother. I hit back. It felt good to do it, to protect Ma, to not let him get away scot-free, but it meant I had to leave there and then or goodness knows what would have happened—to her or to me. I was hurt and bleeding. I grabbed my stuff, made my promise to Ma and headed south to London. I hated leaving her. And you. But I had no choice that day, Chessie. I feared what he would have done had I stayed.’

‘Luke…’

Overwhelmed by powerful emotions, Francesca didn’t know what to say, but she recognised the truth of his words. Inside she cried for what he had been through. The woman she was now was proud of him for all he had achieved. The girl she had been still felt hurt and confused and abandoned.

‘As soon as I had established myself in London, I sent for Ma,’ he told her, taking her hand again as they headed into the woods, taking the path that wound back down the hill towards the castle. ‘She lived with me until my father died. With the threat from him gone, and with Jon and Pete having left town to follow their own paths to self-destruction or redemption, Ma was determined to move back to Strathlochan. I helped her buy the town house, and I bought a place for myself in case circumstances changed and I ever came back. It was a good investment, and it was rented out until recently. Now I’ve moved in.’

Luke’s explanation surprised her—not that he had helped his mother but that he had owned a house here all that time. ‘I had no idea.’

‘I know.’ He halted at the gate, turning to face her. ‘Until two weeks ago I’d only come back to Strathlochan twice before in ten years. The first time I was twenty-one and I hadn’t been able to forget you or stop worrying about you. I needed to see you, Chessie, to know you were all right, but Ma and I discovered you had left the previous year and no one knew where you or your mother had gone. I couldn’t find you.’

He’d thought of her? Come back for her? Tried to find her? Francesca found it difficult to breathe as she considered the implications of Luke’s admission. Before she could form any thoughts, let alone words, Luke opened the gate and they walked back down through the castle grounds towards the main entrance. As they neared the road, Luke let go of her hand so that they could call the dogs to them and put them back on their leads. She was uncomfortable to realise just how much she missed his touch and the contact between them. Murphy and Harry bounded up to them and she watched Luke make a fuss of them, warmed by the way in which he had befriended both the dogs. It meant a lot to her. Quite why it should matter increased her unease and confusion.

They made their way back to the rescue centre on the outskirts of town in silence. Francesca found her thoughts centred on Luke, not only on the meaning of all he had admitted to her but on the undeniable bond between them. She was drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain. He had always been a loner, just like her. In his teens he’d had a touch-me-not shield in which he had seemed to cloak himself, letting few people in. Except his mother. And, Francesca now realised with a sense of awe and uncertainty, herself. The past, the effects his father had had on him, still remained, scarring him, shaping him, but he’d broken free, had made something of himself, as she had instinctively known he would.

Talking to Luke made her aware of how much the years of her mother’s control still affected her. True, she had made her own escape, but she had stepped out into the world alone…angry, scared, betrayed, and determined never to allow anyone else to gain control of her or her life again. Maybe that explained why she held something back from the friendships she had made since she had been back in Strathlochan. She was closest to Annie, but she had never told her anything about her past, her mother, her athletics, or allowed Annie to see the real person inside her. Only with Luke did she feel safe enough to be herself. That was both comforting and frightening.

Back at the rescue centre, she gave Murphy and Harry a hug, hating to see such social, people-loving dogs shut away in their run. She finished up her chores and then went to meet Luke, surprised to find him talking to the centre manager by the office. With a shock of white hair, Sally Hislop, now in her sixties, had devoted her life to animals. She had extraordinary energy and drive, and she was very much a maverick who didn’t suffer fools gladly. Luke, it seemed, had passed Sally’s test of acceptance.

‘He’s all right, this one,’ Sally remarked as Francesca joined them. ‘You can bring him back any time.’