Unconditional (34 page)

They stayed with me until I went through the exit gates. They waved at me as I passed through the metal detectors without incident. It was surreal and stupidly touching and it filled my eyes with prickly tears that I blinked away with rapid determination.

I waved at them all, my throat thick. “Thank you,” I called back at them.

“You’re welcome,” East called back with a grin. “Take care, Miss Rowling. Tell Raphael Jones I think he’s cute in his tux.”

And with that—and a wink—East and her smiling companions turned and left.

I stood motionless, heart thumping in my tight, thick throat. She knew?

“Miss Rowling?”

The deep male voice on my right made me squeal. I spun around, staring up at another security guard. “Errr…”

He laughed. “I’m North. East suggested you might need…company.”

If I wasn’t in such an emotionally whacked-out state, I can honestly say I would have reveled in the celebrity treatment. Instead, I stared at my savior. “Are your names really North, South, East and West?”

He grinned. “Nah, we just call ourselves that after the areas we patrol. Be pretty awesome if they were our names though, eh? Would you like me to take your backpack?”

Wanting to laugh
and
cry, I nodded like a silent fool and let him take my backpack from my shoulder.

Suffice to say, I would never forget my departure from the country.

Nor would I forget my arrival in Plenty twenty-three hours later.

I climbed out of the taxi in front of Mom’s house. She had no clue I was coming. The afternoon winter sun bathed me in a weak heat, nothing like the blazing Australian summer sun I’d spent almost nine weeks baking under, if you don’t count the three days of biblical rainfall in Gunnedah. I tugged my jacket closer to my neck, the shock of the severe change in temperature taking me by surprise. Man, I hadn’t realized how much I’d acclimatized to the weather in Australia until now.

Paying the cab driver—Jeremy Missen, who I’d gone to school with since elementary until he’d been expelled for trying to grope our math teacher, Mr. Woodson. Ah, Plenty, you small town, you, I cast a gaze over my childhood home. Inside those walls, beyond that familiar front door with its cheery blue paint, was the rest of my life.

I’d spent the flight home planning out my future. I would move back home—did I really need to be at college anyway? I would look after Mom and study online. I could continue my global-warming research via the internet. Perhaps, as a way of staying connected to Raph—even if he didn’t know it—I’d look into finishing my degree through Sydney University’s online courses. I’d cancel Mom’s daily home-visit nurse, take care of her myself and maybe, just maybe, fool around with the notion of writing about my life with Parkinson’s disease.

Mom and I would become a part of Plenty’s folk history. The two Rowling women who trembled their way through life. We’d spend our nights watching that new Michael J. Fox sitcom, we’d bake, we’d laugh at the amount of flour we spilled while baking, we’d make sure we took our meds and we’d never be a burden to anyone but each other.

I could live with that. Mom might get angry at me…okay, she
would
get angry at me for giving up on my future, but at least I wouldn’t be hurting anyone else. Right?

And when the time came, when it was just me, alone…

An icy wind blasted against me, whipping my jacket around my knees, making me stumble a little to the right.

Letting out a wry chuckle, I regained my balance, picked up my luggage and began walking to my childhood home.

As a timely metaphor for what my life would be like when it was
just me
, that icy wind was quite apt. Cold and stumbly.

I knocked on the door, the contact of wood on my knuckles both sharp and a little painful.

Mom answered a few heartbeats later.

“G’day, Mom,” I said with my best Australian accent. Wow, I sounded like Dad.

She gaped at me. “Maci?”

I nodded, smiled and then stepped across the threshold and hugged her.

And then, before she could hug me back, I burst into tears.

They had to come eventually, right?

We talked for an hour. I refused to tell her why I was home early, assuring her I was fine, I was safe and not hurt in any way.

The look she gave me when I said that told me she didn’t believe me. “Does this have to do with Raphael Jones?” She narrowed her eyes. “Your cousin Nathan keeps sending me links to stories on the web about you. In fact, he sent me one only this morning. Said Jones had dumped you for a princess and you were heartbroken. There was even a photo of you at the Sydney airport, but I didn’t believe it. I told him you would have let me know if you were coming home.”

Miffed disappointment twisted her normally blank face. Remember, Parkinson’s does that to you eventually, robs your face of emotions. To see
any
kind of expression on Mom’s face was wonderful, even if it was one directed at my dickhead of a cousin. “Guess I owe the douche an apology.”

I laughed, my cheeks still warm from my tears—thank God, they’d finally stopped flowing. “Never apologize to Nathan, Mom. He follows you around at Christmas shaking his hands and head.”

Mom arched her brow—see where I got that skill from? “Does he now? Hmm, I think I might have a word with Cousin Nathan sometime soon.” She leaned forward in her seat and placed her shaking hand against my cheek. “But not now. Now, I just want to enjoy my beautiful, stubborn, secretive daughter being home with me.”

I closed my eyes and turned my face to her palm.

Her familiar smells, her touch…it was all so wonderful. Comforting. So why did I feel so empty? So lost?

“How long are you home for?” she asked when I opened my eyes and smiled at her.

“Think I might stay for good.”

She studied me. “Is that so?”

I nodded.

With a low
hmmm
, she pushed herself oh so slowly from her chair and shuffled toward the kitchen. “How about you go have a shower while I make us some afternoon tea? Isn’t that what they call it over there?”

Rising to my own feet, I let out a wobbly laugh. “It is. And I will.”

I showered. It felt wrong to make it a long one. I’d spent so many weeks washing myself in under five minutes that it felt indulgent to linger any longer. Shutting off the water, I stepped from the shower and then dragged my feet to my old room, drying myself as I went. Oh man, I was tired.

Jet-lagged and exhausted.

I entered my old bedroom, swept a look over the familiar furniture, posters, books and, unable to stand on my feet any longer, flopped face first onto my bed.

I’d just close my eyes for a second. Just a second. While Mom served up what would no doubt be a batch of her famous cookies and a glass of milk. She was a traditionalist, my mom. Milk and cookies was a staple not to be cast aside.

I lay on my bed, sinking into the soft mattress, growing heavier.

Eyes closed, I let myself wonder what Raph was doing. For a tormenting moment, I wondered if he was missing me, thinking about me. Angry at me.

And then I was asleep.

A pale light washing against my eyelids woke me sometime later. I squinted at the sun streaming through a curtained window, utterly disorientated. Where was I? Where was Raph? Why was it so cold?

My brain was fuzzy. Connections weren’t being made. I gazed around the room, my vision blurred with groggy sleep.

It wasn’t until I saw the
Thor
movie poster with its intimidating image of Chris Hemsworth in menacing Asgardian-God pose pinned to the wall above a book-cluttered desk that my brain finally told me where I was.

A cold fist slammed into my belly, an emotional blow so powerful it felt like a physical strike.

I was home. In Plenty. On the other side of the world from Raph. I’d come home yesterday, sobbed in my mom’s arms, showered and then collapsed on my old bed.

After that…

Pushing myself up into a sitting position, I let my gaze slide around my room, reacquainting myself with its contents as the tight chill in my soul seeped into my heart. I should be happy. I’d made the choice to return, after all. This was my home. A lifetime of happy laughter and love were in these walls.

Something soft at my elbow caught my attention and I looked down.

At some stage during my catatonic slumber, Mom had tucked me into bed and, like she used to when I was a little girl, placed Mr. Sprinkles in my arms.

With a wry sigh, I picked up the purple and green stuffed hippopotamus I’d cuddled in bed since I was four and pressed my face to its soft side. “Looks like it’s just you and me again, Mr. Sprinkles,” I murmured against the silken fabric.

I breathed in Mr. Sprinkles’s familiar, comforting smell, squeezed my eyes shut and then climbed from the bed.

I was reminded very quickly just how cold Plenty, Ohio, mornings were in mid-April, especially when you were buck naked and still acclimatized to Australian weather.

Skin breaking out in gooseflesh, I scanned my room for something to wear. A warm beat of love throbbed in my heart when I discovered Mom had not only unpacked my suitcase while I slept, but laid out fresh clothes for me, Plenty-appropriate clothes, no less, and plugged my iPhone into its charging dock on my desk.

I snatched up my old cheerleading squad sweats waiting for me on the back of my chair—Go Plenty Woodchucks—dressed and then hovered my hand over my cell.

It was still turned off.

If I turned it on, how many calls from Raph would I find? How many text messages?

What if I found none?

My fingers trembled, telling me loud and clear I was long overdue on taking my meds. Scrunching my hand into a fist above my cell, I stared at the black screen for a moment and then turned away.

I wasn’t ready for what awaited me on it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Perhaps the first thing I needed to do tomorrow was buy a new one?

Shaking my head at how pathetic I was, I dragged my fingers through my hair, scrubbed at my face with my hands a few times and walked out of my room.

Low murmurings from the living room told me Mom was either talking to someone or watching something on the television. Maybe the
Today
show.

I shuffled down the hallway and into the living room, all too aware I was still exhausted and quite trembly. I needed coffee. Coffee, meds, bacon, maple syrup, some hash browns and more coff—

I froze.

Raphael Jones gazed at me from the sofa.

“What?” I whispered.

“This lovely young man—” Mom beamed at me from Raph’s side, a steaming coffee mug in her hand, “—seems to have come a long way to discuss something with you, Bear.”

I stared at him. “W-what?” I whispered again. I’d like to blame sleep-deprivation and jet lag for my sudden inability to say anything but that one word, but as I’d just woken from over twelve hours of sleep, that excuse wasn’t going to cut it.

Raph regarded me, his expression unreadable. “Hello, American girl.”

At the sound of his voice, at the sound of his accent, every fiber in my body went into meltdown. I hitched in a sharp breath, my heart wild. My pulse pounded in my throat. My head swam. “Raph?”

“He tells me, Bear,” my mom went on, the smile in her voice evident, “that he’s deeply in love with you.”

I blinked. Gaped at Raph. How did he get here? God, did his mom call him the
second
I left Kangaroo Creek?

He studied me, not moving, not speaking. Just watching me.

“He also says,” Mom continued, “you’re incredibly stubborn, obstinate and a…what did you call her, Raphael?”

Raph’s eyes held mine. The corners of his mouth twitched. A little. “A pain in my arse, Mrs. Rowling.”

“A pain in his ass,” Mom repeated. “Although he says
ass
much sexier than me. In fact, he says it the same way your dad did. Arse.”

I gaped some more. At her. At Raph.

“Is that right, Maci?” Mom continued. “
Are
you a stubborn, obstinate pain in his arse?”

The thick lump in my throat didn’t dislodge when I swallowed. Nor did my heart stop trying to hammer its way out of my body.

I couldn’t stop staring at him.

His hair was a mess, his eyes were bloodshot, his jeans were crumpled, his shirt creased. He looked terrible. As if he hadn’t slept for days, nor had a shower or changed his clothes. In fact, he looked wretched. Distressed.

Determined. Dogged.

And here. So here. Like he always said he would be—here with me.

God, he’d followed me to the other side of the world. When I was trying to let him be free of me, he’d left Australia and followed me to the other side of the world.

“Raph?” I rasped, the sound of his name on my lips wonderful. “What are you—”

“Doing here?” he finished for me. “Had no other choice, did I? The woman I love buggered off on me without a word.”

He moved then. Without warning, he rose to his feet and was standing in front of me, right there in front of me. So close I could feel his heat seeping into my body. So close I could smell his distinct scent in each shallow breath I pulled. So close our knees brushed.

Dark eyes held me prisoner. Actually, that’s not right. Raph was standing right there in front of me. There wasn’t a hope in hell I was going
anywhere
. “Care to explain, Maci?” His deep voice with its sexy accent caressed my senses. Drove me crazy. “Care to give me a reason for leaving Australia like you did?”

I swallowed. “The Crown Princess of Delvania.”

Raph’s eyebrows shot up. “The who?”

“The Crown Princess of Delvania.” I caught my bottom lip with my teeth. The thought of all those images she’d shown me twisted my chest. “I saw… The princess came to see me at Kangaroo Creek and showed me… And I know you don’t love her. I’m not jealous,” I hastened to clarify. I didn’t want him to think I didn’t trust him. “Honest. But she’s a
princess
. And she doesn’t…”

I stopped. Turned my head aside. The rest of the sentence didn’t want to come. Wouldn’t come.

Raph placed a finger under my chin and, with that same soft pressure, made me look up at him again. “Have Parkinson’s?”