The Devil Inside, page 8
‘I could grab them for you when I get home,’ Jerry said, ‘and put them in the lounge room if you like.’
Phil’s gaze locked with hers. ‘That’s up to Mel.’
She shook her head. She didn’t know if she had the strength to go through her parents’ things when the grief was so fresh. ‘I don’t want to. Not yet.’
Phil smiled. ‘That’s okay. Isn’t it, Prof?’
Alan tapped the pen against his cheek before nodding. ‘Perhaps later. For now, let’s see if you can bring out in painting what you can’t bring out in words. I think that will be a great way forward. Otherwise, I think you just need to get back to Storm Haven and see if anything there triggers your memories.’
She nodded slowly, sucking in a shuddering breath, trying to ignore the grip of panic that tightened in her chest. ‘Okay.’
She glanced up at Phil. He didn’t look frightened. He was smiling down at her, hope in his eyes. That look of hope made her shoulders tense, her heart pound a little faster. She tried to calm herself with the thought that a smile of hope was better than him looking so sad. Or worried. She much preferred his smile. Although, one that wasn’t touched by desperate hope would be better. Like his joyous smile, the one that followed the shout of his laughter. She loved that smile, that laugh. Just like she preferred the way he was always moving, drumming his fingers on something or tapping his feet. Although, he wasn’t doing that now. Hadn’t for days. It was so unlike him. She opened her mouth to ask him what was up and instead sucked in a breath, her gaze slamming into his as realisation hit.
‘Mel?’
She laughed. ‘I remembered something. About you. You fidget a lot. Your hands are always drumming. And you smiled. A lot. I can hear your laughter in my head.’ She could. A brief echo of sound, but it was there and she was certain it was him.
He took her hand in his, squeezed it as he jogged Arwen in his other arm—so competent and capable, like he’d been a dad all his life. ‘Do you remember anything else?’
She stared into his eyes, wanting so badly in that moment to remember something more about him, something that would overtake the images of the couple dancing, kissing, saying I love you, but her head began to ache and she touched her forehead. ‘I don’t. I can’t.’
‘I think that’s enough for now.’
‘She remembered, Prof Alan. She remembered.’
‘Yes, and that’s a good sign. But we can’t push things too fast. It can hurt more than help. We just need to let it come naturally, okay?’
Phil pulled away. ‘I don’t want to hurt her.’
The loss of his touch was an ache in her heart. She held that ache to her. It wasn’t her memories but it was something that was hers. Like the way he’d smiled at her earlier and they’d held each other’s gazes and leaned in to kiss. She’d wanted that. Not Mel. Melissa.
‘You’re not hurting her.’ Alan stood, clapped Phil on the shoulder. He turned his smile to her. ‘Retrieving memories can be a difficult process, but this is good progress and I feel certain you will get there. Okay?’
She nodded as Phil said, ‘Okay. So, what next?’
‘It’s time to take Melissa home.’
She breathed out a long breath, surprised at how relieved she felt at his words after all the ups and downs of her emotions over the last few hours. Remembering something about Phil … it made a difference.
She glanced at him and was almost overwhelmed by the happiness shining in his eyes.
‘I’ll just take your things out to the car,’ Jerry said, pushing the final few things into her suitcase and closing it up. ‘I’ll meet you there. I’ve already got the doc’s and Prof’s instructions for the next few days,’ he said, tapping his pocket. ‘See you back at Storm Haven.’ He kissed Arwen’s head, gave them a wave then left.
Alan stood. ‘Time for me to go too. I’ve got rounds to do.’ He looked down at her. ‘I want to see you at least twice a week to start off with. You can come here or I can meet you at Storm Haven.’
‘Storm Haven,’ she said quickly—she wanted to avoid coming back here.
‘So how do I get there?’
‘I’ll give you the instructions,’ Phil said.
‘Great. Thanks.’
As the two men talked, she couldn’t help but notice how different they were. Alan was big—not just tall, but broad shouldered, like a football player. The kind she used to date. Phil was tall too, but like a long drink of water with a wild kind of elegance she couldn’t pin down.
Alan was light to Phil’s dark. From his light green-grey eyes surrounded by those blonde lashes to the way his expression was always so open and honest; wholesome. Phil didn’t have wholesome written anywhere on him.
And yet, his looks appealed to her in a way that was surprising with his black, untidy hair—had he done more than run his hand through it after getting out of bed this morning?—black jeans and black t-shirt with faded The Rolling Stones lips on the front, the neck of it pulled down by the sunglasses he’d slung there. Tats peeked out from one sleeve and on the underside of one wrist as he rocked Arwen. His black high-tops were dusty, ruining the rocker-chic look, but somehow, worked even more to make him so unbelievably sexy-cool.
He reminded her too much of Legolas in The Lord of the Rings films. Except with dark hair. And she was going home with this man. This man who was her husband.
Why had she chosen him? If she was going to get married, she should have chosen someone like Alan, but she felt nothing but a general appreciation of his good looks, like she would a friend or family member.
Phil on the other hand. Holy hell. I mean, we almost kissed! And I don’t even know him!
But it was more than just sexual attraction, because if it wasn’t, then seeing him wouldn’t help fill the hole of emptiness and loss she’d felt inside ever since waking from her coma.
It was a mystery. Just one of the many in her life at the moment.
Chapter 8
Melissa stared out the window at the scenery flickering by. It was beautiful and vaguely familiar, but not familiar in that I’ve-been-here-before way, but more in a she’d-seen-pictures-of-it kind of way. Or maybe it was simply familiar because it reminded her a bit of home—the hills rising up from the pastureland all around, the cows dotting the green. The trees were different though, giving the mountains a blue cast.
Huh. She hadn’t thought of Gruene as home for a long time. New York was home. So why had that thought slipped in so easily now?
‘Anything coming back to you yet?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t worry. Prof Alan said it could be something small that sets off a memory. We’ve just got to give it time.’
She didn’t say anything to Phil’s positivity. She knew exactly what Alan had said. There were no guarantees.
A noise from the back seat had her glancing at the baby carrier nestled there. She tried to feel something for the little soul making tiny snoring noises. It sounded cute but didn’t make her heart flutter or squeeze with love and a need to see, to touch, to kiss that she’d heard mothers were supposed to feel for their babies.
Confusion and fear. That was what she felt. What if she couldn’t do it? What if she hurt the baby somehow? She had no idea how to be a mother; no idea how to hook into those mothering instincts she’d heard so many people talk about.
Was there something wrong with her? Had the accident taken more from her than her memories?
‘Are you okay, Mel?’ Phil glanced over at her.
She cleared her throat and plastered a smile to her face. ‘Fine. Just a bit nervous.’ She met his gaze, keeping her smile in place. He nodded and looked back at the road. She bowed her head, staring at her hands clenched in her lap, the knuckles so white it looked like the bones were about to pop through. She unwound them, placing them flat on her jeans-clad thighs, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
He reached over and gave her hand a quick squeeze—damn, he’d noticed. Why did he always seem to notice everything about her? It wasn’t normal. Was it?
‘It will be fine.’ His deep voice rumbled through the car. ‘Even if you don’t remember Storm Haven, I know it will be good for you. You always did like holidaying in wide open spaces. You spent nearly every day before the accident in the stables with the horses.’
‘There are horses?’
‘Sure are. When you’re feeling better you can go out riding again. There was one horse you were having a bit of a love-affair with—Starlight. I offered to buy him for you but you said if I did, you’d have less excuse to come back to Storm Haven in the future. Maybe you’ll remember him.’ He smiled brightly at her before returning his attention to the winding road, fingers tightening and then relaxing on the steering wheel.
She frowned at his hands. She’d remembered they were never still—always drumming a beat of some kind. Except, she had never seen him do any form of drumming since the day she’d woken. Not even when he sat in the room at the hospital, a pencil in hand, staring at the note pad he’d brought in with him, a frown on his face, occasionally scribbling something then rubbing it out almost immediately.
He hadn’t even made a drumming motion then.
Then why did she have such a clear vision of him always tapping out some form of rhythm on the steering wheel when driving? Was that even a memory or only something she thought he should be doing given he was a drummer?
They took a series of twisty turns, the mountains lowering around them, a stream bubbling in a valley to their left, but she couldn’t take her gaze off his hands. They were mesmerising, the muscles and tendons in his wrists moving and shifting under the tight stretch of olive skin as he drove, the veins popping out a little in that way that was oddly masculine and attractive. Her mouth dried. She swallowed and shifted on her seat. She should stop staring at his hands, his forearms, but she couldn’t.
She wanted to look more closely at the tattoo on the underside of one wrist—writing of some kind—and ask him about the loop of something that looked like braided hair he wore around the other wrist. There was a scattering of dark hair on his forearms and a stronger tracery of muscle and veins. His movements were fluid, graceful, with intent behind every action, every flow of muscle to tendon to bone.
Sexy. Oh god, so sexy. She swallowed again, shifted, skin buzzing.
She’d always been partial to a nice pair of forearms and wrists, and he certainly had those in spades. Must be something to do with all the drumming. He was one of the most famous drummers in the world in one of the most famous bands in the world—The Sidhe. They’d been famous eight years ago, but apparently, with her help and the publicity she’d done for them, they’d become even more famous and taken off in the coveted US market—so certainly a mark in her favour workwise. Pity she couldn’t remember any of it.
Or meeting this man.
Marrying him.
Kissing him.
Having sex with him.
She swallowed again, cleared the thick sensation in her throat. Not that she was ready for that. Not that he’d given her reason to think he expected that kind of intimacy from her. He hadn’t even kissed her. He’d held her hands, kissed her knuckles a couple of times, but not her lips.
They’d only almost kissed.
She swallowed hard again.
Without looking at her, he grabbed a bottle of water from the central consul and handed it to her. ‘Have a drink. Remember the doctor said you need to stay hydrated.’
‘Thanks.’ She took the bottle of water and had a cautious sip, then another. The water was cool. It helped a little. It also gave her something to do, so she kept sipping, fingers playing with the lid when she wasn’t drinking.
‘Not long now,’ he said, as if she’d asked him a question. ‘The turn-off is just around this bend. The road’s pretty good at the moment, but when we first came here, it was just at the end of winter, so it was muddy and we were worried we’d lose the sports car you were driving in one of the potholes. But you navigated them like a pro.’
‘I’m a good driver.’ She’d grown up on a farm in Texas so knew how to deal with bad roads.
‘Better than Dae and Craig.’
She glanced at him. ‘Not better than you?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Got tickets on yourself.’
‘Absolutely.’ He chuckled, a slightly husky sound that played over her nerve ends, a soft, sensual stroke. She rubbed her arms, trying to rid them of the sensation.
He was just too beautiful, too other. She really felt that at any moment he was going to light up from within, laugh wildly and ride off with the Wild Hunt or the Tuatha de Danaan into the veiled lands. She’d always wanted to be carried off by a fairy lord as a child, to a place where there were no lies and secrets.
She frowned. Where the hell had that thought come from? She’d had a pretty normal childhood from what she remembered. Her parents were farmers, nothing more, but they’d doted on her and loved her. The only times they ever got angry with her was when she walked into their room without knocking first and waiting to be asked to enter. That and when she moved to New York to study and take up a profession they said had no value. They’d been pretty unhappy with her then. Had things changed between them? Had they forgiven her for abandoning them and the farm? Had she forgiven them? She might never know. There was so much she might never know. Her hands tightened around her as a chill seeped into her bones.
‘You cold? Do you want me to turn the air down?’
Phil’s voice snapped her out of her dark thoughts. ‘No, I’m fine.’ She lowered her hands to her lap and held them there. ‘Just a bit anxious.’ She winced as she said it. Those words were becoming her refrain.
His hand covered hers again, the warmth so inviting, as was the caring concern in his eyes when she turned to look at him. ‘It will be okay,’ he said again.
That was becoming their refrain. Mrs Fine and Mr Okay. Quite the pair.
He returned his attention to the road and she stared out the passenger window, too aware of his hand still on hers.
They bumped along the dirt road, winding around the base of the mountain then up a steeper rise.
‘There it is. Storm Haven.’
She turned to look where he pointed. ‘It’s a castle.’
‘I know. Wild, isn’t it?’
That was an understatement. It was the last thing she’d expected to see with its tower, the dark stone almost blue against the green pastures that surrounded it, the whole lot tinged with the golden burn of the sun’s hot rays. It looked like a picture postcard.
She remembered none of it.
They drove through a gate—there was writing there she didn’t quite catch—and down the hill. They lost sight of the house as the road followed the contours of the land into a gentle valley. A wall appeared to their right, covered in ivy and the feeling of old, and then the house loomed up before them.
They followed the road around the house, driving down a small incline and pulled up in front of one of the two huge bluestone and wood barns that stood side by side. A path meandered from the front door of one barn to another, but she could also see the barns were connected by a covered-in walkway. Behind and to the side of the barns, orchards marched down the hill towards more pastures and rolling hills that disappeared in the distance. Behind them the castle-like house sat, the mountains rising behind it. Phil said they were covered in snow in winter. They were green and lush and slightly blue-tinged now.
It was beautiful, so beautiful, and filled her soul with something that was an aching missingness she hadn’t realised was there when she lived in the excitement of New York but was now so apparent. Phil was right. She did love it.
Still didn’t remember any of it.
Despite the sapphire blue of the cloud-dotted sky, the day suddenly seemed stormy and grey. She hadn’t realised just how much she’d hoped for a glimmer of memory. Shattering disappointment filled her and she blinked away tears.
‘Here we are.’ Phil pulled up in front of the barn in a pebbled area that was obviously some kind of carpark. ‘I’ll show you in and get Arwen settled and then fetch your bag and Arwen’s things.’
‘Okay.’ She opened the door, fingers fumbling and wooden, legs not much better. She took a moment to steady herself against the car door as Phil bent to get the baby out of the back seat.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.
One step at a time. She could do that.
‘Here, let me help, love.’
She looked up to see Bev, arm outstretched towards her. She wanted to deny the need for help, for support, stand on her own two feet like she’d done for so long, but the crinkling warmth in the other woman’s eyes made it impossible to ignore her offer. Aside from the fact that she was still pathetically weak. Something she was working on but needed to improve far more than she had.
She took the woman’s arm. The scents of fresh baking and something lightly floral wafted around the older woman, reminding Melissa so much of her own mother she could almost believe it was Claire Linklater’s arms around her. She blinked back the sting of tears, held the sob tight in her throat, and let the other woman walk her inside.
They entered the front door into a kind of atrium/mudroom and then through another door that opened out onto a large open floor space. Her gaze roamed around the kitchen, dining and lounge areas, finally settling on the sweeping view out of floor to ceiling windows opposite her that showed the unfolding valley beyond. She wandered towards it.
‘Oh, Phil, you asked us to tell you if your parents called again. They told me to tell you to answer your phone.’
‘I don’t want to talk to them.’
Something about his tone made Melissa still and listen intently to the conversation going on behind her. ‘They’re pretty insistent. They want a report on Melissa. I didn’t tell them anything.’
He sighed heavily. ‘Sorry they’re bothering you. I’ll take care of it.’
‘They’re not bothering me, love. I’m sorry they’re bothering you. Especially now.’
