‘She hasn’t been back home since she went away. Not once. That’s seven years.’ Matt stared across the street. ‘Mum and Dad are desperate for her to. Maybe she’d come with you.’
‘I’ll talk to her about it.’ That and a few other things. Carter wanted to know so much more. Like everything.
‘I know I shouldn’t have mentioned Isabelle. But I wanted to see what would happen.’
Carter knew he was in murky waters without any floatation device, so he just nodded and waited. Fortunately Matt soon filled the gap.
‘I saw you taking care of that.’
Carter faked a small smile. He supposed kissing her was one way of taking care. Pretty basic but it had been effective at the time.
‘I didn’t think she was ever going to get over Dan and get that close to another guy,’ Matt continued. ‘When she started mentioning you in emails I couldn’t believe it. For a while I thought she might have been making you up. But you’re real. And I can see how it is between you.’
Carter’s brain processed even faster than its usual warp-factor speed. Dan? Who the hell was Dan? Hadn’t they been talking about someone called Isabelle?
‘She looks better. She looks fitter than she did when I saw her in Tokyo last year,’ Matt added. ‘You’re obviously good for her.’
Anger flared in Carter’s chest. What did it matter if she looked fit? Maybe this was why she didn’t want to see her family—were they too obsessed with a perfect image? Who cared if she put on a few extra pounds or didn’t swim her lengths so religiously? He sure as hell didn’t. He just liked her laughing. So he answered roughly. ‘She likes my cooking.’
‘After he died she never used to eat with us.’ Matt shook his head. ‘Those last months it was like she wasn’t there. She didn’t want to be. She got so skinny you could see every vertebra in her spine. Every rib. Every bloody bone.’
The bottom fell out of Carter’s world completely. He couldn’t speak at all now. He stared at Matt, replaying the words, reading the tension etched on the younger guy’s face.
‘But she seems really happy now.’ Matt cleared his throat and kept staring hard at some building over the road. ‘I want her to stay that way.’
Was that why Matt had looked so pleased to see her eating that chocolate mousse? Because Penny had once been so sad she’d starved herself sick? Tension tightened every muscle. Carter folded his arms across his chest to hide his fists.
‘She’s not going to move again, is she? She’s settled, with you, right?’
Carter’s brain was still rushing and he didn’t know how he could possibly reply to that.
‘Because it’s coming up to moving time for her but she’s not going to now, right?’ Matt turned sharply to look at him.
Carter put his hand on Matt’s shoulder—to shut him up as much as anything. ‘Don’t worry.’ He avoided answering the question directly. ‘I’ll take care of her.’
‘Yeah,’ Matt croaked. ‘Thanks for caring about her.’
Matt was avoiding his eyes again now and Carter was glad because he wouldn’t have been able to hide his total confusion.
‘I better get going.’
Carter fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘Stay in touch.’
Matt handed him his too. Carter pocketed it and got back into the building as fast as he could. Then he took the stairs—slowly.
Dan. Who the hell was Dan?
Some guy who had died. And Matt hadn’t thought Penny would get close to another guy again. Penny, who hadn’t been home since…
Seven years ago she’d have been seventeen or eighteen. It didn’t take much to work it out. While he’d yet to figure Isabelle’s place in the picture, the essentials were obvious.
Dan must have been Penny’s first love—and hadn’t she once said the first left a real mark? That it was never just sex? Carter felt sick, hated thinking that Penny had suffered something bad.
He’d never felt that kind of heartbreak. He’d been betrayed—but that had meant more burnt pride than a seriously minced-up heart. And since then he hadn’t let another woman close enough to inflict any serious damage. But to love someone so deeply and lose them, especially at such a young age? Yeah, that changed people. That really hurt people.
And weirdly, right now, Carter felt hurt she’d held back that information from him. Which was dumb, because it wasn’t as if they’d set out for anything more meaningful than some fun.
But he knew how bereavement could affect people. Hadn’t he seen it in his dad? His parents had been soul mates, so happy until the cancer stole his mum away decades too soon. And his father hadn’t coped—couldn’t bear to be alone—walking from one wrong relationship to the next. Searching, searching, searching for the same bliss. And every time failing because nothing could live up to that ideal.
For the first time he felt a modicum of sympathy for his father’s subsequent wives. Imagine always knowing they came in second. They could never compete with that golden memory. But Lucinda was trying, wasn’t she? Giving Carter’s dad the one thing he’d wanted so badly—more family. And sticking with him now for years longer than Carter had ever thought she would—providing the sense of home and security that had been gone so long. Carter’s respect for her proliferated just like that.
Then his attention lurched back to Penny. Questions just kept coming faster and faster, falling over themselves and piling into a heap of confusion in his head. He wanted to know everything. He wanted to understand it all.
But he didn’t want to have to ask her—to hear her prevaricate, or dismiss, or, worse, lie. He wanted her to tell him the truth. He wanted her to trust him enough to do that. The hurt feeling in his chest deepened. Somehow he didn’t think that was going to happen in a hurry.
He knew it was wrong. But he was a details man and he’d get as many as he could, however he could, because he was low on advantage points. In the office he opened the filing cabinet and pulled her personnel file. Her being a temp, there wasn’t much—just a copy of her CV, security clearance and the references from the agency. Brilliant ones. But it was the CV that he focused on. The list of jobs was almost a mile long. And so were the towns. She’d been serious about her travelling. She’d moved at almost exactly the same time each year. Britain, Spain, Czech Republic, Greece, Japan, Australia.
The regularity with which she’d moved made his blood run cold. Never more than a year in the one town. He looked on the front of the file that recorded the date she’d started at Nicholls—seven months already. But she’d worked at another temp job in the city for four months before that. So her year in Sydney was almost up. When that time ticked over would she move to another place? If so, where? There seemed to be no pattern to the destinations. She just moved, running away—from something big.
Had her heart been that broken? His own thudded painfully because there was someone in her past whose death had cut her up so badly. Who’d put her off relationships—so far for life. She acted as if she wanted fun but she could hardly let herself have it—not really. She wasn’t the brazen huntress he’d first thought. Not selfish or self-centred. Certainly not any kind of free spirit. She worked conscientiously—and she cared. She was a generous giver who struggled to accept the same when it was offered in return. And hadn’t he seen it those few times—the vulnerability and loneliness in her eyes?
She was hiding from something even she couldn’t admit to.
He flicked through the CV again and another little fact caught him. She’d been Head Girl at her school? He half laughed. No wonder she’d been interested when he’d mentioned he was Head Boy. And she’d said nothing, secretive wench. He looked closer. Her grades were stellar. Really stellar. He frowned—why hadn’t she gone to university? She would have had her pick of colleges and courses with grades like those. But she’d gone overseas as soon as school had finished and she hadn’t been back. She must have been devastated. And for all the party-girl, clubbing life she lived now, she obviously st
ill was.
His upset deepened. He hated that she covered up so much. He liked her. He wanted to know she was okay. He wanted to be her friend. He actually wanted more.
Well. That was new.
He’d never met a woman who held back her emotions the way she did. Okay, he’d freed her from one aspect of that control. Maybe he could cut her loose from another? Even if he suspected it was going to hurt him to try. Could he bear to know the extent to which she’d loved that guy?
Pathetic as it was, he was jealous. She’d cared so much for Dan she’d been devastated. Carter wanted her to care about him instead.
But how could he ever compete with the perfect first love? He winced even as he thought that thought. He didn’t have to. He didn’t want her so totally like that—did he? Did he really want to be the one and only, the number one man in her life?
No. Surely not.
But in a scarily short amount of time she’d become important to him. Her happiness had become important to him. And he wanted her to trust him enough to talk. Sure she’d opened up sexually—but it was the only way she’d opened up. And in some ways it was another shield in itself. Just a fling—it was the defence he’d used for years himself, even with Penny to begin with. And hadn’t it turned around to bite him now? He’d never been in a situation so confusing, so complicated. An adulterous older woman and a manipulative girlfriend seeking an engagement ring had nothing on Penny and her inability to share. Hell, she must have such fear.