Ask Me to Stay (10 page)
Ethan turned back to him.
‘You’ll want to explain that real fast.’
‘He . . . ‘ He looked back to their newest additions.
‘Forget them!’
Ethan winced. ‘He killed our mother. Dad . . . he killed Mum.’
Dean’s eyes widened then narrowed. ‘That’s a lie,’ he snarled. ‘Take it back.’
‘It’s not. I won’t.’
Dean lunged at Ethan, clawing at the air. Cal shouted. Sam screamed. But Dean was deaf to it all. His hands found Ethan’s neck and closed around his throat. With awesome strength, he dragged Ethan from his feet. They fell in a heap on the carpet, limbs thrashing and fists flying.
Only Dean’s fists, though. Ethan was just covering his face.
‘You’re lying! Take it back!’
‘No!’ Ethan managed. Dean sunk a fist into his side and Ethan expelled a sharp breath, winded. He doubled over even as Dean struck out again. When Ethan moved to cover his chest Dean punched him in the face. Then he was lifted clear into the air.
Having dealt with his share of pub brawls, Cal knew how to hold Dean to neutralise him. His arms locked to his sides, Dean bellowed down at the body on the floor.
‘Get out of this house! You’re not welcome here!’
Sam helped Ethan onto his knees. A line of blood coloured his cheek and neck. He touched his eye, checked his fingers for blood. And dared to speak.
‘Just listen —’
‘No!’
‘Mum didn’t go to the garage with him that night. She didn’t know he’d left the house. They’d been fighting. She’d kept herself busy in the kitchen. Talking to me, helping me with my homework.’
Dean hadn’t been home that night. He couldn’t say if the story were true or not. He struggled, but Cal was like a rock.
‘Science. I was always crap at science.’ Ethan straightened his spine. He hissed a breath and gripped his torso. ‘She went upstairs to get Dad because dinner was ready, but she only found a note. When she came back down she was hyperventilating. She grabbed her keys, told me to call the police if she wasn’t home in half an hour.
‘You’ve always said they went to the garage together – but didn’t you ever wonder why both of their cars were there? She followed him, Dean. He wrote a suicide note and she tried to save him.
‘The door wasn’t faulty, Dean. He’d fixed it shut so he couldn’t change his mind. He filled the room with gas, then he sat in that old Dodge and let himself die.’ Tears built in his eyes.
Dean thrashed again, less powerfully this time. ‘No,’ he moaned.
‘When Mum came in she couldn’t get out. That’s why they found him in the car and her on the floor by the garage door.’ Ethan closed his eyes. Sam put a comforting hand on his shoulder. ‘He as good as killed her. That’s the God’s honest truth of it.’
Any moment, things were sure to start up again. Dean had paced the house for about an hour, and Ethan had sat outside at the table, out of his way. Cal and Sam had divided duties – Cal was supervising Dean, and Sam was tending to the wounded. Ethan breathed shallowly. It might be a broken rib, he wasn’t sure yet. He’d get it checked out when this God-awful day was over. In the meantime, Sam had strapped it and packed it with ice.
She waited with him, saying very little. But she touched him often and he found comfort in it.
‘I thought you left town,’ he said.
‘I never even made it to the outskirts.’
‘What were you running from?’
‘I don’t think now is the time to heap anything else on you.’
‘Hell, Sammy. I’m down. Kick me, I don’t care.’ He looked at her. ‘Seriously, tell me now. I’ll deal with it all at once and tomorrow can be another day.’
She shifted uncomfortably. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘Positive. I can take it.’
She stood up, surprising him, and rounded the table so that she was sitting opposite.
He frowned. ‘Okay.’
‘I want to talk about you first.’ When he began to protest she spoke over him. ‘It’s relevant to my story. I think I’ve figured you out. For over a decade you’ve been running away from your own genes. Your father was a coward and a quitter, and over time you came to see those things in yourself. You forgot that you ran away to keep a secret; that you left so that a town could remember a person as better than he was. And you started telling yourself you’d left because you were like him. Am I warm?’
He said nothing.
She pressed on. ‘You’re scared to love anyone because you’re certain you’ll let them down just like your father let you down. You don’t think you can stick, so you don’t even try. You don’t want to break anyone’s heart, so you keep breaking your own.’
Ethan lowered his forehead into his hands. ‘When do we start talking about you, exactly?’
She didn’t get a chance to answer.
Dean stepped out of the house and onto the verandah. He crossed to them, a man tormented, and asked the question Ethan had been expecting.
‘What did the note say?’
Ethan pulled it from his pocket. It was more worn and torn than Cal’s termination notice had been – Ethan had had thirteen years to obsess over the page.
Dean read it aloud. ‘“This wasn’t what I had planned for myself. I’m not cut out for this life. I can’t be —”’ His voice cracked. He swallowed. ‘“I can’t be who you all want me to be.”’
He crushed the note in a shaking fist.
Dean paced for another hour. In that time, Ethan and Sam didn’t speak. He was processing what she’d said, and Sam was giving him the time to do so.
The kids were back from their horse rides the next time Dean approached Ethan, who had given a litany of paper-thin excuses about why he couldn’t play with them. Cal had taken them into the yard and was kicking a football to each of them in turn.
Dean sat beside Sam and nodded at Ethan’s injuries. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. I never wanted you to find out.’
‘You’re an idiot.’
Ethan blinked.
‘You let me think the world of a man who abandoned us, and think so little of you. You let me praise him and chastise you. You’ve stood there for years and took it each time I accused you of not caring. Why? For
him
? He doesn’t deserve your sacrifice!’
‘It’s not like that —’
‘It’s exactly like that, Ethan. You traded your reputation for his.’
Their raised voices had captured Nina’s and Rowan’s attention. Cal attempted to call them back, but in vain. Ethan began to speak, intending to alert his brother of their approach, but Dean spoke over him.
‘No, just listen. Ever since you came back I’ve been skating between the man I believed you to be, and the man you’ve shown you are. They never matched up. It’s been doing my head in. And it’s because one of these men is a lie.’ He pushed back from the table. ‘You’re right about one thing.’
Cautious, wanting to hear it before the kids came too close, Ethan said, ‘What’s that?’
‘I’m nothing like our father. But neither are you. You’re not a thing like him. You’re our mother through and through. You’ve given your life for others. But now I want you to take it back.’
Hurt and fear sizzled and spat. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Stop protecting him and just be my brother. Put this all behind you.’
All of it, Ethan thought. All of the things he had come to need, come to look forward to. The breakfasts. The projects. Hearing the kids laugh. Bantering with his brother. Sammy-doll.
Put it all behind him. Just like that. As if there were a door between his heart and theirs that could either close or open at his choosing.
He pushed to his feet as Nina and Rowan reached the table. Cal jogged up behind them, breathing hard. Sammy and Dean looked startled.
Ethan knocked his knuckles against the table before he stepped away. ‘I’ll be gone in the morning.’
He’d made it three paces before a body slammed into his leg.
Nina clawed at him, desperate and confused. ‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘I won’t let you!’
Although the movement brought tears to his eyes, he ducked down and picked her up. He perched her on his hip and kissed the creases on her forehead. He turned back to the people who meant more to him than the air in his lungs.
‘You know, I’ve just got to say it: you’ve all been giving me crap for years about coming and going. But none of you – not one of you – has ever asked me to stay.’
He turned towards the house.
‘Stay.’
Ethan paused. When he looked over his shoulder, Dean had got to his feet.
‘Stay,’ Dean said again.
Cal cleared his throat. ‘I want you to stay.’
Rowan nodded, his eyes as round as coins. ‘Stay,’ he whimpered. He began to tremble. Cal pulled him against his chest.
Nina threaded her fingers through his hair. Her grip was too hard. Her mouth against his neck, she began to beg. ‘Stay stay stay stay stay stay.’
Ethan’s eyes found Sammy’s, who had rounded the table and was walking towards him. She came right up to him, stood on his feet and gripped his shirt front. Her mouth only centimetres from his, she said, ‘I’m in love with you. Don’t leave me again.’ She kissed him. ‘Stay.’
Ethan could see the future. And he was surprised his brother couldn’t. Rowan and Dean were standing on the bank of the creek, peering into its depths, and the moment was only going to end one way.
Sure enough, Dean got pushed in.
Only Rowan didn’t count on Cal sneaking up behind him and tossing him in too.
Ethan laughed so hard he had to grasp his sides.
He sat with Sammy and Nina on the new seat that encircled the giant gum. Sammy was braiding Nina’s hair, and Nina was making a daisy chain.
‘Now that the town knows what you did for your family,’ Sammy was saying, ‘you’ll never have to buy coffee again.’
He chuckled. ‘It’s about time I got treated with respect around here.’
‘Done,’ Sammy declared.
Nina reached up to touch the finished braid. She beamed. ‘I’m beautiful and modest!’
Ethan grinned. ‘That you are, kid.’
Nina settled back against Sammy’s chest, then suddenly shot up. Her little hand grasped Ethan’s wrist and shook.
‘What? What!’ he asked.
‘I just found my hello!’
Ethan’s heart kicked. ‘Yeah?’
‘Mummy loved daisies.’ She turned what she held over and over in her hands. She said very softly, ‘Hello, daisy chain.’
He slid her along the seat towards him and closed his arms around her. She clung to him, her eyes closed, and sighed.
‘Smile, you two.’
They looked up and Sammy took a picture.
My deepest thanks go to my parents, for all of the time and interest they have given to the people in this book who don't exist, who live in a place that's loosely based on somewhere we went once. I'm so grateful that I can talk to you about Hinterdown, and all its colourful characters.
Thank you Sarah Fairhall and Carol George from Destiny Romance for seeing the potential in this novella series and for continuing to be a wonderful home for my stories. A big shout-out to Arwen Summers from Penguin, for her keen eye and phenomenal attention to detail, and to the fantastic romance authors who have supported me on this journey. I'm honoured to be one of you, you are all incredible women.
Thank you to my friends for their interest and their patience. I know I go glassy-eyed sometimes and disappear for days on end. Your good humour and support is much appreciated.
Finally, to my real-life romance hero. Thanks for coming into my life and changing it in all the right ways.
Elise Ackers is the author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense novels. She grew up on the shores of the Great Barrier Reef and in the shadows of the Blue Mountains. She’s a magnet for unusual accidents, a stubborn optimist and has been writing since she was young.
Elise has travelled extensively around Europe, the UK, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia, and each trip altered her irrevocably.
Elise lives near Melbourne in a house full of colour and life. She describes her fur family as a ‘comedy show.’
She is the author of
Small Town Storm
and the
The Man Plan
.
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2013
Text copyright © Elise K. Ackers 2013
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eISBN: 978-0-85797-015-2