Tangled Vines: An Australian Rural Romance (9 page)

“Fine, if you really want to know.”

“Oh for God’s sake, yes, I want to know. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. It seems to me you’re the one who doesn’t want to say anything.”

“Why would I? Why would I want to remember the day when I lost my whole family? Do you think it’s a day I celebrate often? Throw a party each year?”

His whole family?
Jordan looked down at the photo on the table. Smiling up at her was a very young Kyle along with a younger girl and two adults. She picked it up to take a closer look. They all had their arms around each other. The picture told a thousand stories. Parents whose love and pride in their children showed in their eyes. An older brother who clearly loved his younger sister by the way he had his hand resting protectively on her shoulder.

Jordan had been an only child. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose a sibling, let alone her whole family. It had been bad enough when her mother had died.

“Where were you? Thailand or Indonesia?” she asked as she put the photo back on the table.

“Patong, Thailand.”

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to say anymore. It was what he’d been doing since she’d attempted to start this conversation.

“We’d never gone away for Christmas before, but Dad decided that year we should have a family vacation before I finished university and got a job and moved on to new adventures in my life. I didn’t want to go; I wanted to stay in town and hang with my mates.” He shook his head. “What nineteen-year-old wants to go on a family vacation? But my sister, Emily, begged me to go.”

“Hard to say no to a little sister?”

He smiled ruefully, the first smile she’d seen all day. “I could never say no to Emily. No matter how busy I was with homework, all she had to do was stick out her bottom lip and I was a goner.” He closed his eyes. “God, I miss her. I miss her so damn much. It’s not fair her life was cut so short. She’d have been in university now.”

Saying sorry to him now would be an empty word. Instead Jordan grabbed his hand and led him to the couch. “I bet you were a great big brother.”

“I don’t know about that. I did tease her mercilessly.”

Jordan laughed. “I have no experience, but I imagine that’s what big brothers are supposed to do.”

“Maybe. I have to admit I was looking forward to tormenting the boys who came around to take her out when she got older. But because I wasn’t there, she never got to go on her first date.”

“How would you being there have helped or saved them? You could be dead too, Kyle.”

“Sometimes I wish I was.”

 “You can’t mean that.”

Kyle looked her square in the eye. “Yes, I do. I wish it had been me who died. Not them. They deserved to live, not me.”

Unable to sit, Kyle got up and paced around the living room, Jordan’s gasp at his declaration echoing in his mind. He wanted to shut down this conversation. Had wanted to since the moment he’d cried in her arms.

Shit
, what grown man cried in the arms of a woman he’d known for a handful of days? No one. But he had. In a moment of weakness he’d let the emotions he always kept locked away burst free. Whoever said crying was cathartic couldn’t be more wrong. If anything, crying had made the whole situation worse.

“You can’t mean that, Kyle. Do you honestly think if you had died that your sister would have thought she should’ve died instead of you?”

“Probably not. But then again she hadn’t been a bitch the whole trip, like I’d been a complete asshole to everyone. I went out every night and drank with the people I met surfing. Then I slept half the day away because I was so hung over.”

He held up his hand to stop Jordan from interrupting him. Perhaps she was right. Maybe he did need to talk about it. The only other person who knew the whole story was Shey, and only because she and her husband had been kind enough to be there for a surly nineteen-year-old who’d lost his whole family. But if Jordan stopped him, that would be it, he wouldn’t continue.

“I spent Christmas Day with them. We had a nice lunch and spent a few hours at the beach. Emily and I swam and I dumped her over and over in the water. She laughed so hard. I wish I could hear it now.” He closed his eyes and tried to bring back the memory. He couldn’t though. All he could remember was the destruction the tsunami caused to the beach where they’d swum. He opened his eyes again.

“Anyway, while we were at the beach, the guys I got friendly with invited to me a party a few miles away from the hotel. Of course I said yes. When I went to leave I got into a big argument with my mum and dad. They wanted me to spend the evening with them. It was Christmas Day, after all. I, of course, didn’t want to and hurled all sorts of insults at them. Told them this was the worst holiday and Christmas I’d ever had. I didn’t mean it, but I wanted to lash out. They were the last words I ever spoke to them. I didn’t even say goodbye to Emily. I stormed out and met my friends.”

“Oh Kyle, I’m sure they realized you didn’t really mean what you said.”

“It doesn’t matter if they did or didn’t. The last words they ever heard from me were words of hate. I’m not sure where they were that morning the wave hit. I was passed out at some wooden cabin in the hills after getting so drunk on some cheap-ass wine I couldn’t even pronounce properly. All that matters is they died and I wasn’t there to help them.”

Kyle turned away from Jordan, not wanting to see the pity he knew would be shining in her face. He didn’t deserve pity. He deserved condemnation. He’d been so selfish. Making everything about him. Now he would never be able to tell his mum or dad or Emily that he loved them. They wouldn’t know how successful he’d been with his business. That he’d finished university, even though he hadn’t wanted to. Everything he’d done and achieved since that day almost eleven years ago had been for his family, hoping that somehow they knew and were proud of him.

“Kyle, I know this is probably not what you want to hear.” Jordan’s voice washed over him, cloaking him in warmth. “But I’m going to say it anyway. You can’t blame yourself for what happened. You don’t know that you’d have been able to help them. I said it before and I’ll say it again: you could’ve died as well. Don’t you think one of their last thoughts could’ve been praying that you were somewhere safe? That you could live and achieve your dreams?”

“But they didn’t know I was safe, Jordan. My mum would’ve been frantic with worry about me not returning. I’d never done that before. No,” he shook his head, reinforcing his word, “I have to live with the knowledge that their last thoughts of me would’ve been of panic, not the comfort of knowing I was on higher ground, safe from everything that was happening around them.”

“If you were on higher ground, how did you know what happened? Did you try to get to them?”

Kyle started pacing around again. “I was awakened by people yelling. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were speaking so fast. Plus I had the hangover from hell, so all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. But I dragged myself off the couch I’d fallen asleep on and tried to get someone to tell me what the hell was going on.” He paused, fixing his gaze on the window and the tree swaying in the breeze outside; he breathed in and out to hold back the urge to throw up “The moment I heard about the wave I was out the door before anyone could stop me. There I was running into danger, dodging people fleeing from it.”

“I’m surprised they let you into the affected area.”

“There was so much chaos happening. This wasn’t something that Thailand had experienced. I wasn’t thinking. I was just trying to get to my hotel to see if Mum and Dad and Emily were okay. I didn’t want to think that—” His voice broke as emotion overcame him again. “I didn’t want to think that I’d never see them again.”

He turned away from her, hoping against hope that he could keep his emotions in check. Jordan didn’t deserve to see him cry his eyes out again. But he deserved the pain coursing through him. He welcomed the familiar friend. One constant reminder of how his selfishness had cost him the most important people in his life. Never again would he let anyone close to him. He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t hurt them the way he’d hurt his family.

He’d learned one thing from the tsunami. He was better off alone.

Jordan’s heart hurt as she studied the broken man in front of her, everything falling into place. The reason he wanted her father off the property over Christmas. Why he locked himself away from everyone who cared for him. And she knew people cared. She had only to remember her conversation with Shey to know Kyle was very much a member of her family.

Had he ever had any counseling? Had he ever commemorated his family’s lives?

She wanted to help him through this pain even though it could be the hardest thing she ever did. She couldn’t forget that he controlled her fate when it came to the grapes. He’d already tried to kick her off the property again because of the Christmas tree. If she pushed him too much, it could send him over the edge again. To drink himself into oblivion, only this time he might do something stupid—like drive his car when he shouldn’t.

But she knew she couldn’t stand here, watching him suffer silently. Her heart cried silent tears for him. Everything in her wanted to make him feel better. Give him something to live for. Let him know he had people who cared. And she did care, a lot, for the man standing in front of her. He’d been through so much and had become very successful. Even though that success had come at the expense of his personal happiness.

Fuck the consequences. She approached Kyle, who was so lost in his thoughts he didn’t see her stop in front of him.

His face was pulled tight in grief. Shadows darkened his eyes. His pain was so real. She wanted to take it away from him. Reaching up, she laid her hand on his cheek. The warm skin was rough beneath her palm.

“You’re not alone now, Kyle.”

Jordan went up on her tiptoe, placing her hands on his shoulders. She brushed her lips against his, the touch electrifying her blood and awakening feelings that were better off dormant. Encouraging her to dream for a future she shouldn’t. She couldn’t deny she found him attractive. Had from the moment he’d stood before her all bare-chested and angry.

She tried to move away, but Kyle’s arms closed over her, pulling her closer to him. His mouth moved against hers, encouraging her to open beneath it. It was what she wanted, too. Jordan slid her hands up his neck, burying her fingers in his hair, opening her mouth to deepen the kiss.

Kyle’s fingers trailed down her back, eliciting shivers of desire out of her. When they slipped beneath her t-shirt and lightly touched her back, she sighed in pleasure. Being in his arms felt so right. In the back of her mind she knew Kyle was using her to feel again and she didn’t mind. She wanted to help him heal a little, and if kissing him enabled him to forget his loss and despair, even for a few minutes, then she was okay with that.

His mouth moved from hers and trailed a slow, tantalizing path to her jawline. Wanting to feel his warm flesh, she reached for the hem of his shirt, pushing it up, and ran her hands over his back, the muscles rippling beneath her fingers.

God, he felt so good. She wanted to see him.

“Take it off,” she whispered.

He stilled and Jordan cursed herself for breaking the mood with her demand. But instead of walking out of the room as she expected him to, Kyle took hold of her hand and walked her down the hallway to his room. Her heart beat madly at knowing what was about to happen. Excitement pooled low in her belly at the thought of seeing him naked, looming over her before taking possession of her body.

Kyle stopped at the threshold of his room. He turned and framed her face with his hands, looking deeply into her eyes. She couldn’t hide her need and want for him. She didn’t want to.

“Are you sure?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” Jordan had no hesitation in responding. They may have been avoiding each other over the past week, but neither one could deny the attraction brewing between them.

When he laid his forehead against hers, disappointment began to fill her. He was going to stop and tell her he wasn’t sure.

“I want to stop hurting,” he murmured. “I want to forget and I want to feel something other than pain. I want to make it all go away.”

Her heart broke a little at the desperation in his words, at the way he laid himself open for her in that moment. She kissed his mouth. “Let me help, even if only for a little while. I won’t give up on you, Kyle.”

In the next instant she was scooped up in his arms and carried over to the bed. He deposited her on the bedspread then took a step back and pulled his shirt over his head. His skin had taken on a golden glow from the time he’d spent down at the beach surfing, his shoulders broad and strong under the burden she now knew he constantly carried with him. When his hands moved to the button of his shorts, her hand went to the bottom of her shirt, ready to rip it off herself.

“No. Let me,” he commanded and her hands stilled. Her body tightened in anticipation of Kyle’s hands on her.

Once he’d stripped himself of his board shorts, pausing long enough to pull his wallet out and extract a square foil package, he climbed up on the bed next to her wearing only his boxer briefs. He slipped the condom on the bedside table. Her tongue darted out to moisten her dry lips at the sight of a nearly naked Kyle. His arm muscles bunched as he propped himself up on one elbow. His other hand reached out and trailed a path down her front, brushing her breasts as he followed the deep vee of her t-shirt. Her body ached to feel his hands on her. She wriggled closer to him.

“Undress me,” she said as she tried to close the distance between them so she could kiss him again.

Kyle laughed and leaned back so she met air and not his lips. “Impatient, are we?”

Two could play this game. Jordan placed a hand on his chest, mimicking his action, and trailed it down. Without the restriction of clothing her hand slid smoothly down his warm chest, her fingers rising slightly over the ridges of his six pack. She then followed the line of the waistband of his briefs before cupping his erection, squeezing him gently.