Her Galahad

She no longer loved him; that much was crystal clear. So why did she still love those heartless sons of bitches after what they’d done to her, and to their daughter?

Tess returned to the living room in jeans and a V-necked T-shirt. He tried to concentrate on her words; but she was exotic, stunningly sexual in a simple pair of jeans, her hair encased in a thong clip. “—you said Cameron wanted you to go quietly away and forget me. Why didn’t he offer to drop all charges if you’d divorce me? I’m sure he’d have made it worth your while.”

“Yeah. He tried.” His shoulders jerked; he heard his voice, flat and hard-edged with the strain of covering his carnal cravings. Envisioning her shimmying those jeans down long, silken thighs… “That was the original deal once he knew we were married. He’d drop the charges if I left Sydney and let you get on with life without me. But trusting him to keep his word’s as stupid as leaving a dingo to guard a sheep’s carcass.” He shrugged. “Next he offered to drop the assault charge he’d added to the robbery.”

Tessa’s head fell. She felt sick. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“He left me alone for a while after I moved in with Belinda.”

He had a woman. He’d made love to her. That woman had kissed him, touched him, loved his body. And though some part of her had realized he wouldn’t wait for her forever, knowing the other woman’s name made the pain worse. Belinda. Jirrah’s lover.

After a moment she asked with near-perfect control, “Will our being together—um, looking for Emily, I mean—cause trouble for you with Belinda?”

“Not now.” He ran a hand through his hair, making a mess of his banded ponytail. “She died in a car accident last year, about three months after she gave birth to our son.”

Tessa stared at him in horror, then bit her thumb down hard, looking around the house. No bright colors adorned the walls—there were no finger marks, no spilled food, no animal mobiles, Sesame Street posters or rainbow paintings anywhere. This house held none of the sunshine and warmth of a child’s love. It was more like a prison of yesterday’s anger. “Is your son alive?” she whispered, almost too terrified to ask, but she had to know.

He nodded. “Living with Leslie and her family.”

She stared again, this time in disbelief. “Why leave him with your sister? Didn’t you want to keep him?” If he’d been her son—

Jirrah looked at her, bleak and hard. “Of course I do. He’s my son. I see him every weekend—but I can’t offer him any sort of life. I can’t even enroll him in preschool till my name’s cleared and I’m declared alive again.” He shrugged. “You know the system with Kooris,” he said, using the term his people used for Aboriginals of his area. “Aunts and uncles have the same status as parents to us. Mikey knows who I am. Leslie knows she won’t keep him forever. He’s with her until I can take proper care of him. When I’m sure he’s safe from Beller and your brother.”

She turned from him. “Look, Jirrah, I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask them to persecute you. I didn’t know you were alive!”

“No, you didn’t,” he agreed. “In their minds, I asked for it by having the gall to touch you in the first place.”

She turned back to him, but there was nothing she could say.

After a few moments’ silence, he went on. “Life was peaceful here until last Wednesday, when our storekeeper said a private eye was looking for a woman who fitted your description, and offered payment for info…he seemed to know you were in the area.” He made a wry face. “My conscience gave me hell. I couldn’t eat or sleep until I knew you were safe.” He grinned then, seeming to finally find something to smile at. “I should’ve come by bus. Beller wouldn’t have dared blow that up.”

Tessa couldn’t smile. “What can I say?” Her hands spread in a helpless gesture. “That I’m sorry? I am sorry. I can’t understand his obsession with me, ruining your life to have a marriage that made us both miserable. Cameron could do so much better than me—most other women adore him. Yet he still follows me around.”

The flat look in his fathomless eyes hurt her. “You don’t have to say it. You didn’t do it. I know that now.”

“But you think I’m weak. You think I gave in without a fight.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “I wasn’t even twenty-one when I was told you’d died—and eight months later Emily died—and I died.” She looked up, hoping against hope he’d see the truth behind her indefensible acts. “Everything I loved vanished from my life—you, my baby, my friends, my work, my car…and they gave me him. Throwing big parties, giving me things…always watching me. Touching me. He wanted me to be a socialite wife, a leader of Sydney’s elite…to love being his wife…to fall in love with him. More, always wanting more. He couldn’t see how I hated his life. I just wanted to hide. The blackness and emptiness of my heart and soul—I can’t describe it. So I blocked everything out.”

A long silence, in which they could only hear the ticking of a clock, and the wailing screech of a lone cockatoo outside. “Everything but the hate. You hang on to that because, in the end, it’s all you’ve got left.”

“You know,” she said in wonder, almost sagging with relief because, for the first time, his eyes, his face, were soft with something besides pity. “You do understand.”

He shrugged. “My cage was bricks and steel. Yours was golden.”

“It was even uglier for that,” she burst out. “An ugly sham. The money, house, cars, clothes—the jewelry he made me wear—and when he touched me. He was always touching me, even when I said no. I hated him for that—I hated him more than anything.” Her voice shook. “I never knew I could hate anyone like I hate him. It eats me alive.”

“Why, Tess?” Looking at him, she saw the still-festering pain, the half-hidden reproach. “Why did you marry him so soon after you married me, when you were pregnant with my child?”

She drew a harsh breath. “I didn’t know what to do. I went to your family, but your dad said what happened to you was my fault and slammed the door in my face. I thought he meant your death. He said they never wanted to see me again. He didn’t want to know about the baby.” She buried her face in her hands.

“Pretty eloquent for my dad.” He touched her arm. “Tell me what he said to you. I’m sure it went beyond that.”

She gently pulled away. “It doesn’t matter. He was right to blame me.” She couldn’t tell him the vile names his father had called her, the accusations he’d thrown. He’d only used words against her. Jirrah could claim far worse from her family.

She looked up, her eyes dark. “A week after they said you died, Cameron bought out Earldon Associates. I didn’t even know they were in trouble. Cameron asked me to marry him. It was sick. He didn’t care that I loved you. He said he’d change it—that we belonged together, and he’d prove it.” She dragged in a breath. “Dad and Duncan begged me, over and over. They said when they needed help, Cameron saved them—and all he wanted in return was to belong to our family in every way. They reminded me of all they’d done to make my childhood happy, especially since my mother died. They kept nagging and nagging that he truly loved me, as no other man had or would—that I’d be happy ever after as his wife.” She choked on an almost hysterical laugh. “Happiness and Cameron is a dichotomy. He doesn’t know how to be happy—he only knows how to want more and more. I don’t think anyone but me can know what he’s like, the warped nature he hides beneath that strange hypnotic charm of his. They didn’t know then—they still don’t now. They honestly thought it was best for me, but they made me commit bigamy.” She heard herself laugh again, strange and wondering. “That’s what’s so weird about it. I could be the one to do time in prison for what they did to me.”

“Since Beller and Duncan’s testimonials in my court case two months later prove they knew I was alive, I doubt any charge laid against you would stick. But their charges’ll sure as hell stick—aiding and abetting a felony, unlawful imprisonment of another and there’s worse. Much worse.”

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