Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

Foley looked at the latest letter from the agent. It said the same as all the other letters, just with the words shuffled about. The house was in a serious state of disrepair, was a blight on the property values, a danger to residents and council was remiss in their duties not to remove the heritage order and allow a sale of the land to take place.

She wanted to save Sereno and save Drum, but one needed to stay and one needed to go. She replied to the latest correspondence, with the same words shuffled about she’d used to reply every other time. It was no solution. And the longer this went on, the more the house fell apart and the closer the trust got to making their millions, and once Sereno was gone, it was gone forever.

She was the last to leave the department. She drove to the beach and parked. She walked along the cliff path to the Beeton house and stood outside the cyclone fence council had insisted on erecting around it. The garden was a charred wasteland, all the windows were broken. A piece of the guttering had detached from the roof and lay across the wide veranda like a lopsided smile. There was an enormous wasps’ nest attached to the front door, and one of the chimneys had dive-bombed off the roof, scattering bricks around the side of the house.

Apart from the charred garden, was it any worse than last time she looked? She snapped off a few photos for the file and then walked back the way she’d come to the bent tree to meet Drum.

If she couldn’t save Sereno, she needed to save him.

He wasn’t there. She stood about feeling out of place in her work clothes as joggers and dog walkers did their thing around her. Over the next four days the spot she was standing on would be transformed into the centre of an outdoor sculpture gallery.

She should’ve told Hugh what’d happened yesterday. How threatened she’d felt, how out of control Drum had been, but she knew he’d want Drum detained and hospitalised or at least insist she never meet him alone again. She would’ve told him, but then the whole astroturfing thing had blown up and Hugh was already furious and it seemed smarter, in the light of Gabriella’s insistence she’d failed, to simply get on with not failing.

But right now, cooling her high heels, she was almost grateful Drum had done a runner. It wasn’t smart to meet him again alone. She had a sleepless night to reinforce the insanity of that. He’d scared her witless with his rage then turned her inside out with that stunt on the cliff edge, right when she’d started to believe the only thing wrong with him was garden variety eccentricity.

It was so bad, she could smell fear on herself when she finally faked enough calm to tell Drum about the petition. And when she made it back to her car, she’d sat shaking for a good ten minutes before she felt okay to drive.

Still, Drum not showing was making her anxious. She wanted to see his big body, his shaggy hair, get a wave, any kind of expression that passed for alive and unharmed, and she could go home and drown this awful day in pasta, wine, and too many potato chips.

She glanced at her watch. He didn’t have one, after all, so she’d give him five more minutes. When she looked up he was standing in front of her.

“I didn’t think you were coming.” That came out cranky, dripping in disapproval.

“I thought you might show up with the cops,” he said.

“You were watching me?” As if that wasn’t creepy.

He nodded, pushed hair out of his face. “There were people on the walkway above the cave for most of the day. I could hear them talking, looking for me, they had cameras, but no one came under the railing.”

Tomorrow they might come under the railing. Drum wasn’t meeting her eyes. He was standing stiffly, as if braced for an attack, and in truth he was being attacked. He looked so unhappy, her resolve to be angry with him frittered away. She was left with the fear. He was a powerful man, and he was unstable, and though there were a dozen people in the park, he could hit her before anyone had a chance to intervene, even assuming they would.

She felt gut sick to remember she’d had him in her car and he knew where she lived.

The thought stapled her jaw closed. The words she’d been rehearsing to say to convince him to leave the cave died in her throat.

He hung his head. It drooped off his massive shoulders so all she could see was the swirls of sun turned colour in his hair. “What I did yesterday to you. I’m embarrassed. I’m appalled.” His words ground out like broken glass and sprinkled on the grass at their feet in cutting fragments. “I would never intentionally hurt you, Foley, but I know I did.” He wouldn’t look up, but she wanted him to, needed to see his face. “There’s something wrong with me and I can’t fix it.”

She said his name; to comfort him or to steady herself, who knew?

He lifted his chin and met her eyes. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

“You will?”

“I saw the paper.” He shook his head. “It can’t be that way.”

It was an unexpected victory, but defeat was written in every muscle of his body and Foley’s fear became sympathy, empathy, she wasn’t sure what to call the feeling he stirred, but she ached for him. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Can I take you to a shelter tonight?”

“You shouldn’t be alone with me. I told you it wasn’t safe.”

“My mother was right, I never listen.”

She hoped he might smile at that, but he nodded slowly, and the sadness on his lips, in his eyes, was an awful thing to see.

“I can have someone come and get you. Or I can call and—”

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“I have a place I can go. It’s safe. No one will find me.”