Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong - By Nikki Logan Page 0,55
couldn’t talk about—even with him. As painful as it was, her mother was the lesser of so many evils. She took a breath and sat back.
‘Mum came to the city when she was six months pregnant with me. I never knew my father; she always said he was just a guy who was passing through. When I was little, I just accepted that. It wasn’t until I got older that I realised what that meant.’
‘What did it mean?’
‘It meant my grandparents threw her out. It meant she got pregnant to a drifter. She always said she’d loved him but...who knows. She must have only known him a few days.’
You fell for Rob in less, a dangerous voice whispered. Which love should be trusted more—the one that took a few days or the one that took a few years?
‘You think she did it on purpose?’
‘Get pregnant? No. Do something shocking and irrevocable? Definitely. She was a rebel through and through. She was only seventeen years older than me. Almost like an older sister. We struggled through a lot but we always had each other.’
Honor’s mind filled with memories of the bad times. And the good.
Rob’s voice eventually brought her back to the present. ‘So what happened?’
She looked to the nesting sites for a long time, wondering if she should answer. He sat there, his interest clear in his expression and wearing his hope pinned to his sleeve. He really wanted this.
She took a breath. ‘Mum never approved entirely of Nate. She thought I sold out to the first decent man that came along. An older, buttoned-up man who, she thought, crushed my spirit. That caused a lot of tension between us. But, when the accident happened, she dropped everything to nurse me back to health. She flew to Darwin and got me back on my feet.’
‘Sounds like a strong woman.’
Her smile was tight. ‘That’s one word for it. Unfortunately, I’m not, or wasn’t then. It was too soon for me to get back on my feet.’
‘You fought?’
Honor felt the stab of memory. The hurtful words, the tears. ‘I wasn’t ready. She’d never lost what I lost. You don’t just...get over something like that on command.’ She blew out a puff of air. ‘We stopped seeing each other for a while.’
‘How long is “a while”?’
‘Three years. Probably four now.’
Dark eyebrows shot up. She didn’t miss it. ‘So you just never saw her again, to this day?’
‘I went home to Perth; she chose to stay behind in the North. It’s what she’s good at, running away from conflict.’ Honor pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She hadn’t meant to tell him all that; she’d only meant to tell him enough to satisfy his cursed curiosity.
‘Depends on your perspective.’
She swung her eyes back to his. ‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s easy to judge from outside the situation.’ Bold eyes met hers. ‘Someone looking in here might think you’ve done the same. Coming here. Staying. They might call that running away.’
Blind pain twisted her guts in a taloned fist. She pushed up out of her seat. ‘Really? Is that what you think?’
He stared at her, too intent on having his say to worry about the dangerous tone in her voice.
‘Earlier in the week, yes. But now...? I see a woman who has forgotten how it feels to be normal. Because her life is so artificial here.’ He held her eyes. ‘The very act of being here prevents the healing you came to find.’
The pain intensified into a sharp ache. Her voice was a blistered croak and a dull nausea started up deep in her gut. ‘Why?’ she squeezed out.
Compassion saturated his features but there was pain behind it. ‘I can navigate, Honor. You were three days out of Exmouth, headed for Christmas Island. But they sent the Aussie military for you so you must have still been in Australian waters. I figure that put you in the middle of the Javan trench about three hours north-east of here.’
Honor’s insides twisted like a slingshot. The only thing tighter was her voice. ‘Your point?’
He took both her icy hands in his and pressed his lips to them. ‘You’ve built a life on the closest bit of land to where they died. It’s like living in a cemetery. You’ve made this whole island—your whole life—a memorial.’ His eyes alone carried enough sadness for both of them. ‘You don’t want to heal, Honor. You want to remember.’
Panic ripped through her. She almost swayed