She reared away from him, yanking her wrist out of his grasp, but he caught her and rolled to his back, pulling her on top of him, his thigh still pressed between hers and he lifted his knee.
“I’ve got to get out of here!” she cried desperately.
She was near tears, he could see them shimmering in her eyes.
“Sibyl.”
He knew then that, regrettably, he’d lost control of the situation and she’d lost control of her emotions. This wasn’t about desire anymore but about something else, something he was powerless to control, something that was totally Sibyl. The only thing he could do was ride it out.
“What?” she snapped. “You’re ruthless, you know. Just plain old mean.” Not allowing him to respond to those true, awful (but also rather adorable) statements, she tried to pull away again and grunted with the effort then stopped at once, for seemingly no reason, caught in her own turmoil, her weight collapsed on him and this time, he grunted.
“My parents warned me, after the animal shelter debacle, they warned me I’d end up doing something stupid and here I am. I should have said yes to you when you asked me out after the night at the club. But how was I to know you were, well… you!” she exploded. “That you were the type of man who could, and would, with a couple of phone calls, have gotten that vile minibus driver sacked. Or that you could be gentle and tender, sweet and generous. I didn’t know who you were, what you could do or that you’d even do it! I would have done anything in these last few weeks to take all of this back so you wouldn’t think I was a worthless, money-grubbing slut. But, back then, I thought you were insane. Now I know everything and…” She stopped abruptly, deciding again to fight, she pushed against him then just as suddenly gave up and crumpled on him, promptly lost control and burst into tears.
Finally given the opportunity to get a word in edgewise, he was speechless at learning what he did in her shouted, abject confession. He could do nothing but hold her as she cried against his chest, moving only once to press her face between his shoulder and neck. Her body was wracked with her tears, tears wrought by something far beyond her confession, something deeper, more painful. He was not certain he understood it and definitely didn’t know what to do about it.
Colin was not used to not knowing what to do. In fact, he was pretty certain there was never a time when he didn’t know what to do.
Then she started speaking again, her words stunted and jerky with tears. “It was just Meg,” she said and this made him all the more confused because he didn’t know who the hell Meg was, until she spoke again and it became dreadfully clear as to what had been tormenting Sibyl for weeks.
And what Sibyl Godwin said next began to melt Colin Morgan’s brittle, cold heart.
“When she broke her hip falling out of the bus. I yelled at the minibus driver a few days before, letting my stupid, stupid temper get the best of me. Kyle told me I would make it worse for them if I upset the minibus driver and I did. I made it worse! So much worse! And Meg got hurt because of it. Because of me! It was all my fault so I had to fix it, no matter what it meant. I had to fix it. And then you came in and gave me a way to fix it and it was the worst way possible but I had to take it because it was the only choice I had and it was all my fault!”
His arms tightened around her and he rolled her to her back, stretching his long length down her side, he lifted himself on his elbow to look at her. Then he gently moved the hair away from her face but she threw her arm over her eyes, dislodging his hand and turned her head away from him to hide her emotion.
And Colin felt his heart squeeze at her anguish. It was clear she’d been holding onto this for weeks. Blaming herself for something she could never possibly have prevented, something she could not have caused, something that was beyond her control.
“What happened to Meg wasn’t your fault.” He tried to reason with her, thinking it the best way.
She shook her head determinedly. “It was.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Sibyl. These things happen.”
She took in a shuddering breath and slid her arm away from her eyes, allowing it to drop in defeat at her side and her tear-brightened gaze moved to lock on his. At the sight of her desolation, his gut clenched.
How could one person take on such a world of pain? It wasn’t even her pain. What was it like to live in that head of hers?
“Christ, Sibyl,” he muttered because he could think of absolutely nothing else to say.
“Old people die after breaking their hips, Colin,” she told him.
“Did she die?” he queried cautiously.
“No,” she answered and took another fractured breath. “But she’s been very hurt and she isn’t getting better very fast.”
“Did she blame you?”
“No, of course not!”
He ran the back of his fingers gently along her jaw, trying physically to soothe away her hurt. “Then, sweetheart, you have to stop blaming yourself.”
“Don’t you see?” She threw up her hands in exasperation at what she considered his extreme obtuseness. “I did that with the minibus driver, which hurt Meg, and then you came to my house and offered me money and you don’t trust women easily –”
“Sibyl –” He tried to interrupt her rampaging train of thought and its hysterical bent toward self-recrimination and failed.
“No!” she cried. “And I played right into your hands so I’m double trouble, breaking old people’s h*ps and making you think even worse of my sex. Once you found out…” She stopped and then blurted out, “Of course you’d leave me! Hell, I’d leave me!”
At this outrageous pronouncement, he couldn’t have helped it to save his life.