Down London Road (17 page)

‘Why?’ I shook my head, completely confused by his interest. I mean, I knew that we were sexually attracted to each other, even if we wouldn’t admit it out loud, but this was something else. This was different … more intense – and I hadn’t thought anything could be more intense than the way my body came alive around Cam.

He gave a jerk of his head. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. All I do know is that I’ve never treated anyone the way I’ve treated you, and I’ve never met anyone who deserved it less. I like you, Jo. And whether you want to admit it or not, you need a friend.’

Those bloody tears swam towards the corners of my eyes again, threatening to spill over. I sucked in a deep breath, looking away from him, my eyes catching on the large desk in the corner of the room. A drawing board was propped up on it. There was a sketch on it, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I squinted at it as I procrastinated over whether or not I should tell him anything.

‘Where’s your dad, Johanna? Why are you raising Cole?’

‘I don’t know where he is.’ I glanced back at him, wondering if my eyes were as haunted as I felt inside. ‘He was abusive.’

Cam’s jaw immediately clenched, and I saw his fingers grip his coffee mug tighter. ‘To you and Cole?’

I shook my head. ‘I protected Cole. Cole doesn’t even remember him or know that he was abusive to me.’

Cam swore under his breath, dropping his gaze so I wouldn’t be subjected to the full force of his anger.
Somehow that anger felt nice. It was nice to have someone else feel it. What I was telling him, not even Joss knew. ‘How long?’

‘Since I was little.’ The words seemed to pry open my lips and spill down my chin. Although confused, I didn’t dare stop them. ‘Until I was twelve. He was aggressive, violent and stupid. That’s definitely the way to sum up Murray Walker. He spent a good time away from the house, which allowed us to breathe a little, but when he was there he’d hit me and Mum. But Cole … I always got Cole out of the way when Dad was in a mood or I’d distract him from Cole so he’d go for me instead.’

‘Jesus, Jo …’

‘Cole was two. Dad could have killed him with one blow, so it was all I could do.’

‘What happened to him? Your dad?’ Cam almost spat the word, as if the man had no right to carry the title. And he didn’t really, did he?

I curled my lip in disgust as I thought about Dad’s greatest moment of stupidity. ‘Assault and armed robbery. He got ten years in Barlinnie Prison. I don’t know if he served all his time, or when he got out – all I know is that by the time he did we’d already left Paisley with no forwarding address. Mum never told anyone from the old life where we were going. Neither did I.’

‘Was your mum always the way she is?’

‘She drank, but not like this. She still functioned.’

‘I take it she started after your dad went to prison?’

‘No.’ I scoffed bitterly, knowing exactly why she’d started. ‘Not that she was a great mum or anything, but she was better than she is now. No.’ I closed my eyes
against the dull pain in my chest. ‘She went downhill for another reason.

‘Growing up I had one person in my life I trusted. My uncle Mick. He wasn’t my real uncle. He was my dad’s best friend when they were kids. Uncle Mick was a good guy, though. Straight as an arrow – made a good living as a painter and decorator. But he was friends with my asshole of a father. I never really found out why they were friends, but I got the impression they went through a lot together as kids. Although Dad pissed him off, Uncle Mick couldn’t seem to let go. Whenever he could, he’d check in with us. He used to take me to work with him sometimes.’ The ache intensified as I felt the loss of him again. ‘He didn’t know Dad hit me. Dad was careful in front of him. I think he was always a little wary of Uncle Mick. That changed when I was twelve.’ I shuddered as the memories washed over me.

‘It was a Saturday and Dad was drinking while watching the football. Mum was at work. I made the mistake of walking past the television at an important point in the game. He backhanded me and I was on the floor …’ I sucked in a breath, staring at Cam’s carpet, feeling the pain all over again. I’d never felt anything like it. The bite, the sting, the heat … ‘He took off his belt and hit me … I can still see the look on his face, like I wasn’t human to him, let alone his daughter.’ I shook myself and lifted my gaze to Cam’s. He had grown pale, his features stretched taut with emotion he was trying to control. ‘I guess I was lucky that Uncle Mick turned up when he did. He heard me screaming and came crashing in. Uncle Mick was a big guy and, well … he put Dad in hospital that day. He was
arrested, but neither of them mentioned Dad’s assault on me for fear the social services would get involved. Dad just dropped the charges and Uncle Mick walked away with a fine.

‘Dad disappeared. Next thing we heard was that he’d been jailed for armed robbery. While he was inside, Uncle Mick was around a lot more, helping out. For the first time in my life I had an almost twenty-four/seven parent who really cared. He even had a good influence on Mum.’ I huffed, the resentment welling up again. ‘Too good.’

Cam guessed. ‘Your mum was in love with him.’

I nodded. ‘I think she always had been, but as far as I know nothing ever happened. Uncle Mick cared about her but not like that.’

‘So what happened?’

Someone took him away from me
. ‘Just a little over a year later, Uncle Mick left for America.’

‘America?’

‘Years ago he’d had an affair with an American student. She was studying at Glasgow University for a year and they were together for a good few months. But she left and Mick didn’t follow. Fourteen years later Mick was contacted by his thirteen-year-old daughter, a daughter he never knew he had. He flew over there to meet her, get DNA testing rolling, hash it out, I imagine, with his kid’s mum. He came back for a while, but the results came in and the kid was his … so he left everything behind to be with her.’

Seeming to sense how much that had ripped me up inside, Cam whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Jo.’

I nodded, feeling the emotion claw at my throat. ‘He
told me he would have taken me and Cole if he could have.’ I coughed, trying to force the pain back down. ‘He e-mailed me, but I stopped responding and eventually his e-mails stopped.’

‘And your mum fell apart?’

‘Aye. I think he broke her heart. She started drinking more than normal, but things didn’t get really bad until we moved here. She was fine for a while, had a good job, but then she put her back out of commission and couldn’t work. So she got drunk instead, and then she got drunker. Until eventually she wasn’t even a functioning alcoholic.’

‘And you can’t take Cole away from her because he’s not legally yours and if the social services ever found out about your family situation they’d most likely put him into care rather than let you have him …’

‘Or worse … they’d contact my dad.’

‘Fuck, Jo.’

‘Yeah, you can say that again. I dropped out of school at sixteen, got a job, tried to keep us afloat, but it was really rough. There were days it took everything I had to buy Cole a tin of beans. We were checking down the sides of the couch for lost coins, measuring out how much milk we were using. It was ridiculous. Then … I met someone. He helped me pay the rent and put some money aside for a rainy day. However, he got bored after six months, so it wasn’t really all I’d thought it had been.’

‘But it showed you a new life. You started dating men with money to get by?’ Cam’s body tensed as he asked the question.

I turned my head from him and even though there was no longer any censure in his question, I still felt
ashamed. ‘I’ve never dated a guy I wasn’t attracted to, or that I didn’t care about.’ My eyes found his and I prayed for him to believe me. ‘I cared about Callum. I care about Malcolm.’

Holding up his hands, Cam stopped my worries with a gentle look. ‘I am not judging you. I promise.’

I raised an eyebrow.

He grunted. ‘Any more. Or ever again.’ He shook his head, his brows dipped in consternation. ‘You must have thought I was such a self-righteous prick.’

I chuckled. ‘I do believe I may have actually called you that.’

His eyes brightened. ‘Good girl, by the way,’ he said approvingly. ‘Giving me what for.’

I smiled a little shyly. ‘I usually hate confrontation, but I did quite enjoy putting you in your place.’

My words had the opposite effect of what I’d intended. He didn’t laugh. Instead he was grave. ‘Earlier in the hall, I grabbed your arm …’

I looked away as I remembered my reaction. ‘I tend to freeze if someone gets aggressive with me. Just a reflex from years with my dad.’

‘I didn’t mean to be aggressive.’

‘I know.’

‘You know I’m a martial artist.’

As my eyes ran over his lean but roped physique, I was so busy checking him out that I didn’t call him on his seemingly abrupt change of subject. ‘Makes sense.’

His answering smile was more than a little cocky and I rolled my eyes, making him laugh. He shook his head, trying to return to being serious. ‘Judo. Nate and I both go
to classes. You should come with me, Jo. Learning self-defence might help – it could give you back a little control.’

‘I don’t know.’ My stomach jumped uneasily at the thought. ‘I work during the day Monday to Wednesday anyway. I don’t have a lot of spare time.’

I had surprised him again. ‘You have another job?’

I gave a huff of laughter, thinking I understood his surprise. ‘Believe it or not, I never ask Malcolm for anything he gives me. I accept gifts he chooses to give me, but that still leaves me with bills to pay. Plus I have to put money aside for when Cole decides what university he’s going to. Oh, speaking of – let me get my purse so I can pay you back the money you just gave Cole.’

‘Forget it.’ Cam shook his head, and catching the stubborn tilt to my chin, he narrowed his eyes. ‘I mean it.’

Hmm. I would just have to find a way to pay him back later in such a way that he couldn’t say no.

As if he was reading my thoughts, our eyes locked in a battle of wills, and slowly but surely the familiar tension thickened, heat creeping between us. My eyes dipped to his mouth, to that soft, curling upper lip I wanted to nip … amongst other things. I wondered what his mouth tasted like, how it would feel brushing butterfly kisses down my neck, tugging my nipple into its heat …

My body tightened, fire tingling in my cheeks and between my legs. I snapped my gaze back up and found that Cam’s own eyes had darkened, his body coiled with the tension.

I stood up abruptly. ‘I’d better go.’

Cam smoothly got to his feet as well. ‘Are you going to be okay going back up there?’

For a while he’d actually managed to make me forget that I’d attacked my mum not too long ago. I found myself shocked all over again. ‘How do I even … ?’

‘First …’ Cam approached me carefully and I had to contain the little shiver of want that rolled over me again when his rough hand grasped my chin to lift my eyes to his. When our eyes met, the pull between us grew stronger. I wanted to curl my nails into his skin, latch on and never let go, and the overwhelming need shook me to my very core. How had it happened that one conversation had changed everything? This Cam in front of me was someone new, someone good, someone I felt close to – closer to than anyone. And I found that I wanted in deeper, not satisfied with merely ‘close’.

The realization made me a little dizzy.

‘You get that guilt out of your head,’ Cam ordered softly. ‘Don’t dare apologize to her. Anyone would have done what you did. Look at what your uncle Mick did when he found out your dad was beating you. It’s instinct to protect those we care about. Sometimes instinct makes us do things we’d never imagine we’re capable of doing.’

‘Violence should never be the answer.’

‘Aye, in a perfect world. But sometimes animals don’t understand anything but their own language.’

‘I don’t want Cole to think what I did was right.’

‘He doesn’t,’ Cam assured me. ‘What you did was human. He thinks what you did, you did out of love.’ His hands dropped to curve around my shoulders and he tugged me a little closer, causing my breath to hitch. The expression in his eyes, the one I couldn’t quite understand, didn’t help my frayed nerves. ‘That kid could have
been brought up like you – without a parent, without proper care and affection. Jo, you saved him from that. And he bloody well knows it.’

I felt the weight of today’s revelations settle on me, and I suddenly, desperately, wanted my bed. ‘Thank you, Cam.’

‘Nothing you told me leaves this room. I promise.’

‘Ditto with what you told me.’ I stepped back, needing a little physical distance from him. Something awful suddenly occurred to me. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to ever be able to leave Cole alone with her again.’

‘He’s a strong kid. He’ll be fine.’

I blew out a breath. ‘Yeah, but will I?’

Cam smiled at me as if I was completely clueless. ‘Jo, you are now officially the strongest woman I know. Have a little faith in yourself.’

Silence stretched between us as I processed his words. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me, and I wondered how someone who had been so unpleasant to me could do such a three-sixty. ‘Why were you really such a dick to me?’

Cam’s chin lifted a little, telling me he hadn’t expected the blunt question after our ‘heart-to-heart’. ‘I don’t know … I just …’ He ran a hand through his messy hair, his ring glinting in the light. He had such beautiful, masculine hands. ‘At first when I saw you with Malcolm, I just assumed you were like my uncle’s ex-wife.’

‘Why?’

He grinned and gestured to me. ‘Because I didn’t think a girl like you would be interested in an older guy like Malcolm unless he had money.’

‘A compliment and insult in one. Well done, Cam.’

‘I do try.’

I made a face at him. ‘So after that … ?’

‘Well, I realized pretty quickly you weren’t stupid, and it just pissed me off that a bright, attractive woman didn’t think she was worth anything more than being some rich guy’s fancy piece.’

‘And then?’

He gave me an unamused look at my interrogation. ‘Then I thought I was wrong. You genuinely seemed to care about Malcolm. However, Callum turned up at the dinner and I took one look at him, a younger version of Malcolm, and I realized you
had
done this before.’